Martin Jemelka

Volební kultura metropolitních měst je tématem, v němž se protínají odborné zájmy a metodologické přístupy politologie, historických a dalších společenských věd. Proto i tato kniha představuje Prahu a pražské volební arény jako heterogenní prostor, v němž se podle historiků a politologů střetávaly různé názorové směry a ideologie a volební klání se odehrávala nejen v radničních zdech, ale i ve veřejném prostoru, na univerzitách nebo na půdě akciových společností. Chronologicky je publikace ukotvena v letech 1848–1945 a na dějinnou scénu vedle známých jmen politiků uvádí i zapomenuté či přehlížené aktéry pražských volebních zápasů, ať již individuální, nebo institucionální.

The electoral culture of metropolitan cities is a topic in which the professional interests and methodological approaches of political science, history and other social sciences intersect. Therefore, this book also presents Prague and its electoral arenas as a heterogeneous space in which, according to historians and political scientists, different schools of thought and ideologies clashed, and electoral contests took place not only within the walls of city halls but also in public spaces, universities, and the grounds of joint-stock companies. Chronologically, the book is anchored in the years 1848-1945 and brings forgotten or overlooked actors of Prague's electoral struggles, both individual and institutional, onto the historical scene alongside well-known names of politicians.

JUDr. Vladimír Krejčí (November 23, 1908 Prague, Královské Vinohrady - April 25, 1993 Prague) can be described as a member of the First Republic elites without blushing. Krejčí's father Jan (1868–1942) was a literary historian, Germanist, theater critic and university professor of German literature at the Prague, Brno and Bratislava universities. In the academic year 1923–1924 he was dean of the Faculty of Arts and in 1934–1935 the rector of Masaryk University in Brno. Father's brother František (1858–1934), a psychologist, a philosopher and an interwar deputy and a senator, and nephew Karel (1904–1979), a prominent slavist, also took part in the campus. Krejčí's close relatives were also composer Iša Krejčí and painter Emil Filla. The mother of Vladimír Krejčí was Růžena Heřmanová (1888–1966), daughter of a Prague restaurateur, whose friends were František Úprka, a philologist Arne Novák and musicologist Vladimír Helfert. While the eldest son of Jan and Růžena Krejčí Jan (1907) went through the academic career of a professor of physical geography, the youngest Jiří (1915) was looking for application in architecture, design and advertising. Jiří's internment in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp after November 17, 1939 brought him with his brother Jan into the service of the Zlín-based Baťa concern after his release, where Vladimír, the middle of the sons, was employed since 1936.
On 2 September 1936, Vladimír Krejčí entered the services of Zlín's Baťa Group headquarters. He began his career in the Legal Department before taking on the role of Personal Secretary Jan Antonín Baťa, the factory's last Czech secretary before leaving for the US in June 1939, for the next ten months. Krejčí had to follow Baťa across the ocean in the autumn of 1939, but the beginning of World War II forced him to stay in the Protectorate. At the turn of 1939 and 1940, he worked in the Prague office of Baťa, from where he was called back to Zlín in spring 1940, where he remained in company services until mid-1945. Protectorate leadership of the company counted with him before the end of the war as head of the personal department. The liberation of Czechoslovakia and the establishment of the new communist leadership of Baťa company forced him to leave Zlín after not completed 9 years in corporate services (1936-1945). Krejčí found a new job in the Czechoslovak Film Society. The post-February establishment detested Krejčí's past with Baťa and lack of interest in political partyism, and he therefore alternated his employment before he settled at the Ministry of Heavy Engineering (1950), at the air-conditioning plants in Radotín (1958) and at the company Laboratorní přístroje (Laboratory Instruments) in Prague (1961). August 1968 revived the memories of Krejčí's past with Baťa and contributed to his retirement in 1970.
