"Zahra on Orzoff, 'Battle for the Castle: The..." Topic

… Myth of Czechoslovakia in Europe 1914-1948'.

"The break-up of the Austrian Empire in 1918 was described by contemporaries and has since been described by historians as a revolution: a moment of triumph for the Wilsonian principles of democracy and national-self determination. In Battle for the Castle, Andrea Orzoff makes a compelling case that this was no ordinary revolution, however. Czechoslovakia, she argues, was not made on the barricades, the battlefield, or in the halls of parliament. It was above all a product of myth and propaganda.

Orzoff's Czechoslovakia was constructed, defined, and sustained in the newspapers and universities of London and Paris as well as in Prague. It was bought and paid for through Czech government support of foreign academics and journalists: no less than twenty-six newspapers, press agencies, and radio stations in France alone were on the government's payroll. Its meaning was debated in literary salons and international writers' congresses. And its ideals were disseminated in books produced by Czechoslovakia's government-subsidized publishing house and in the genteel quarters of the state's elite social club. "Admiring works of history were kept in print; concerts of music by national composers were given, and social occasions were carefully arranged, both in Great Power and East Central European capitals. The propagandistic stakes were high; the very existence of these states seemed predicated on it," Orzoff argues (p. 8)…"
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