East European Politics and Societies 2003 Wingfield 654 81

8/17/2019 East European Politics and Societies 2003 Wingfield 654 81

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/east-european-politics-and-societies-2003-wingfield-654-81 1/28

10.1177/0891242403258288 ARTICLEThe Battle ofZborovEast European Politics and Societies

The Battle of Zborov and thePolitics of Commemorationin CzechoslovakiaNancy M. Wingfield

TheBattleofZborovwas themain commemorative site of Czechoslovakia’sheroic military cult during the interwar era. The shifting fortunes of its com-memoration reveal political attempts to reframe nationalquestions for ideo-logical ends. Zborov was an important symbol, because it was the nexus of the military and diplomatic-political efforts to found the state. The festivitieson 2 July provided members of the military with the opportunity to demon-strate their prowess in the name of Zborov and to reassert their role in thecreation of Czechoslovakia. The communist coup d’état in February 1948spelled the end of the Czechoslovak national-military tradition thatincluded Zborov. After 1989, the Battle of Zborov, like other historic eventsthat had been downplayed or ignored under communism, enjoyedrenewed interest. The “spirit of Zborov” has not been, however, an impor-tant part of a “usable past” in the post-communist Czech Republic orSlovakia, perhaps because it was so intimately associated with the forma-tion of the First Czechoslovak Republic.

Keywords: Battle of Zborov; commemorations; Czechoslovakia; FirstCzechoslovak Republic; Legionnaires

In the wake of the First World War, the leaders of the FirstCzechoslovak Republic, like those of other nascent states in EastCentral Europe, established a variety of new holidays, helping tocreate a kind of “historical capital.” The Battle of Zborov on 2 July 1917 was the main commemorative site of the country’s heroicmilitary cult during the interwar era. This battle was part of thelarge-scale but ill-fated—in fact, the last—Russian summer offen-sive along the entire Galician front toward Lemburg/Lwów/L’vivin what is today Ukraine. Zborov finds little mention in most

Western-language volumes on the military or political history of the First World War because it was merely one of many great bat-

tles of the war. During the interwar period, however, this battleoccupied an important place in the Czechoslovak national

654 East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 17, No. 4, pages 654–681. ISSN 0888-3254

© 2003 by the American Council of Learned Societies. All rights reserved.DOI: 10.1177/0891242403258288

at University of Kradec Kralove on November 5, 2015eep.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://eep.sagepub.com/






mythology that surrounded the foundation of the CzechoslovakState in 1918. The festivities on 2 July provided members of the

Czechoslovak military with the opportunity to demonstrate theirprowess in the name of the “tradition of Zborov” and to reassertthe importance of their role in the creation of the state.

“The Day of the Army,” 2 July, was a pedagogical holiday. InCzechoslovakia, the national pedagogical project aimed at incul-cating the values of the new nation-state into all its Czech andSlovak citizens. This holiday thus became a sort of national initia-tion rite.1 The construction of this invented tradition was to pro-

vide the young democracy with a usable historic past, reflecting what Mona Ozouf has written concerning festivals and theFrench Revolution: “Time opened up in both directions, forwardand backward.”2 The themes the framers of this holiday employed and the symbols they used emphasized a particular

version of national Czechoslovak history. This tradition includedthe creation of a military cult of male heroism and sacrifice that

was connected to important figures in the distant past (the coun-try had no recent military heroes), who were themselves reinter-preted to fit the needs of the young state. Contemporary heroesincluded Czechoslovakia’s “founding fathers”: the Czechs TomášG. Masaryk (“President-Liberator”) and Edvard Beneš, together

with the Slovak Milan S #tefánik. They, along with other politicalleaders, were part of the “patriarchy of Czechoslovak state inde-pendence.”3 There were also those soldiers “who gave their lives

on foreign battlefields and in domestic prisons for future nationalindependence.”4 The festivals connected with this holiday incor-porated numerous activities gendered masculine: athletic events,

East European Politics and Societies 655

1. On the invention of tradition, see Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger, eds., The InventionofTradition (Cambridge, 1983); the term historicalcapital belongs to Pierre Nora, “BetweenMemory and History: Le Lieux de Mémoire,” Representations 26 (spring 1989): 9; on theped-agogical holiday, see Alon Confino, TheNationas a Local Metaphor:Württemberg,Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871-1918 (Chapel Hill: University of North CarolinaPress, 1997), 46.

2. Mona Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution , trans. Alan Sheridan (Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 1988), 5.

3. The headline, “Patriarchové Ceskoslovenské státní nezávislosti,” appeared in Nedelni-Ctení,the insert to Ceskoslovenská Republiká, 28 October 1928, 1.

4. See report in Státní Ústr #ední Archiv, MZU-VA 1325, carton 2624, on the “Manifesto of the

Czechoslovak People,” read by the Protestant theologian Dr. Ferdinand Hrejša at the 1925Hus festival inPrague, in “Husovy oslavy. V Praze,” Odpolední NárodníPolitika, 7 July 1925.








gymnastic competitions, military fly-overs, parades, and troopreviews. Indeed, the artifacts of this commemorative culturemost

often included women as a variety of allegorical figures in themonuments to the Battle of Zborov in particular or the war deadin general: above all, as the mother of the nation, as liberty or vic-tory, or as kind of pietà, a mother grieving over the body a deadsoldier-son.5 The heroic myth so predominated in officialCzechoslovak commemoration of the war that its memorialsmainly celebrated victory or were hybrid patriotic-funerary,rather than strictly funerary memorials sometimes associated

with war. Moreover, the heroic myth was also to be found inmany of the films and other public representations of the war.

The messianic discourse of a kind of holy war on behalf of theholy nation and the consecration of an extraordinary task by vol-unteers was exemplified in the rhetoric of the Battle of Zborov. It

was interpreted as redemption for the defeat of the ProtestantBohemian forces at the hands of the Roman Catholic Habsburgsat the Battle of White Mountain in November 1620, after whichthe Czechs lost their political and religious freedom.6 Indeed, theBattle of Zborov would become a symbol of the Czech (-oslovak)national revolution against Austria-Hungary. It represented thefirst time in 300 years that the Czechs had taken up arms againstthe Habsburg Monarchy and they had emerged victorious. The

victory at Zborov was thus a political and psychological mile-stone in the struggle for Czechoslovak independence.

The Battle of Zborov was an important symbol of the FirstRepublic because it was the nexus of the military achievement of the Czechoslovak volunteers and the diplomatic-political effortsof Masaryk and Beneš to found the state. Although the loss of lifeat Zborov was certainly not on the scale of Passchendaele or

Verdun, its commemoration would provide the Czechs and Slo- vaks—but not the non-national peoples of the First Republic,

656 The Battle of Zborov

5. On the female as allegorical form, see Marina Warner, Monuments & Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form (New York: Atheneum, 1985).

