Language:
English
Year of publication:
2008
Titel der Quelle:
Slavic Review
Angaben zur Quelle:
67,4 (2008) 840-865
Keywords:
Slánský, Rudolf
;
Antisemitism History 1945-
Abstract:
Based on reports by Czech state security agencies and on communist party bulletins of the time of the Slánský trial (1951), attempts to evince popular reaction to the trial. From the very beginning, it had antisemitic overtones: the Jew Slánský, unpopular as the party general secretary, was used by the state and Party leadership as a scapegoat for the problems they were confronted with. The popular reaction revealed strong antisemitic motifs, occasionally bordering on pogromist tendencies. Assumes that this upsurge of antisemitism in 1951 can be ascribed to interwar Czech antisemitism, brutalization brought about by the recent war, and the pervading sense of social and economic crisis in the late 1940s-early 1950s. The party was uneasy with the upsurge of antisemitic sentiments, the more so because they could accompany not only pro-party views, but also dissident ones. The documents indicate that popular antisemitism was more broadly diffused in Czech society than hitherto recognized.
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