The core of Krejčí's memoirs maps the events of 1938–1945, a tragic and breakthrough epoch in modern (central) European history and at the same time the peak period of the first half-century of Baťa's history (1894–1945). At the beginning of the 1938–1945 period, a series of strategic decisions by the corporate management stood at how the multinational Baťa concern operating on several continents established itself in the conditions of world conflict and let it benefit from an armed conflict on both sides of the warring world. On the eve of World War II and at the time the most up-to-date problems of corporate strategic decision-making (e.g. planning town factories and constituting so-called units), Krejčí describes the atmosphere on the top floors of the corporate leadership credibly, including the difficult journey of the Baťa family beyond the Protectorate borders in spring and summer 1939. At the end of the 1938–1945 period, there was the collapse of Europe dominated by Nazi Germany, the beginning of the Soviet dominion over its Middle East, and the nationalization of large industrial factories headed by the Bata Group, that took the form of a media-wise billing with the pre-Munich Republic and its economic elites, including Baťa's family.
In Krejčí's memoirs, the post-Munich and wartime period of the group's history comes to life first through the eyes of Jan Antonín Baťa's personal secretary, after Baťa's departure overseas through the eyes of an important corporate official, economic law expert, wage issues and human resources, charged with contact with the central occupation offices in Prague and with the German administration of Baťa. Krejčí's memoirs are not memories of a resistance fighter, but a loyal corporate clerk who tried to fulfil the corporate strategy of tacking among the Protectorate administration, the Reich-German military and economic interests, the domestic and foreign leadership of the Baťa Group and the ideas of the post-war organization of Czechoslovakia and Baťa Group. We cannot deny Krejčí his personal bravery and engagement in favour of war-torn Protectorate citizens, not only among family members and corporate employees. At the beginning of the war he intervened in favour of his brothers affected by the closure of Czech schools, Jiří was even interned in the concentration camp Sachsenhausen. After the war, there í was not forgotten the help Krejčí provided to Czech medical students as an influential clerk of the group, when they had to decide between the unfinished studies or morally and politically problematic continuation at the German universities after the closing of Czech universities in November 1939. The more Krejčí's breadwinner Baťa moved away from the Protectorate reality, the more Krejčí converged with the directors Dominik Čipera and Josef Hlavnička, key players of the Baťa Group during World War II. The decision to make Krejčí the Czech "superintendent" of the German manager of the firm Dr. Albrecht Miesbach, and finally, after the war, an influential head of the Human Resources Department, at the time of billing with the Nazis, collaborators and also innocent employees of German nationality, testifies to Krejčí's influence and trust he enjoyed at the Bata Protectorate leadership. Although Krejčí's memories are a detailed testimony to Baťa company in 1938-1938 and they contain dozens of specific names and events, they cannot be confused with the company's chronicle, let alone the precise and necessary processing of the Group's history during World War II. Despite the many details and frequent exaggeration related to the author's literary talents, Krejčí's language and expression are correct, without the ambition of scandalizing the actors or events.
The key question remains which passages of memoirs are the most valuable testimony to Baťa's Zlín, its backdrops and actors in the years around World War II. Readers of the author rightly expect a precise description of the operation of the Legal Department, which he had been employed since September 1936. The depiction of press disputes, publicized cases of the oil and concrete cartel and the utilitarian approach of the group management to the purchase of the spinning mill in Chrastava near Liberec from the property of the Jewish entrepreneur Schnabel, threatened by the onset of Nazism, does not cover the unscrupulous business strategy of the 1930s. The memoirs take on drama in memories of foreign travels at the turn of 1938 and 1939, an attempt by the Baťa family to leave the Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Protectorate on 14 March 1939 and Baťa's trip to the southeast and western Europe in June 1939 culminating in his departure overseas. Vol. II. of Krejčí´s memoirs is devoted to the School of Art, its teachers and the unique atmosphere in which they worked. Valuable information includes passages dedicated to German director Miesbach, the Germans from Zlín and some clearing with some of Zlín's myths. The highlights of Krejčí’s memoirs are the memories of the last war months and the establishment of post-war national administration in the hands of unscrupulous communists. The stage of the last part of Krejčí's memoirs is not only post-war Prague, but also social contacts created at the time of his work in Zlín.