6. On “holy war,” see George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 35.

7. On the processes of mourning after the First World War, see Jay Winter, Sites ofMemory, Sites

of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press, 1995).








especially the formerly dominant Germans and Magyars, whohad been on the losing side in the Great War—an opportunity to

mourn their war dead. Bereavement was, in any case, subordi-nated to the political myth of heroes at home and abroad fightingfor an independent state.7 Moreover, the national commemora-tions of Zborov were meticulously choreographed by over-

whelmingly male local and national government and military officials, together with representatives of Legionnaire organiza-tions, to be performed by (male) actors for an audience thatincluded women and children. The shifting fortunes of its com-memoration reveal political attempts to reframe national ques-tions for ideological ends. It is also a fine example of both theconstruction of a cult of male heroic sacrifice for the nation andthe relative silence of women’s voices in Czechoslovakia’s offi-cial collective memory of the First World War. Pierre Nora’s “half priest, half soldier” creators of national memory can literally befound in these masculine-military constructions of nationalmemory.8

The Battle of Zborov

Czechs and Slovaks had deserted, sometimes en masse, fromthe multinational Habsburg army almost since the beginning of the war, many of them surrendering to the Russians—their fellowSlavs—on the Eastern front. Some 40,000 of these prisoners of

war formed the Czechoslovak brigade in Russia, whose members would fight on the Eastern front as well as elsewhere across theface of Russia.9 In the discourse on the war, which mythologizedthe activities of Czech, Slovak, and South Slav Legionnaires—asthey became known—who came out of the POW camps, it is not


8. I would like to thank Cynthia J. Paces for this insight. See her discussion of masculine imag-ery and male participation in national commemorations: “Rotating Spheres: Gendered Com-memorative Practice at the 1903 Jan Hus Memorial Festival in Prague,” Nationalities Papers 28:3(2000): 522-39.

9. Czech and Slovak prisoners of war in Russia numbered approximately 200,000. Following atreaty between the Czech National Council and the Italy to create a Legion in Italy, there

were some 14,000 Czech and Slovak volunteers in Italy. See Todd Wayne Huebner, “TheMultinational ‘Nation-State’: The Origins and the Paradox of Czechoslovakia, 1914-1920”(Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1993), 55; and Karel Pichlík, “Místo Zborova v boji za

samostatný Ceskoslovenský stát,” Zborov, 1917-1997 (Jihlava: Ministerstvo obrany Ceskérepubliky, 1997), 19.








the emasculating, humiliating experience of captivity that isremembered but rather the heroic behavior of those who left the

camps to battle the Habsburg army. The great majority of Czech,Slovak, Croat, Serb, and Slovene POWs, in fact, preferred to lan-guish in the camps rather thanvolunteer to fight on the sideof theRussians.10

On 14 June 1917, three Czechoslovak regiments, named forthe religious late-medieval reformer Jan Hus, the HussiteKing Jir #í z Podr #ebrad, and the Hussite General Jan Z #iz #ka z Trocnova,began moving toward the front. From 23 June, they occupied asector of the front between two Finnish divisions of the Russianarmy near the village of Zborov in Eastern Galicia. Across fromthem was the Habsburg 19th Infantry Division, which was domi-nated by the 35th (61 percent Czech) and 75th (82 percent Czech)Regiments. In the July offensive, the Czechoslovak brigadeattacked the positions held by the more numerous regiments of the Austrian Czechs. It breached the Habsburg line, taking pris-oner 62 officers as well as an estimated 1,200 to 3,000 enlistedmen, most of them Czech. The brigade also captured artillery andmachine guns. Although the Czechoslovak brigade sufferedheavy casualties with some 200 missing or dead and 700

wounded, none of its men was taken prisoner.The larger Russian offensive, however, soon turned into a cha-

otic retreat, as the enemy, especially German troops, counterattacked. Thus, German historians have argued that the so-called

Czechoslovakvictory at Zborovwas actually the beginningof thecollapse of the Russian front. Whether the victory of the Czecho-slovak Legionnaires was due to heroic military achievement or totreachery by the 35th and 75th Regiments would become a sub-ject of fierce disagreement during the interwar period.11

The success of the Czechoslovak Brigade—however minor— brought the Czechs and Slovaks to the attention of the Western


10. Alon Rachamimov, “Imperial Loyalties and Private Concerns: Nation, Class, and State in theCorrespondence of Austro-Hungarian POWs in Russia, 1916-1918,” Austrian History Year-book 31 (2000): 89-90.

11. Especially the Germans of Czechoslovakia made this argument, and it sometimes has thedistinct odor of sour grapes. See Rudolf Frantz, “Der sogenannte Sieg vom Zborov. Der

Anfang des Zusammenbruchs der russischen Front,” Bohemia, 19 June 1927, p. 5; and Prager Presse , 1 July1937, 1.








Allies and strengthened the arguments of Masaryk and Beneš of the Czechoslovak National Committee for Czechoslovak inde-

pendence. Useful though the additional Czechoslovak Legion-naires fighting in Italy and France were, the most valuable assetremained the legion in Russia, especially as a strategic pawn (thepromise of additional manpower on the Western front) in theNational Committee’s negotiations with representatives of theEntente. As Beneš explained, “In the French general staff they have told us openly: if you want independence, you will have topay for it with blood like anyone else” for recognition of Czech(and Slovak) demands for independence. Certainly, the Legion-naires’ seizure of the Siberian railway in spring1918, as theywerebeing evacuated to France to fight on the side of the Allies alongthe Western front, appears to have gone a long way towardobtaining Czechoslovak demands. In September 1918, theUnited States recognized the Czechoslovak National Council as ade facto belligerent government. Czechoslovak independence

was duly declared on 28 October 1918.12

Due to wartime censorship, the feats of the Legionnaires atZborov, in fact, their very existence, became known in the Mon-archy only as a result of the Russian General Staff’s publishedreport on the battle. This report, which appeared several daysafter thebattle, often in themiddle of Habsburg newspapers, per-haps due to interest in the recent political amnesty, which freed anumber of Czech politicians, was initially met by many Czechs at

home with curiosity or even skepticism.13 Thereport proved tobecorrect, however, and civilians would greet all of the Legion-naires as conquering heroes when they arrived from the fronts atthe war’s end. These veterans, the “first citizens of the Czechoslo-

vak Republic,” were almost immediately fêted as pillars of Czechoslovak independence with poems, songs, and tableaux.14


12. Quoted in Huebner, “The Multinational ‘Nation-State,’ ” 55, fn. 145. See also Central Euro- pean Observer 15:14(9 July 1937), 223.

13. See, for example, Venkov , 6 July 1917, 5; and 7 July 1917, 5 (“Co se stalo u zborova?”).

14. Severoc #eská Nová Doba, 31 October 1918, 3; 2 November 1918, 3; Prager Presse , 2 July 1933, 1.








Memorializing Zborov

The overwhelming majority of dead soldiers simply disap-peared from public memory from ancient times until the adventof the First World War, when this changed and common soldiers

were increasingly commemorated throughout Europe. A greatperiod of memorial construction followed in the wake of the First

World War, due to the unprecedented scope of this war and itsappalling death statistics. Then, in a “democracy of death,” there

were attempts to honor all war dead, irrespective of rank, andincluding the unknown dead.15

The simplest form of monumental symbol was probably ablock of stone, which ancient peoples created as the embodi-ment of a god. The Egyptians developed a more sophisticated

god-block, which was elongated and pointed on top—the obe-lisk, which would become the traditional memorial form to com-memorate death and/or victory.16 Indeed, this form continued tobe used after 1918 throughout Europe, often with the names of the war dead inscribed on them.

The differing foci of memorials—both government sponsoredand otherwise—to commemorate the Czech and Slovak wardead reflect the multiple, broad symbolic, sometimes opposingmeanings these memorials might convey: sacred or nonsacred,fallen or victorious, Legionnaires or victims.17 Some of the warmemorials, which more often commemorated the Legionnaires

in general, rather than the Battle of Zborov in particular,employed the figure of a common soldier, erect and unwounded,“an image of bodily continuity that seeks to displace or overcomethe memory of bodies violated and destroyed,” although destruc-tion is, as Kirk Savage argues, the defining premise of warfare.18

Monuments were put up especially in the Czech lands, often inconnection with the tenth anniversary of the battle in 1927 and


15. Thomas W. Laqueur, “Memory and Naming in the Great War,” In John R. Gillis, ed., Com-memorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,1994), 150-51.

