Three successfully defended dissertations at IMS!

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Three successfully defended dissertations at IMS!

Kateřina Šimová defended her dissertation on the topic Travels to Utopia. The Image of Soviet Russia within the Czechoslovak Cultural Left in the Interwar Period. The dissertation was written in the Czech language.

The proposed dissertation is devoted to the relations of the Czechoslovak cultural left to Soviet Russia in the interwar period. It focuses on the image of Soviet Russia, pointing out that for many Czechoslovak leftist artists and intellectuals it served as a framework for their own vision of an ideal socio-political arrangements. In their view, the image of Soviet Russia stood out as a utopia in the sense that the sociologist Karl Mannheim attributes to this phenomenon. The dissertation follows the evolution of this utopian image among the Czechoslovak cultural left in the early 1920s, maps the changes in its thematic structure and motives and follows its disintegration against the ideological split of the Czechoslovak cultural left in the late 1930s. This development is perceived through the analysis of travelogues in which left-wing artists and intellectuals presented their immediate impressions and experiences from this country. The semiotic text analysis method is being used for this purpose. By analysing the confrontational and transformative functions of the utopian image of Soviet Russia, the dissertation attempts to clarify the attitude of Czechoslovak artists and intellectuals towards Soviet Russia in the context of the socio-political situation of the interwar period and in the broader context of interwar European development. It draws a conclusion that some leftist intellectuals broke with the utopian image of Soviet Russia when it ceased to fulfil necessary confrontational and transformative functions. Therefore, they began to point out from within this utopian thinking on its ideological features. The escalating attack on modern art in the Soviet Union may be considered as a catalyst of this process, as it posed a major threat to the avant-garde utopian project of transformation of the world through the magical power of the image and the word.

Václav Lídl defended his dissertation on the topic Transformations of the Central Asian Regional Energy Security Complex after 1991: The Case of the Turkmenistan - China Gas Pipeline.The dissertation was written in the English language

The presented doctoral thesis analyses energy security in the Central Asia region, with an emphasis on the natural gas sector. The research sought to answer the question of whether individual state actors in Central Asia are more inclined towards a strategic-oriented or market-oriented approach to energy policy in the formulation of their respective energy policy. Answering this research question aimed at better understanding the approach of individual state actors to large infrastructure projects, such as the construction of the Central Asia-China Gas Pipeline. A regional energy security complex of Central Asia was constructed for work purposes. In addition to the five Central Asian states, it also includes Russia and China as two major natural gas importers from the region. Based on theoretical literature, a model for assessing the natural gas sector in terms of the formulation of energy policy by individual state actors was developed. This model was subsequently applied to three case studies of key state actors within the Central Asian regional energy security complex. These are case studies on Turkmenistan, Russia and China. Applying the model's criteria to individual cases, the research concluded that for all three players in the Central Asian regional energy security complex, a strategic-oriented approach to energy policy formulation prevailed in the studied period after the fall of the Soviet Union. The same was shown in the formulation of each actor's energy policy on the construction of the Central Asia-China gas pipeline. It should be noted, however, that elements of a marketoriented approach to energy policy formulation also manifested themselves, but remained a minority.

Mikuláš Zvánovec defended his dissertation on the topic Der nationale Schulkampf in Böhmen. Deutsche und tschechische nationale Schutzarbeit im Schulwesen vor dem Hintergrund der Demokratisierungsprozesse in Cisleithanien (1880-1918). The dissertation was written in the German language.

Liberale politische Veränderungen in der Habsburgermonarchie zu Ende der 1860er und Anfang der 1870er Jahre, gegeben durch die Dezember-Verfassung von 1867 und die folgende Schulgesetze schufen den notwendigen rechtlichen Rahmen für die Gründung deutscher und tschechischer Schulvereine, die durch den Bau der sogenannten „Minderheitenschulen“ jeweils eine einsprachige nationale Schulbildung in Böhmen durchsetzten. Bald wurden lokale Organisationen von den zentralen Schulvereinen abgelöst, nämlich dem Deutschen Schulverein und der Ústřední Matice Školská in Prag. Beide Organisationen wurden 1880 gegründet, um Schulen in sprachlich und damit national umkämpften Regionen entlang der sogenannten „Sprachgrenze“ zu errichten. Diese Studie behandelt die Dynamik des nationalen Wettbewerbs um die Schulbildung vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg und vergleicht die Aktivitäten dieser beiden Vereine vor dem Hintergrund der politischen Demokratisierung, Massenmobilisierung und sozialen Frage der Fin de Siècle-Zeit. Die vergleichende Analyse von Proklamationen, Aktivitäten und politischen Kontakten der konkurrierenden nationalen Schulvereine zielt darauf ab, Thesen über die Position und Bedeutung dieser Organisationen zu revidieren und ihre sehr enge Abhängigkeit von sozialen und politischen Prozessen der österreichisch-ungarischen Ära zu zeigen.