The book Lidé z kolonií vyprávějí své dějiny (People from Colonies Tell Their History) is not a unique project either in the context of the Czech or the European historiography. In terms of the range, form, and the use of memories I was inspired by the publication series “Damit es nicht verlorengeht”, published in the 1980s by The Institute of Economic and Social History of the University of Vienna. I started to collect memories in 2008 to 2009, and including the eyewitnesses’ stories published so far, I have gathered a total of 44 memories of 50 inhabitants born between 1886 and 1955 and coming from 17 mining colonies. Despite the differences between the texts it is not possible to overlook the fact that eyewitnesses’ memories of the decisive moments in their lives, in the lives of their families, colonies, town, country or of the world history recur. The book contains information concerning the life during the old Austria, the First World War, hunger revolts in July 1917, October 1918 events, economic crisis of the 1930s, life in the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia, Ostrava bombing of August 1944, the liberation or the post-1948 political changes. Also everyday stereotypes such as children’s games, mining festivities, the presence of the Jews or of people forced to labour in the local mines or in the Vítkovice Iron Works during the Second World War recur in the memories. The memories of workers’ physical education and sports, social, political, and religious life are still very much alive. Memories of the Ostrava mining colonies necessarily involve a mention of the family roots in Halicz, the Těšín area or the surroundings of the present Ostrava, as well as the reflection upon the extremely demanding, dangerous, and fatalistic work in the rock and coal mines. In the Ostrava region, the book is a unique attempt at collecting memories of several generations that come from a particular social group. However, in comparison with similar Czech and German publications it emphasizes the photo documentation, which is to function as another information layer for researchers to work with.

Das Buch Menschen aus der Bergwerkskolonien erzählen ihre Geschichte ist weder in der tschechischen noch europäischen Geschichtsschreibung etwas außergewöhnliches. Durch Umfang, Format, Verarbeitung und Ausnutzung der Erinnerungen inspirierte mich die Publikationsreihe „Damit es nicht verlorengeht“, die in den 80. Jahren des 20. Jahrhunderts vom Institut für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte der Wiener Universität herausgegeben wurde. Die Erinnerungen sammelte ich in den Jahren 2008–2009 und einschließlich der schon publizierten Erzählungen habe ich 44 Erinnerungen von 50, in den Jahren 1886–1955 geborenen Einwohnern aus 17 Bergwerkskolonien gesammelt. Trotz der Unterschiedlichkeit der Texte, kann nicht übersehen werden, dass sich Erinnerungen an entscheidende Augenblicke im Leben dieser Menschen, ihrer Familien, Kolonien, Städte, Staaten oder auch der Weltgeschichte wiederholen. Das Buch enthält Informationen über das Leben im alten Österreich, im I. Weltkrieg, während der Hungeraufstände im Juli 1917, der Ereignisse im Oktober 1918, in der Zeit der Wirtschaftskrise in den 30. Jahren, über das Leben im Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren, während der Bombardierung Ostravas im August 1944, nach der Befreiung und über die politischen Änderungen nach 1948. In den Erinnerungen wiederholt sich der alltägliche Stereotyp: Kinderspiele, Bergwerksfeiern, die Anwesenheit von Juden oder Personen, die während des II. Weltkriegs in den Bergwerken oder in der Eisenhütte Vítkovice totaleingesetzt waren.  Lebendig sind Erinnerungen an die Arbeiterkörpererziehung und den Sport, an Verbände, das politische und kirchliche Leben. Die Erinnerungen der Bewohner der Bergwerkskolonien in Ostrava sind unvorstellbar ohne Erwähnung der Familienwurzeln in Galizien, aus den Gegenden um Teschen oder Ostrava und ohne die extrem anstrengende, gefährliche und fatalistische Arbeit in den Steinkohlengruben. Das Buch ist in der Region Ostrava einzigartiger Versuch zur Sammlung von Informationen mehrerer Generationen einer konkreten sozialen Gruppe.  Im Vergleich mit ähnlichen tschechischen und deutschen Publikationen akzentuiert es aber Bilddokumentation, welche die Rolle einer weiteren Informationsschicht erfüllen soll, mit der die Wissenschaftler arbeiten können.