16. AlanBorg, WarMemorials: FromAntiquityto the Present (London: LeoCooper, 1991), ix, 2.17. On the meanings of memorials, see James M. Mayo, “War Memorials as Political Memory,”

Geographical Review 78:1(1988): 62.

18. Kirk Savage, “The Politics of Memory: Black Emancipation and the Civil War Movement,” InGillis, ed., Commemorations , 131.








the tenth anniversary of the founding of the state a year later.Some incorporatedobelisks, others figural groupings, sometimes

bas-reliefs of Legionnaires from all three fronts, recognizable by their distinctive military headwear. Women were occasionally tobe found in these monuments, often as mourners. There wassome argument over the monuments: at least some Legionnairesand their supporters did not think there were enough of them,asserting that it was characteristic of the Czechs to honor theirmartyrs and their defeats rather than their victories—an apparentreference to the Hus statue on Prague’s Old Town Square.19 TheZborov monuments were, in any case, secular, befitting therepublican character of the state.

A second significant development in patterns of nationalmemorials that resulted from the First World War was the con-struction of memorials to war dead on foreign soil, primarily inFrance.20 The Czechs, too, had a war memorial commemoratingZborov on foreign soil, in what was then Poland. Predominantly male official Czechoslovak delegations from Prague riding inspecial express trains festooned in the national colors madepatriotic pilgrimages to place wreaths for the Legionnaire hero-martyrs at a burial mound marked by a small, simple structure by a mass grave near the battlefield.21 The bilingual Czech-Polishinscription on the commemorative plaque honored the sons of Czechoslovakia who fell on old Slavic soil “in the holy battle forthe liberation of their fatherland.”

The last important new way of commemorating war dead wasthe entombing of an unknown soldier, representing those whose


19. Rudolf Medek, Pámatie Zborova 1917-1927 (Prague: Za svobodu, 1927), 122-23. On legion-ary statues in general, see “Synu—m padým i víte #zným. Pomníky legionár #u—a obe #tí války,” InZdene #k Hojda and Jir #í Pokorný, eds., Pomníky a Zapomníky , 2nd ed. (Prague: Pasek,1997), 164-74. There is not to my knowledge a catalogue of these memorials. Pictures of them can often be found in local newspapers in conjunction with unveiling ceremonies, forexample, the obelisk in Moravská Ostrava in Ceskoslovenská Republika, 3 July 1927, 2.

20. James M. Mayo, War Memorials as Political Landscape: The American Experience and Beyond (New York: Praeger, 1988), 95.

21. See, for example, Lidové noviny , 2 July 1927, 4; and Prazké noviny , 7 July 1937, 4. Themound-memorial still remained at the battle site in July 1992, but the bilingual plaque hadbeen removed.

22. Laqueur, “Memory and Naming in the Great War,” In Gillis, ed., Commemorations , 153.23. K. S. Inglis, “Entombing Unknown Soldiers: From London and Paris to Baghdad,” History

and Memory 5:2(fall/winter 1993): 7; and Mosse, Fallen Soldiers , 94-98.24. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers , 93.








bodies had become separated from their names.22 On ArmisticeDay, 11 November 1920, thedisinterred remains of unknownsol-

diers from the First World War were carried with great ceremony through the streets of Londonand Paris to be reburied in a sacredplace in the center of each capital.23 This marked the first timesuch a ceremony had taken place. Over the next decade, thiskind of ceremony would be held in virtually all of the latebelligerent states.

That the men of what would become Czechoslovakia hadfought on both the side of the Central Powers and the Ententecomplicated any focus of a cult of the fallen since the dead wereburied in a variety of military cemeteries across Europe. Cer-tainly, the citizens of this multinational state, with its uncomfort-able construction of “Czechoslovak” nationality, needed “a cen-ter for the cult of their fallen which would remind the living of their death and subsequent national mission.”24 As DanielSherman has noted, that as a common soldier, “the unknownspoke to the universality of loss and privileged the efforts of troops rather than commanders.”25 In the Czechoslovak context,a tomb of an unknown soldier to symbolize all war dead wasespecially appropriate because with the exception of the occa-sional Legionnaire officer—most important, Colonel Josef Jir #í Švec, who died fighting in Siberia after distinguishing himself atZborov—those soldiers memorialized in the interwar Czechoslo-

vak heroic narrative, overwhelmingly former prisoners of war,

were more often enlisted men than high-ranking officers.26

In Czechoslovakia, the Unknown Soldier was not reburied on11 November but rather on 1 July, in conjunction with the fifthanniversary of the Battle of Zborov. Thus, in late June1922, theremains of an unknown Czechoslovak soldier were chosen fromamong 160 bodies buried in themass grave near thebattlefield sothat the First Republic, on the example of the victorious alliance,


25. Daniel J Sherman, The Construction of Memory in Interwar France (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1999), 102.

26. The occasional memorial plaques commemorating the deaths of individual “heros” of Zborov, often sponsored by local Legionnaire organizations, were unveiled throughout theinterwar period. See Moravská zemská archiv [Hereafter MZA], Policcjní r #editelství v Brne #,

karton 495, c #.j. 1527/2, 24 July 1927.








could honor an unidentified soldier from the FirstWorld War. Theremains were put in a casket, then placed in a special railroad car,

which was accompanied by Polish soldiers to the Czechoslovak-Polish border, where it was turned over toCzechoslovak soldiers.This train made numerous stops along the Czechoslovak side of the border, so the representatives of local military garrisons, theSokol (the Czech nationalist gymnastic association, whose mem-bers were also important participants in independence day cele-brations), and other corporative groups could honor theUnknown Soldier. Upon its arrival in Prague, the remains of theUnknown Soldier lay in state in the secular Pantheon of theNational Museum on Wenceslas Square (Václavské náme #stí),rather than in St. Vitus Cathedral at the Castle (Hrad). On 1 July,an honor guard comprising members of the infantry, Legion-naires, and the Sokol moved the flag-draped casket from theNational Museum to the Old Town Square (Staromestkénáme #stí), where the coffin was buried in the chapel of the city hall. The location of the Unknown Soldier, on Old Town Square,

which had long been a site for gathering to reaffirm the Czecho-slovak nation, was suitable for the deployment of large numbersof people. Indeed, themourning processionat OldTown Square,like those for unknown soldiers elsewhere, recalled the corona-tions and funerals of monarchs or the funerals of heads of state. It

was attended by government leaders, parliamentary deputies,and members of the diplomatic corps and civic corporations. The

following morning, a military parade and troop review was heldin the same location with members of the government, represen-tatives of foreign states, deputies and senators, as well as a dele-gation of veterans of Zborov brigade, the representatives of otherLegionnaire brigades, Sokol clubs, and various other nationalorganizations in attendance.27 A site of national memory, thistomb became a pilgrimage site for Czechoslovaks andwaspart of the geography of the country’s patriotic celebrations during theinterwar period. During the Protectorate in October 1941, theNazis removed the body of the Unknown Soldier and threw it in


27. See Severoceská Nová Doba, 3 July 1922, 2; and Prager Presse , 2 July 1922, 5; see also

Galandauer, “Zborovská bitva v c #eské historické pame #ti,” Zborov 1917-1997 , 52-53.








the Vltava River. In the process, they damaged the tomb, whichhad become a site of passive resistance during the occupation.

They also destroyed most of the monuments dedicated to theLegionnaires and the Battle of Zborov.Zborov and the Legionnaires were honored in other, smaller

ways. Mili tary barracks were named for Zborov. TwoLegionbanka buildings in Prague included friezes that functionedas monuments to the Legionnaires. Indeed, these friezes, the

work of sculptors Otto Gutfreund, “Return of the Legions,” and Jan Štursa, “Zborov,” were often reproduced in publicationsabout the Legionnaires. The power of symbolic images rested intheir simplicity and recognizability, which made them suitablefor expressing linked concepts of power andmilitary supremacy.

During the interwar era, neither the holidays nor the com-memorations and monuments they inspired contained space forthe commemorative actions of all citizens of Czechoslovakia,

who thus proposed their own rites. While war memorials— national or local; official or unofficial—might celebrate the fallen

with iconography valid for all Czech and Slovak soldiers, in amultinational state, the iconography was not sufficiently univer-sal to include the national minorities. In some cases, the Czechsconstructed local memorials to those who fell in battle, whichlisted the names of the local dead but which also contained refer-ence to the Legionnaires, perhaps, a bas-relief. The implication

was, on whichever side the Czech soldiers fought, they all partici-

pated in the battle for national independence. These monu-ments, set in town squares and cemeteries and often associated

with the commemoration of the Battle of Zborov and nationalindependence, offered the nonstate peoples, especially the Ger-mans and Hungarians, no space to mourn their war dead. Themourning of the war dead by the nonstate peoples was, how-ever, limited to the site of local war memorials, many of them incemeteries, some of them contested by local Czechs. These dead

were mourned on 1 November, All Saints’ Day, rather thancelebrated on 2 July or Independence Day on 28 October.









Production of the Battle of Zborov

A variety of cultural venues was employed to memorialize theheroic deeds of the Legionnaires at the Battle of Zborov. There

was, in addition to the monuments and statues that dotted thebuilt landscape, that relatively new medium: film. The FirstWorld

War in general and the Battle of Zborov in particular were thesubjects of a number of silent and sound films, both documentary and fictional, between the wars, some of which were critical as

well as popular successes. In fact, Zborov was one of the mostpopular military themes for Czechoslovak films. Especially thedocumentary films were meant to inculcate the values of thenation into the citizenry of all ages through the example of themilitary.28 The first film about Zborov, Legionár [The Legion-

naire ], appeared in 1920. Many more would follow. The larger-than-life action on the screen paralleled the heroic role assignedto the Legionnaires and Zborov during the interwar period.

Ironically, only Russian Legion veteran Jaroslav Hašek’s Good Soldier Švejk was the subject of as many Czechoslovak films dur-ing the interwar era. The Švejk films proved popular with bothCzech and German-speaking audiences. Indeed, Švejk, the clas-sic antihero in Hašek’s memoir of the First World War, one of themost famous fictional figures to come out of the defunct Monar-chy, stands in stark contrast to the heroic image of the Czech sol-diers constructed in much postwar discourse on the war. Švejk

proved an unmitigated disaster during his service in the wartimeK.U.K. Army.29

A single individual, Czechoslovak Army General Rudolf Medek, was instrumental in both leading and limiting the cultural


28. In addition to being the subject of patriotic films, Legionnaires helped ensure that the youn-ger generation was exposed to them; see, for example, veteran Legionnaires volunteeringto show patriotic films to school children in 1937, Státní Okresní archiv cheb, F38, c #. inv.125-26.

29. In addition to both a silent and a sound version of Dobrývoják Švejk (Good Soldier Švejk), aseries of silent Švejk-themed films were produced during the interwar period; see “Obraz

vojenského prostr #edí v kinematografii mezi válec #ného C #eskoslovenska,” 2 vols. Prague:n.p., 1992: II: 50-60; and Friedrich Porges, Mein Film-Buchvon Film, vonFilmstars undvon Kinematographie (Berlin: “Mein Film” Verlag, 1928), 309.

30. On Rudolf Medek, see Jitka Zabloudilová and Petr Hofman, “Rudolf Medek,” Historie a

vojenství 6 (1994): 133-57; and Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 274-75.








production of the memoryof Zborov.30 He had, as a K.u.k. officer,gone over to the Russians with the Czech 28th Infantry Regiment

in late 1915 and subsequently become a Legionnaire, poet, nov-elist, and playwright. Medak, who helped create the Czechoslo- vak army, also helped found and later became director of thePamátník odboje [Memorial of the Resistance], the museum andarchive of the Legionnaires, which was renamed Památníkosvobození [Memorial of the Liberation] in 1929. Construction of the Memorial of the National Liberation began in 1927. The entirecomplex was located on Vitkov in Prague, the site of Jan Z #iz #ka’s

victory over Emperor Zikmund on 14 July 1420. Shortly thereaf-ter, Zikmund abandoned Bohemia to the Hussites. The locationof the mausoleum and ceremonial hall, high atop the hill where itcould be seen for miles, represented the physical tying of one setof Czech military victories to another, older military tradition.This memorial below, meant to house keepsakes and documentsof the Czech struggle for freedom during the First World War in aseries of archives and museums, was opened with great cere-mony on 2 July 1932, the fifteenth anniversary of the Battle of Zborov. The pantheon and mausoleum, where Legionnaires

were to be buried, were to be opened in conjunction with thecelebration of the twentieth anniversary of independence inOctober 1938. Sculptor Bohumil Kafka’s equestrian statue—thetraditional form for commemorating military heroes—of JanZ #iz #ka, the largest of the genre in the world, was finally unveiled

posthumously only on 14 July 1950, thirty years after it was com-missioned.31

Medek was the author of a cycle of four novels, Legionárskáepopej [TheEpicoftheLegions ]. Moreover, successfully negotiatedbetween high and popular culture in his work, while focusing onthe masculine fighting front, he was also active in the productionof silent and sound films on topics related Zborov. His drama,


31. See “Dver #ník chrámu osvobození. Jezdecká socha Jana Z #iz #ky a Památník osvobození,” InHojdaand Pokorný, eds., Pomníky a Zapomníky , 150-63; and Prager Presse , 3 July 1932, 5.

32. Rudolf Medek, Plukovník Švec, 3rd ed. (Prague: Nakladatel Jos. R. Vilímek, 1929). The film,together with Gustav MachatT's Erotikon, and two others, was among those designated asexemplifying the high level Czech film had reached. Mein Film. Illustrierte Film- und

Kinorundschau 225 (1930): 10.








Plukovník Švec [Colonel Švec], about the Zborov veteran, wasperformed at the National Theater more than one hundred times

between 1928 and 1934 and was a critical success following itspremiere in silent film form in 1930.32 Medek was involved in sev-eral other documentaries, including Za C #eskoslovenský stát [ For the Czechoslovak State ], which premiered on 26 October 1928 inconnection with the tenth anniversary of the foundation of thestate. This film connected a variety of national symbols con-nected with Czechoslovak independence: members of the 28thInfantry Regiment (the beloved “Praz #ské de #ti,” themselves thesubject of a popular 1927 silent film) responding to being calledup on Wenceslas Square in 191433; the Czechs in Russia, includingtheir role in the Battle of Zborov; and the declaration of nationalindependence on 28 October 1918. The scenes of Zborov prom-ised an “exact replica” of the battle, including a forest “shot topieces” and a village lit on fire.34 Medek then exemplifies “theconflation in the fantasies . . . between the making of history andthe making of a heroic film.”35 Moreover, hiswork, which stressedthe national element of the Legionnaires, was also anti-Bolshevik, which meant it would be banned first by the Nazisand later by the Communists.36

In addition to providing the historian a window to the popularculture of interwar Czechoslovakia, these films demonstrate theconvergence of pedagogy, propaganda, andentertainment. They are cultural products that were meant to play an active role in

representing, but also enforcing and sometimes constituting, visions of history.37 The political content of these films was at the


33. The Czech-dominated k.u.k. 28th Infantry Regiment, whose members were drawn fromgreater Prague, went over en masse to the Russian side in spring 1915. For two or threedecades thereafter, the term Achtundzwanziger would be synonymous with disloyal andunreliable in the German-speaking military circles of Central Europe. The Czech perspec-tive was, of course, entirely different. Communication from Jeremy King. On the dramatiza-tion of their wartime experience, see Porges, Mein Film-Buch, 344-45.