Książka „Ludzie z kolonii opowiadają swoje dzieje“ nie jest w czeskiej ani europejskiej literaturze historycznej niczym wyjątkowym. Swoim zakresem, formalnym opracowaniem i wykorzystaniem wspomnień inspirował mnie szereg publikacji „Damit es nicht verlorengeht“, wydawany w latach osiemdziesiątych XX wieku przez Instytut historii gospodarczej i socjalnej Uniwersytetu w Wiedniu. Wspomnienia zacząłem gromadzić w latach 2008–2009 i łącznie z już opublikowanymi zgromadziłem 44 wspomnień 50 mieszkańców z 17 kolonii górniczych narodzonych w latach 1886–1955. Pomimo zróżnicowania tekstów nie da się przeoczyć, że powtarzają się w nich wspomnienia decydujących chwil w życiu opowiadających, ich rodzin, kolonii, miasta, państwa i historii światowej. Książka zawiera informacje o życiu w dawnej Austrii, podczas I wojny światowej, buntów głodowych w lipcu 1917 roku, wydarzeniach październikowych 1918 roku, kryzysu gospodarczego lat trzydziestych, o życiu w Protektoracie Czech i Moraw, bombardowaniach Ostrawy w sierpniu 1944 roku, wyzwoleniu i zmianach politycznych po 1948 roku. We wspomnieniach powtarzają się też codzienne stereotypy: zabawy dziecięce, uroczystości górnicze, obecność Żydów lub osób podczas II wojny światowej przymusowo wysłanych na roboty w miejscowych kopalniach lub Vítkovickiej hucie żelaza. Żywe są wspomnienia robotniczego wychowania fizycznego i sportu, życia związkowego, politycznego i religijnego. Wspomnienia o ostrawskich koloniach górniczych są niewyobrażalne bez przypomnienia rodzinnych korzeni w Galicji, na Ziemi Cieszyńskiej lub w okolicach dzisiejszej Ostrawy oraz bez refleksji ekstremalnie ciężkiej, niebezpiecznej i fatalistycznej pracy w kopalniach węgla kamiennego. Książka jest na ziemi ostrawskiej unikalną próbą zgromadzenia wspomnień kilku pokoleń konkretnej grupy społecznej. W porównaniu z podobnymi czeskimi i niemieckimi publikacjami akcentuje jednak dokumentację obrazową, która ma pełnić rolę następnej warstwy informacyjnej, z którą badacze mogą pracować.

During the interwar years, the footwear industry was confronted with similarly revolutionary changes and processes to those in the automobile industry which tend to be associated with the name of Henry Ford. Their major vehicle became the originally Czechoslovak enterprise of the Bat’a siblings, which, during the first decades of the twentieth century, grew into a gigantic concern with global reach. Seventeen researchers from Europe and North America trace the fascinating story of the Bat’a concern, a substantive chapter of which from the end of the 1920s became the establishment of company towns. From various perspectives, they focus their attention on this unique model of industrial organization which was discussed widely in its time and which in retrospect can be considered one of the true pinnacles of private capitalist urban planning in the first half of the twentieth century.