34. Bohemia, 6 September 1928, 6.35. Scott Spector, “Was the Third Reich Movie-Made? Interdisciplinarity and the Reframing of

‘Ideology,’ ” American Historical Review 106:2(2001): 461.36. Medek’s publications were placed on the Nazi index on 15 March 1939 because he personi-

fied Czechoslovak nationalism. His work, which celebrated the Czechoslovak Legions’ bat-tle against the Bolsheviks, was also banned by the Czechoslovak communists after 1948.See the index to Rudolf Medek, Mohutný sen legionárská epopej (Zurich: Konfrontace,

1980).37. Spector, “Was the Third Reich Movie-Made?” 460.








same time a source for pedagogy (teaching the nation about itspast and creating loyal citizens) and propaganda (teaching the

nation a particular, state-sanctioned, and standardized represen-tation of a past that was contested by many of its citizens). But atthe same time, many of these were commercial films whose aim

was to entertain and earn a profit. The links among entertainment,pedagogy, andpropaganda are renderedexplicit in the timing of therelease and showing of the films, on national-patriotic holidays,as well as in the role of Medek and the Ministry of NationalDefense in the production of some of them. We know, however,little or nothing about “resistance” to the views presented in thesefilms. Who saw them and rejected the views they embodied?

Who simply did not see them at all?

Decennial commemorations of the interwar era

This celebration of 2 July was second to that of 28 October onthe secular calendar of Czechoslovakia and, like that date, wasattractive to the anti-clerical, republican sentiments in the coun-try both because of its association with the struggle against Aus-tria-Hungary and because it provided contemporary military heroes to replace the earlier, often religious, ones. Some observ-ers placed this battle within the Czech national Hussite religious-military tradition, as in the front-page illustration of Lidové noviny of a female figure representing victory bearing Legion-

naire-martyrs skyward from the cross-marked battleground in aHussite chalice.38 The Legionnaires and their victory at the Battleof Zborov took pride of place in Czechoslovak interwar history,occupying much space in standard history books and encyclope-dias of the era.39 Moreover, the Ministry of Education and Culturecommissioned special textbooks to provide Czech and Slovak


38. See the front-page illustration of Lidové noviny (morning edition), 2 July 1927, 1.39. See, for example, Josef Pekar #, Dejiny C #eskoslovenské (Prague, 1921); and Masaryk u—v

slovn ík naucný. Lidová Encyclopedie všeobechných vedomost í , VII Š-o _ (Prague:“c #eskoslovenského kompasu”, 1933), 955-56. The most recent scholarly work on theLegionnaires in general is Karel Pichlík et al., C #eskoslovenštílegionár #i (1914-1918) (Prague:Mladá fronta, 1996); andon theBattle of Zborov in particular is Zborov, 1917-1997 (Jihlava,1997).

40. Jitka Zabloudilová, “Obraz boje u zborova v c #eské próze, poezii a divadle,” Zborov, 1917-1997 , 95-96.








school children with a romanticized and sanitized version of thebattle.40

The Legionnaires constituted the backbone of the military of the new state and played an important role in the country’s interwar cultural, political, and social history. The regiments thatemerged from the Zborov brigade were among the most highly regarded in the First Republic: the T.G. Masaryk Infantry Regi-ment together with the Jan Z #iz #ka z Trocnova and Dr. EdvardBeneš Artillery Regiments in Prague, as well as the M. Jan HusInfantry Regiment, which was headquartered in C #eské Bude #jovice.Legionnaires formed veterans’ organizations throughout thecountry, which both promoted their political-economic interestsand sponsored numerous cultural-national events. They foundeda variety of businesses, including insurance companies and sav-ings banks, which, bearing the imprint of the Legionnaires,proved attractive to patriotic Czechs and Slovaks. These veteransof an army that was older than its state constituted a special socialgroup with influence in Czechoslovakia that was far greater thanits numbers. Although Legionnaires represented a variety of political views, many of them were ardent nationalists and mem-bers of the Czechoslovak National Socialist party.41 Certainly, theimportance of the Legionnaires and their loyalty to the state didnot go unnoticed by their enemies and their organizations wereamong the first to be banned by the Nazis following the forma-tionof the Protectorateof Bohemia andMoravia inMarch 1939.42

At the same time, this battle was commemorated across mostof the political spectrum by the Czech and Slovak public at large.The patriotic manifestations connected with the annual celebra-tions of the Battle of Zborov became part of the interwar secularCzechoslovak calendar, with festivities occurring throughout thecountry, from in the smallest villages to the capital in Prague,


41. One veteran Legionnaire and former army chief of staff, Rudolf/Radola Gajda, became theleader of the National fascist community, Národní obec fašistická, when it was reorganizedinto a political party in 1926.

42. Legionnaires, especially those employed in sensitive positions, for example, the police,came under particular Nazi scrutiny, MZA, B26, k. 2353; on Nazi evaluation of the Legion-naires, see Rudolf Ruhsam, “Es war einmal,” Zeitschrift für die Protektorats-Polizei 13:7(1

July 1942): 297: “There was in these police still another large group, who came before all of the rest, who did not need the help of a party or a parliamentary deputy. . . . They werecalled the Legionnaires.”








except in the predominantly German border regions of the coun-try. The focal point of the 2 July celebrations was Prague, the

national capital, where the central government provided citizens well-choreographed productions on the civics of Czech national-ism. Indeed, through a careful program of national public build-ing during the last decades of the Habsburg Monarchy, Prague

was endowed, if not with the “splendid buildings and triumphalthoroughfares” of an imperial city as a “fitting backdrop for ritualand pageantry,” certainly enough important national landmarksin the built landscape to create imposing backdrops for the state-sponsored holidays.43

Celebrations of 2 July and 28 October were fair ly unproblematic in overwhelmingly or entirely Czech or Slovakareas. Indeed, these celebrations were a sort of litmus test forpar-ticipation in the Czechoslovak nation: those who failed to findpleasure in them—whether by nation or class—were marked as“Other.” For example, many of the country’s Germans wereoffended by the yearly celebrations of Zborov. Most of themremembered this battle in terms of the desertion of the Czechtroops leaving a seven-kilometer hole in the front through whichRussian troops poured, killing “German fathers and sons.”44 Cer-tainly, some of those who failed to participate in the celebrationsfaced possible criticism or violence: in the early postwar years,Legionnaires verbally and physically assaulted German-speakingpassers-byon Napr #íkope (the Moat) in Prague. In predominantly

German areas with a sizeable Czech minority, the holidays wereoften at the heart of the ritualistic Czech-German altercations thatbegan with the trading of national insults or the caricaturing of President Masaryk by local Germans. This verbal abuse mightescalate to include spitting or fistfights and would often end

with local Czechs and Legionnaires vandalizing the first German-language stores or statues they encountered in a public placecommemorating the Habsburgs in particular or German culture


43. On the national capital as an aspect of ritual, see David Cannadine, “The British Monarchy and the ‘Invention of Tradition,’ c. 1820-1977,” In Hobsbawm and Ranger, eds., The Inven-tion of Tradition, 107.

44. See the speech by German National party Parliamentary deputy Franz Matzner, Príloha k

tesnopisecké zapráve , 150th schu—zi poslanecké snemovny Národní shromáz #de #ní republiky C #eskoslovenské, 28 June 1928. Available at www.psp.cz/cgi-bin/win/eknih.








in general. Clearly, the contrast between most Germans’ percep-tions of Czech-German power relations and the popular Czecho-

slovak democratic platitudes and republican kitsch only exacer-bated the situation. Although the Battle of Zborov was commemorated annually,

the decennial anniversaries, which lasted a week in some places,in particular invited a variety of official and popular manifesta-tions commemorating the battle. The military manifestationsincluded reviews of troops, troop maneuvers, and parades. Thecivilian commemorations involved celebrating the heroism of theLegionnaires with gymnastic performances, museum exhibi-tions, and the unveiling of commemorative plaques as well aspopular festivals, parades, and concerts. Medals were struck andstamps were issued; special children’s stories were published,and board games, complete with bloody scenes of battle, wereproduced; works of art were commissioned; poems and songs

were written. Indeed, a two-stamp series commemorating theLegionnaires was among the earliest stamps issued in the nascentrepublic. Some of the songs were taught in school and becamepart of the popular patriotic musical cannon. Both world-famouspoets and unknownscomposed poetry, muchof it maudlin, all of it mourning the heroic soldiers who had died for the foundationof the state: “Mother dearest, I write you my last words, here atZborov“ or “Czech and Slovak youth, Sons of the nation, Rejuve-nating blood of heroes” (the first lines from Rudolf Medek’s

poem, “Zborov”).45

The decennial anniversary in 1927 commemorated both theCzech resistance at home and the Czech National Council abroad

within the framework of the battle. Zborov, figuratively and rhe-torically tied to the loss of the last independent Czech army at theBattle of White Mountain, was literally tied to it with a military parade of the entire Prague garrison at the site of White Moun-


45. Rudolf Medek, Lvi Srdce, básne 1914-1918 (Prague: “Památníku Odboje,” 1919), 28.46. See Peter Burke’s discussion of horse and rider as an old metaphor for rule in

Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 61, in which he mentions the Spaniard Diego de Saavedra Fajardo’s mid-seventeenth-century treatise on political thought, which recommends that the prince “‘to

tame the colt of power’ by means of ‘the bit of will . . . the bridle of reason, the reins of pol-icy, the switch of justice, and the spur of courage,’” not to mention “‘the stirrups of pru-dence.’ ”








tain. Both reflecting a metaphor for rule,46 and recalling generalsof old, Masaryk reviewed the troops on horseback. Onlookers

included government ministers, members of the diplomaticcorps, members of parliament, and the public. Czech soldiersparaded as military aircraft circled overhead.47

Although some of their party members were onetime Legion-naires, the communists did not join in the commemorations afterthe foundation of the Czechoslovak communist party in 1921.Communist ideology interpreted the establishment of theCzechoslovak Brigade and its participation in subsequent battlesas part of an imperial war; the summeroffensive hadbeen under-taken in the interest of counterrevolution and imperialism. More-over, further Legionnaire struggles in the Siberian anabasis con-stituted counterrevolutionary intervention and crimes against the“Russian working people.”48 Therefore, in early July, when mostother Czech-language newspapers in Prague were filled withnews of the festivities and reminiscences of Zborov veterans,such laudatory articles were absent from the communist party paper Rudé právo. The communists did, however, attempt toappropriate the memory of this battle toward their own politicalends. Although the Legionnaires later fought against theBolsheviks, the Czechoslovak communists claimed both theLegionnaires who fought at Zborov and their goals for their own:

while the communists, too, believed that the Battle of Zborov“atoned” for the Battle of White Mountain, they stressed the class

component of the Legionnaires at Zborov, arguing that themajor-ity of those soldiers who gave their lives for an independentCzechoslovakia that day were workers, dreaming of a state withsocial equality.49 Implicit in the communist rhetoric was theassumption that the “promise of Zborov” (social revolution) hadnot been fulfilled by the rulingbourgeois-coalition government.

The state-sponsored decennial celebrations in 1927 took placeduring a period of increasing Stalinization of the Czechoslovak


47. Descriptions of the festivities appeared in all of the Prague dailies. See, for example, Bohe-mia, 3 July 1927, 1; C #e skoslovenská Republika, 3 July 1927, 3; Lidovénoviny , 2 July 1927, 4;and Prager Presse , 2 July 1927, 4.

48. Jan Galandauer, “Zborovská bitva v c #eské historické pame #ti,” Zborov 1917-1997 , 60.

49. Josef Pelíšek, “Letter from an Unknown Soldier,” Lidové noviny , 2 July 1927, 1.50. Rudé právo, 3 July 1927, 2.








communist party, which used this celebration as another chanceto attack the ruling right-of-center coalition. (The so-called Gen-

tlemen’s Coalition— panská koalice —that governed from 1926through 1929 excluded all of the socialist parties.) Communistparliamentary deputies attempted to turn the decennial com-memorationof the Battle of Zborov against the government, as inthe response of deputy Antonín Zápotocký to the 2 July announcement that the day’s parliamentary session would becurtailed so representatives couldparticipate in some of the com-memoration festivities. Zápotocký complained that “Zborov isbeing celebrated out there and in here we are recreating old Aus-tria,” while a second communist deputy urged listeners to “go tellthe Legionnaires that there is going to be a police state.”50 In addi-tion to the by-then-standard communist complaint that the bour-geoisie was preparing for a world war and a new campaignagainst the Soviet Union, the communists asserted that Czecho-slovakia and Austria-Hungary were cut from the same cloth andthe that Prague government had stymied “real” reform. The com-munists also attacked the politics of those [bourgeois] Czechoslo-

vak politicians who had worked to destroy Austria-Hungary but who were not fulfilling the promise of the “revolution.” More-over, the communists argued, there had been no reform of thebureaucracy and the police and the gendarmes “reignedsupreme.” They also claimed that the bourgeois coalition cele-brated the tenth anniversary of the battlewith a “worsening of the

Bach Prügelpatent ”—a reference to the decrees of AlexanderBach, Minister of Interior of the Habsburg Monarchy during thedecade of absolutism following the 1848 Revolution. In case therankand file had missed the point, a poem in the party daily Rudé právo, “V c #ervenci me #sici” [“In the Month of July”], reiterated thecommunist litany of complaints against the state.

Ten years later, in the far tenser international atmosphere, the weeklong, twentieth-anniversary celebration included a reviewof the Prague garrison at Masaryk Stadium in Strahov, in whichPresident Beneš and his octogenarian predecessor Masaryk par-ticipated, along with members of the diplomatic corps, the cabi-


51. Central European Observer 15:14(9 July 1937): 223.








net of the Czechoslovak government, and military attachesaccredited to Prague. The festivities included a variety of military

formations, displays of military hardware,51

and athletic competi-tions as well as scenes from a specially written play, “Obranastátu (Zborov)” [“Defense of the State (Zborov)”]. This play,

which showcased the Legionnaire attack on the troops of Austria-Hungary, also incorporated the patriotic trinity of Czechoslova-kia: Masaryk, Beneš, and S #tefánik, as well as employed musiclike the Hussite battle hymn, “Kdoz # jste Boz #í bojovníci” [“You

Who Are God’s Warriors”] to connect Zborov to Czech national-military traditions.52

At the same time, both reflecting the change in internationalpolitics and in contrast to the 1927 commemoration, the GermanSocial Democrats professed loyalty to the Czechoslovak state in athree-day-long national meeting in Ústí nad Labem/Aussig of their paramilitary corps, the Republikanische Wehr. Speakers atthe meeting noted the German Social Democratic party wasentering the struggle for “the Republic, peace, anddemocracy.”53