During approximately one hundred years of its existence (1868–1977) a Salomon colony (Šalomouna), a miner’s settlement counting two thousand members not far from the center of Moravian Ostrava, has changed its face several times and has experienced a course from dynamically developing settlement to a locality with a stagnant and getting-older population of mining pensioners. The Salomon colony was found at turn of the 60’s and the 70’s of the 19th century, after mine reviving in a colliery in expectation of a forward-looking progress of mining work, demanding an increasing number of employees but mainly a stabilized labour above all. Together with stopping of mining at the colliery at the early 30‘s there was endangered an existential sureness for majority of working residents at the settlement and the end of the mine and of the colony in the same time corresponded to a new economic and social policy of Ostravsko-karvinské doly. During its existence the Salomon colony passed through several developmental stages of which key determining factors were mutually related changes in housing and population circumstances –
a) the period 1871–1889/1890: The first period of Šalomouna mining colony’s existence can be delimited by inspection and passing houses of building stage I (1871) and by actuation of the first three mass lodging houses for unmarried workmen and commuter miners without families (1889–1890). In this period, for which a maximum use of housing with high number of habitants per flat and house is characteristic, Šalomouna was unstable and just forming society with considerable number of fluctuating persons, with crushingly high level of masculinity and markedly disrupted population structure in age and marital status. Among the eldest Šalomouna inhabitans there predominated migrants from both Silesia parts and contiguous Moravian districts while newcomers from Galicia, compared with other colonies, were fewer. but it were people from Galicia who totally preponderated among sleepers and a presence of a high number permanently moving persons with low culture level was not helping in stabilization of family relations. Over-night lodging, maximum use of housing and generally unstable housing and population conditions did not allow development of social relationships among colony dwellers and of creating a social control system of which there was a risen criminality level and tense family relations the most visible demonstration.
b) 1889/1890–1914: The second period is delimited by opening of three mass lodging houses in 1889–1890 and by issuing the first of many following laws for tenants protection in company flats. Repeating infectious disease epidemic in company colonies in OKR in the 80’s and the 90’s of the 19th century and an attempt to civilize and to control young blue-collar experts better led to a pressure from management of VKD on single and married miners without families to accommodate mainly in barracks and not in the families as it was by then. In the second half of this period, definitively from 1900 to 1910, the number of sleepers really reduced considerably, being an encumbrance for miners’ families and colony housing before. The housing was increasing in quality during years 1906–1907 and 1914–1917 by construction of new flats in eight-families houses. Although the 90’s was still bearing problematic heritage of the first two colony decades a gradual expanding and improving of civic facilities (till 1906 only first school, later company’s nursery as well and company’s library in the barracks) had been helping to create stable society in which, before World War I, there appeared small stratum of long-run residents and there were formed a social control and relationships network restricting criminality and characterizing the whole period between the World War I and II.
c) 1914 – the turn of the 40’s and the 50’s of the 20th century: A period between the World War I and II, tending to be named as „Golden Age of Šalomouna“ and delimited by the first of reformatory laws about the company’s flats at the beginning and by a final condemnation of Šalomouna to be demolished at the turn of the 40’s and the 50’s in the end, finds the colony as fully stabilized settlement with developed social relations (local neighborhood) and with the social control system. Although aggregative society liberalization and democratization finally made a progress in political, associational, cultural and sport activities of inhabitans possible there had appeared stagnation in a population growth and the population began getting older. In period between the World Wars there were integration processes definitively crowned in the colony – this fact is, among others, supported also by structured political life with preferences for left-wing and middle-left-wing parties with relatively low preferences for extremist parties. Šalomouna did not grow in with its environment only in the meaning of space but mainly by its social bindings whose keepers were more and more often members of professions out of a coal industry.
d) the end of the 40’s of the 20th century to 1977: In the 30’s of the last century among Ostrava architects and city planners were appearing plans to construct a modern housing estates for laborers which would replace unsatisfactory and hardly sustainable built-up area of Šalomouna. At the turn of the 40’s and the 50’s there was finally decided to leave the colony to mining retirees to spend the rest of their lives there or as a temporary accommodation reserve for young families of in-coming workers. The plan was to prepare Šalomouna for a demolition gradually. In 1957 the demolition of the first buildings began and twenty years later there was not a single house in once the largest mining colony in Moravian Ostrava. An improving level of civic facilities was only a seamy side of a gradual social relations decline being created in long-run. Local neighbourhood was weakening together with dying out of long-term residents and with temporary stay of young workers’ families: the colony with rich communication bindings was replaced by anonymous blocks of flats in which the last Šalomouna natives were spending the rest of their lives.
It is basically possible to depict dual picture of Salomon colony using archive sources and memories of two inhabitans generations. There are two ever during traits common to both colony forms – to dynamically developing 19th century settlement with number of blatant population and social phenomenon and to stable society during a period between the World Wars as well – which results from settlement status as company colony. Relative availability of job opportunities and mainly workplace proximity for majority of earning persons were considerably influencing the way of thinking and behaviour of colony residents to whom the Šalomouna mine management was determining their everyday rhythm, it was interfering their privacy influencing a choice of miners’ children future jobs, it was allocating dwellings in the colony in dependence on age and job position (repeated move of dwellers being recorded in memories of informers and in census). The management was influencing a habitation quality by adjustments or by new flat units construction etc. Paternalistic company relation to the inhabitans of socially and in labour homogenous locality was at first weakened by housing legislation and terminated for ever by a mining end in years 1931–1939. An intensive attitude of the inhabitans to soil and to small farming (which was meeting substantive part of the fundamental life requirements still in the 30’s) remained characteristic attribute of Šalomouna in its pathbreaking period and gold age.

A development of many specific elements for collective colony dwellers’ lives could come about only after stabilization of population and housing circumstances and after finishing of integration process in years closely before the World War I. Family, school and work place were the main socializing factors before transformation of Šalomouna to suburban workmen settlement with developing local neighbourhood. Later a nursery, political party and union organizations were added after the transformation. Mainly there were neighbours who were standing in parents duties not only for incomplete families. however, in the both periods the key role of socializing space was played by a street and by richly structured outside area of colony with number of retreats and gaps offering enough room for communication. In the late 30’s the colony stayed half-open (half-closed) world in which many individual and intimate events were occurring before the eyes or with cognizance of neighbours and colony inhabitants. In my work I depicted the first three periods of Salomon colony using the archive material and eyewitnesses’ testimonies. I placed emphasis on years 1868–1950. Monographic work about Šalomouna has set many questions for whose satisfying resolution it will be needed to go through further archive research. It has already brought the first model results along with it (mainly in chapters about colony population growth and about every-day live invariables) which are applicable in studies of other workmen localities of Ostrava. The monograph of company colony of Šalomouna mine has become (contrary to limits given by assignment and due to attempt for complex problematic interpretation) a starting point for synthesizing study about population, housing culture and life conditions in miner‘s and metallurgical settlements in Moravian Ostrava and Vítkovice which are comparable with similar workmen colonies of other European regions.

On the 110th anniversary of the death of Antonín Dvořák, a song-maraton took place in the Moravian-Silesian National Theater in Ostrava, during which for the first time all Dvořák's songs were heard for one voice with piano accompaniment. The auditorium in the hall and on the radios had an extraordinary opportunity to hear Dvořák's entire song oeuvre in an eve. The booklet deals with a study of Dvořák's song compositions (Ondřej Šupka), his intellectual horizon (Jan Kachlík) and a study of Dvořák's song work in recording studios (Martin Jemelka). The audience also had access to all the texts of Dvořák's songs in the booklet.

On the 110th anniversary of the death of Antonín Dvořák, a song-maraton took place in the Moravian-Silesian National Theater in Ostrava, during which for the first time all Dvořák's songs were heard for one voice with piano accompaniment. The auditorium in the hall and on the radios had an extraordinary opportunity to hear Dvořák's entire song oeuvre in an eve. The booklet deals with a study of Dvořák's song compositions (Ondřej Šupka), his intellectual horizon (Jan Kachlík) and a study of Dvořák's song work in recording studios (Martin Jemelka). The audience also had access to all the texts of Dvořák's songs in the booklet.

The topic of this study is employee housing. The ambition of the study is to contribute to the nomenclature and typology of employee housing of the past as a topical issue of the present. Employee housing of the classical and socialist industrialisation era is most often associated with the phenomenon of workers’ colonies and settlements of model socialist cities. Although workers’ colonies are a product of industrialisation, they have their genetic antecedents in the manufactory era and also their successors in post-war construction. Therefore, the study focuses on the question of the (dis)continuity of workers’ housing with its chronological centre of gravity in the classical and socialist industrialisation eras of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The study focused on the factory colony of the mine "Jiri" in Moravska Ostrava, by now only marginally reflected upon by the regional historians, does not aim to be a monograph dealing with the history of one of the rough number of 55 miners' colonies on the territory of contemporary Ostrava. The study of the colony of "Jiri" that existed from the year 1872 or 1889 to the year 1970 was motivated, first, by the author's interest in the proletarian colonies in Ostrava. But it also constitutes part of the research project begun in the year 2010. The research should culminate at producing a modern topography of miners' colonies of Ostrava that would replace the problematic topography of Jaroslav Bilek (1966). The study of the colony of "Jiri" aims to refute the myth of its foundation before the year 1860, to describe in detail its constructional- architectonic development and the living standard, positively resolve the problem of the number of houses in the colony, and especially to remind the fact, unique in the region of Ostrava, of the double foundation of the colony in the years 1871 and 1888. Besides the general information concerning the setting and surroundings of the colony of "Jiri" and its civic amenities, the study should provide the correction of the data on the population development of the colony in the years 1890-1910 presented in the thesis of Drahoslava Duskova (1976).