Commemorating Zborov in the postwar era

In commemorations of Zborov that followed the Second World War, the battle was no longer a symbol of revolutionagainst the Habsburg Monarchy. Although the communists hadboycotted the state-sponsored patriotic commemorations of

Zborov during the interwar period, they participated in the postwar celebrations of Zborov. Indeed, the Czechoslovak commu-nists played a major role in the postwar commemorations,reflecting nationalism and patriotism that was part of their poli-tics during the Munich era as well as after Germany attacked theSoviet Union in 1941. They interpreted the Second World War asa “Great Patriotic War,” a Slavic war against the age-old Germanenemy. Thus, they reinterpreted the presence of the Czechoslo-

vak Legionnaires in the battle to stress Legionnaire participationin the Slavic struggle against Germandom at the side of the “great


52. Archiv Kancelár #e Presidenta Republiky [Hereafter AKPR], sign. D 13395/47 (Zborovské

oslavy), kD6781/37 and D6781/37.53. Prager Presse , 7 July 1937, 2.








Russian brother” and placed Zborov in the context of other“Slavic” battles in which Czech and Slovak soldiers had fought

during the recently ended war. The Czechoslovak NationalSocialists, long the most radically nationalist and virulently anti-German of Czechoslovakia’s major political parties, enthusiastically concurred with the anti-German interpretation. Together withanti-Habsburg rhetoric, there had always been an anti-Germantone to commemorations of Zborov, and it is no surprise that itintensified after the Second World War, not least because theLegionnaires had been a major target of the Nazis. Indeed, theNazis would execute Zborov veteran Josef Mas #ín, together withother army officers, also veteran Legionnaires, as leaders of themilitary underground in June1942.

In July 1945, following the liberation and reconstruction of theCzechoslovak state, commemoration of the victorious revolu-tionary Czechoslovak army at Zborov was also a time to con-demn Pan-Germanism and the Nazi Protectorate, as well as tojustify the expulsion of the country’s Germans. The governmentalso appropriatedZborovas a vehicle for articulating both a posi-tive role for the Czechs and Slovaks during the recently ended

war and a shared Czechoslovak identity following it. Since col-lective memory both commemorates events through observinganniversaries and is strengthened by them,54 the governmentadapted traditional holidays and created new national holidaysto celebrate wartime anti-fascist actions. Politicians and other

public figures placed the victory at Zborov in the context of Czechoslovak military participation in military action at homeand abroad during the Second World War. Zborov became part of a tradition of Czechoslovak “victories” that now included thePrague uprising of May 1945, which the communists designatedthe “MayRevolution.” Acrosswide segments of the postwar polit-ical spectrum, politicians, for example, left-wing social demo-cratic Prime Minister and Zborov veteran Zdene #k Fierlinger, tookthe opportunity provided by the 2 July commemorations to stress


54. “Introduction” to Maurice Halbwachs, The Collective Memory (New York: Harper Colo-

phon, 1980), 25.55. Lidová demokracie , 3 July 1945, 2.








that the security of the Czechoslovak Republic in the postwar eralay in alliance with the Soviet Union.55

By the thirtieth anniversary of Zborov in 1947, 2 July hadbecome a memorial day not only for the Czechoslovak army butalso for the entire Czechoslovak people.56 The communists rein-terpreted the First World War—and Zborov—not only as anunjust anti-Soviet intervention by the “imperialist” allies but alsoas part of a “Slavic battle.” Leading communist functionaries,including Minister of Interior Václav Nosek and Minister of National Defense Ludvík Svoboda, participated in the officialcelebrations.

The contribution of essays by Klement Gottwald, party headand prime minister, and Rudolf Slánský, party secretary and dep-uty in the Constituent National Assembly, to a special volumecommemorating the thirtieth anniversary of Zborov reflected thischange in communist rhetoric. This all-male collective effort,published in revised form on the decennial anniversaries of thebattle under the auspices of the Legionnaire publisher, C #in, con-tained historical essays, reminiscences, short stories, poetry, andartwork.57 In his interpretation of the battle of Zborov, Gottwaldpointed out that in addition to the traditional Czech/Slovak-Ger-man enmity, Zborov represented another tradition: one of jointstruggle alongside the Russian nation. He argued that this tradi-tion had been reawakened with Germany’s attacks on theCzechoslovak Republic in 1938 and 1939. Gottwald wrote of a

free and independent Czechoslovakia in fraternal union with theSoviet Union and the other Slavic states. He and other communistcontributors also placed Zborov in the context of other battles in

which the Czechs and Slovaks had fought during the Second World War, but mentioning only the “Slavic” battles in the East:Dukla Pass, Kiev, and Sokolov. Other communists stressed thesymbolic importance of the Zborov divisions, which had foughtfor independence, for the national andsocial freedomof the peo-ple. During the years of German occupation, the spirit of Zborov


56. AKPR, sign. D 13395/47 (Zborovské oslavy), D 11330/47, Edvard Beneš, “Varo Sví zborovskébitvy,” 3 July 1947, 1.

57. Zborov.Památník k tricátémuvýrocí bitvy u Zborova2. cervence1917 (Prague: C #in, 1947).

None of three editions (1927, 1937, 1947) contains a female voice interpreting or recallingZborov.








awakened and strengthened the people. In political prisons, inconcentration camps, and on the scaffold and the battlefield,

there was the promise of the Zborov legacy. Perhaps Zborov waslittle mentioned, but flames of patriotism never died out in thehearts of the people.58

At least some of the communist arguments paralleled tradi-tional elements of Czech and Slovak pan-Slavic nationalism, asexemplified in the performance of scenes from the specially writ-ten drama “Zborov Slovanstvu” [“Zborov Slavdom”], in whichepisodes from Zborov were inserted in a mythological work of Czech-Slavic history that employed Polish and Russian voices, inaddition to Czech. The play, which spoke of a “thousand-yearbattle against the German assault,” culminated in the alliance of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.59

The new focus on the German enemy in connection withZborov could also be found in publications meant for children,for example, “R #íkání o bitve # u Zborova pro nejmenší c #tenár #e ac #tenár #ky” [“The Tale of the Battle of Zborov for the YoungestReaders”]. The illustration on the front of this 1947 pamphletcombined traditional religious and modern national symbolism,for example, a young girl and boy, one with a laurel wreath, theother holding a Czechoslovak flag, approaching a memorialmarker decorated with the Bohemian lion and flanked by Cyprustrees. The face of a fallen Legionnaire gazes down from theclouds above.60 The viewpoint presented in these volumes was

also gendered: the narrator was often the kind, old dedecek , orgranddad, a sort of fictionalized Masaryk, who really had beenold enough to be the grandfather of his country. This version of Zborov, in contrast to earlier interpretations, focused on the age-old German enemy, who was incidentally Habsburg: EmperorFrancis Joseph, “whose ministers were prejudiced against theCzechs and the Slovaks” and the Germans “who never liked the


58. For comments on the play, see, for example, Rovnost , 2 July 1947, 1; and Svobodné slovo, 2 July 1947, 1.

59. Svoboné slovo, 2 July 1947, 1.60. A.V. Bic #ište [Also author of the 1937 play, “Obrana státu (Zborov)”] and Josef Alexandr,

“R #íkání o bitve # u Zborova pro nejmenší c #tenár #e a c #tenár #ky” (Created for the Committee for

the Celebration of the Thirtieth Anniversary of Zborov) (Prague: MNO, 1947).61. Bi Svištz and Alexandr, “a Ô íkání o bitvc u zborova,” 1.