... The Factory Colony “Jindřich's Den” in Moravská Ostrava The study about the factory colony of the Jindřich mine in Moravská Ostrava, the oldest workers's colony in the urban area as a part of a wider research project, relates to some older research work of M. Myška and has ...

The declaration of the new Czechoslovak national state in October 1918 brought revolutionary changes not only to the political, social, economic and cultural scene, but also to the religious life of the country. The new Czechoslovak national church created thirteen months later combined national orientation, the reformed clerical movement, theological modernism, the Hussite and reformation tradition and protest against the Catholic Church, definitively discredited in World War I. The newly established Czechoslovak Church received support from various authorities and was seen as the proper option for the good Czechoslovak citizen, primarily the worker. At the same time, it produced a violent conversion movement (1921, 1930) and many local conflicts (1920s). The paper will focus on the workers’ religious and national identification and changes in today’s Ostrava region – an industrial region (the centre of Czechoslovak heavy industry) situated on the ethnic borderline and in the melti...

During the interwar years, the footwear industry was confronted with similarly revolutionary changes and processes to those in the automobile industry which tend to be associated with the name of Henry Ford. Their major vehicle became the originally Czechoslovak enterprise of the Ba'a siblings, which, during the first decades of the twentieth century, grew into a gigantic concern with global reach. Seventeen researchers from Europe and North America trace the fascinating story of the Ba'a concern, a substantive chapter of which from the end of the 1920s became the establishment of company towns. From various perspectives, they focus their attention on this unique model of industrial organization which was discussed widely in its time and which in retrospect can be considered one of the true pinnacles of private capitalist urban planning in the first half of the twentieth century.

The declaration of the new Czechoslovak national state in October 1918 brought revolutionary changes not only to the political, social, economic and cultural scene, but also to the religious life of the country. The new Czechoslovak national church created thirteen months later combined national orientation, the reformed clerical movement, theological modernism, the Hussite and reformation tradition and protest against the Catholic Church, definitively discredited in World War I. The newly established Czechoslovak Church received support from various authorities and was seen as the proper option for the good Czechoslovak citizen, primarily the worker. At the same time, it produced a violent conversion movement (1921, 1930) and many local conflicts (1920s). The paper will focus on the workers’ religious and national identification and changes in today’s Ostrava region – an industrial region (the centre of Czechoslovak heavy industry) situated on the ethnic borderline and in the melti...

It would be impossible to find a more well-known unified cooperative farm in Czechoslovakia than JZD AK Slušovice before 1989. It played the role of an omnipresent media touchstone of Czechoslovak economics and perestroika reforms. The media conflicts focused on
the resignation from agricultural production in favour of, or to the detriment of, other production, the consumer economy and services, while using technologies, organisational principles, nomenclature and strategies which denied the principles of the centrally planned
economy. The study explores the transformation of Slušovice from a stagnating cooperative farm into a prosperous socialist enterprise, and also two areas of its activities, consumerism and the media, which made Slušovice an omnipresent phenomenon of late-normalisation
Czechoslovakia. The official media discourse oscillated between adoration and condemnation, and indirectly revealed the ideological and generational conflicts inside the ruling establishment. The unofficial media discourse did not disguise its suspicion over the operation
of Slušovice’s cooperative, whose fictitious as well as real setting attracted filmmakers across all genres. The transformation of Slušovice into the biggest consumer attraction of the 1980s was the result of synergy between the enterprise’s expanding social policy
and its involvement in the consumer goods and services sector. The demise of the Slušovice miracle after 1989 came quicker than could have been expected in the preceding decade. It was caused by the break-up of the Soviet bloc of centrally planned economies, the breaking
apart of the Czechoslovak state and the post-November establishment’s deliberate attack on the Slušovice agrocombine, constantly suspected of economic crime.