Slavs.”61 The goal of this publication appears to be more to incul-cate Czech children with anti-German sentiment than with the

heroic myth of a redemptive Czech victory at Zborov.The communist coup d’état in February 1948 spelled thebeginning of the end of the development of a Czechoslovaknational-military tradition that included Zborov. While the com-munists initially did not contest this tradition of the first resistanceto the Habsburg Monarchy, especially as represented by theLegionnaires, the Battle of Zborov, and Masaryk, the communistregime considered the Legionnaires a threat to the new govern-ment. To shape national memory toward its own ends, theCzechoslovak communist political élite employed both socially organized forgetting (exclusion, suppression, and repression62)and socially organized remembering (the deliberate invention,emphasis, and popularization of elements of consciousness) tomanipulate the experiences shared with others and the jointly held ideas that together structure collective memory. The recon-struction of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Prague is anexample of the communist-driven “collective forgetting” of the“tradition of Zborov.” Before the February coup, plans had beenmade to place the remains of another soldier from Zborov in thenew tomb, but there had been problems obtaining another body from what had by then become the Soviet Union. The remains of a new unknown soldier were finally commemorated in October1949 in the presence of President Gottwald and Minister of

National Defense Svoboda. In his address, Svoboda, a veteran of Zborov, eulogized Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union, and the “pro-gressive tradition” of the Czechoslovak army but failed to men-tion the Legionnaires and Zborov.63

One of the few monuments to Legionnaires to survive the warintact was the larger-than-life statue that had been unveiledbefore the Z #iz #kov barracks in C #eské Bude #jovice in conjunction

with the tenth-anniversary festivities in July 1927. Shortly afterthe war’s end, the monument was removed from the cellar whereit spent theNazi occupationand replaced at the barracks.There it


62. Peter Burke, “History as Social Memory,” In Thomas Butler, ed., Memory: History, Culture

and the Mind (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 108.63. Galandauer, “Zborovská bitva,” 62.








would remain until 1965, when it was abruptly dismantled andmoved—not without damage that included the loss of the

statue’s head—to an army depot outside of town, where itremains today.64 A second statue, one of Colonel Švec, also sur- vived the war. When the statue of Švec turned up in Bavaria in1949, the restitution commission of the American army ordered itreturned to Czechoslovakia, where it was placed in the deposi-tory of the Military Museum in Prague. And according to therecords, the communist-dominated Czechoslovak Council hadthe statue scrapped.65 Finally, in 1950, the celebrations of thearmy were changed to 6 October to occur in conjunction withcommemorations of the Battle of Dukla Pass, a 1944 victory of the Czech and Slovak soldiers and partisans, including somecommunists, together with both the Poles and Russians, againstthe Nazis and their Slovak allies.

The “counter-revolutionary” struggle of the Legion in the sum-mer of 1918 against the Red Army remained embarrassing formany Eastern European—especially Czechoslovak— communisthistorians. The Battle of Zborov was little mentioned in the “offi-cial” histories and texts and discussions of the Legionnaires, andthe “Zborov tradition” was mainly limited to military historians.Particularly embarrassing was that Svoboda, winner of the“Order of Lenin” and a hero of the Soviet Union for his valor inthe Czechoslovak Unit in the USSR during the Second World War,had also fought as a Legionnaire in Russia during the First World

War. Svoboda, the president of the post–Prague Spring Czecho-slovak Republic, had participated in the Battle of Zborov, strug-gling “against the Reds.” Svoboda claimed, however, that many of the Legionnaires had gotten to know and love “the deep soulsof the Russian people” and out of this would grow sympathy forthe Russians and participation in the Russian fate.66

The defeat in autumn 1944 of the Germans at the bloodyBattleof Dukla Pass near the Slovak-Polish border in 1944 by the FirstCzechoslovak Army under Svoboda in alliance the brother Slav


64. C #eskobude #jovické listy, 30 July 1997, 14.65. “Synu—m padlým i víte #zným. Pomníky legionáe ñÂ a obctí války,” In Hojda and Pokorný, eds.,

Pomníky a Zapomníky , 171-74.

66. Adolf Müller, “Ludvík Svoboda-der einsame Man auf der Prager Burg,” Damals: Zeitschrift für geschichtliches Wissen 5 (February 1973): 173.








(and communist) Russians and the Poles would become thefocus of yearly celebrations on 6 October. Commemoration of

the Czechoslovak army on this date linked it to another importantpedagogical holiday celebrated in the late autumn, the GreatOctober Social Revolution (Velká ríjnová socialistická revoluce or Va Ô SR) of 25 October/7 November, which would become themost important (inter)national holiday on the calendar of com-munist Czechoslovakia. Dukla Pass would become an importantsymbol of the peaceful cooperation of people of democraticlands (presumably Poland and the Soviet Union). Communistrhetoric stressed that Czechoslovak partisans did not fight atDukla Pass for the old, capitalist, pre-Munich Czechoslovakia,but for the new Czechoslovak people’s democracy. In thecommunist era, both partisans and Red Army soldiers, cast in con-crete andbronze, replaced theLegionnaires in thebuilt landscape.67

On the fiftieth anniversary of Zborov in July 1967, at the outsetof the relative thaw preceding the Prague Spring, there was botha spate of publications and public discussion of the Battle of Zborov and the Legionnaires. The author of an article in Rudé právo noted that while

we [the citizens of Czechoslovakia] fully recognize the patriotism,enthusiasm, heroism, and sacrifice of the Legionnaires, we can [also]recognize that further developments led them to participate in anti-Soviet intervention in 1918. Later, however, the Legionnaires under-stood that in the final analysis, they were participating in the “violent

intervention” in the life of another state and thus the majority themrefused to fight in 1919, becoming useless [to the Allies].68

In the end, the Battle of Zborov was not part of a “usable past”that could be employed in constituting the communist-national

version of the history of the First Czechoslovak Republic. Thus,Zborov and national revolution, the tradition it represented, vir-tually disappeared from the official historical record incommunist Czechoslovakia. Thus, the heroic sacrifices of the sol-diers and partisans of Dukla and the Slovak National Uprising


67. After the war, the Soviet Union erected a massive memorial tower inscribed with the names

of several hundred Russian officers near Dukla Pass.68. Nede #lní Rudé právo, 2 July 1967, 5.








(Slovenské narodní povstáni ) during the Second World Warreplaced those of the Legionnaires. With the movement of Army

Day to 6 October, the Czechoslovak communist interpretation of the world wars of the twentieth century remained focused on amasculine fighting front at the expense of the home front. Thisinterpretation, however, stressed the communist-national, ratherthan bourgeois-national, goals, and women’s contribution to thefoundation of the state or to either war remained, for the mostpart, ignored.

After 1989, the Battle of Zborov, like many other historicevents that had been downplayed or ignored altogether undercommunism, enjoyed renewed interest. It was the topic of schol-arly enquiry and popular books as well as reenactments and tele-

vision programs in which the ever-decreasing numbers of surviv-ing Legionnaires were introduced. The “Zborov tradition” wasnot, however, reincorporated into the Czechoslovak army nor

was 2 July reinstituted as a holiday. Neither the “spirit of Zborov”nor the “national revolution” it represented was part of a “usablepast” in the post-communist CzechRepublic or Slovakia, perhapsbecause it was intimately associated with the formation of theCzechoslovak state. Certainly, unlike the Battle of White Moun-tain, to which it was connected in interwar rhetoric, the Battle of Zborov has failed to survive in Czech collective memory.


Documents

East European Politics and Societies 2003 Wingfield 654 81