The Baťa concern’s German business activities: A study of the economic and social history of the Upper Silesian company town of Ottmuth (Otmęt)

This study, the objective of which was to address the German variant of the transfer of the Baťa system integrating the relationship between labour and capital into the framework of a company town, accompanied by a new conception of the organisation of human labour, and at a time when Germany became an axis of world history with respect to the issues under investigation (strategies of expansion, forms of organisation and administration, production and sales, social rationalisation, its limits and impacts in the areas of production and labour relations), offers at least the following partial conclusions: The company town of Ottmuth can be considered a typical example of locating one of the concern’s production companies in a foreign setting in which the transfer of the Baťa system was simplified by a strategy oriented toward poor, mainly agricultural areas lacking a strong industrial tradition which would more readily accept the specific system of production and organisation of labour. The localisation strategy in Germany in particular, where resistance to the concern was exceptionally strong, acquired special significance. This also concerned the factory in Ottmuth, where, despite the sophisticated and imaginative strategy chosen by the concern in relations between the factory and the German administration, local officials managed to systematically complicate relations with the concern’s headquarters in Czechoslovakia. Communication with the head office in Zlín was simplified only after the outbreak of war, when both companies operated on the administratively unified territory of an enlarged Germany. In the Third Reich, the factory’s relationship to the political sphere became increasingly important, and for this reason the company rapidly set about accepting the political requirements and ideological tools of National Socialism after 1933, including the ancillary organisations which began to operate on company premises immediately following the change of regime. On the other hand, the company management systematically endeavoured to curry favour with important regime functionaries and influential political actors. If the application of certain components of the Baťa system in the German environment can be considered successful, there were also areas where the implementation of the Zlín model encountered obstacles, for example that of employment and social policy, where interventions by the state, the Nazi Party and its ancillary organisations became increasingly pronounced. For this reason, the Ottmuth company was able to copy the Zlín model of youth employment only in in its first few years of operation; following official interventions, there was rapid change in this area, and after 1935 a definitive transformation occurred in the age structure of employees, whose ranks also included forced labour during the war. The problem of reduced manufacturing productivity in this context can be understood similarly, but despite all the reversals the labour-production segment remained among the polyvalent and basically generally accepted elements of the Baťa system which also found their place in the post-war Polish economy. In Germany itself, however, the changes which occurred in connection with the overall organisation of post-war Europe contributed to a significant decline in the activities of the Baťa companies. In this new context, they were unable to resume their pre-war expansion plans.

The Baťa concern’s German business activities: A study of the economic and social history of the Upper Silesian company town of Ottmuth (Otmęt).

This study, the objective of which was to address the German variant of the transfer of the Baťa system integrating the relationship between labour and capital into the framework of a company town, accompanied by a new conception of the organisation of human labour, and at a time when Germany became an axis of world history with respect to the issues under investigation (strategies of expansion, forms of organisation and administration, production and sales, social rationalisation, its limits and impacts in the areas of production and labour relations), offers at least the following partial conclusions: The company town of Ottmuth can be considered a typical example of locating one of the concern’s production companies in a foreign setting in which the transfer of the Baťa system was simplified by a strategy oriented toward poor, mainly agricultural areas lacking a strong industrial tradition which would more readily accept the specific system of production and organisation of labour. The localisation strategy in Germany in particular, where resistance to the concern was exceptionally strong, acquired special significance. This also concerned the factory in Ottmuth, where, despite the sophisticated and imaginative strategy chosen by the concern in relations between the factory and the German administration, local officials managed to systematically complicate relations with the concern’s headquarters in Czechoslovakia. Communication with the head office in Zlín was simplified only after the outbreak of war, when both companies operated on the administratively unified territory of an enlarged Germany. In the Third Reich, the factory’s relationship to the political sphere became increasingly important, and for this reason the company rapidly set about accepting the political requirements and ideological tools of National Socialism after 1933, including the ancillary organisations which began to operate on company premises immediately following the change of regime. On the other hand, the company management systematically endeavoured to curry favour with important regime functionaries and influential political actors. If the application of certain components of the Baťa system in the German environment can be considered successful, there were also areas where the implementation of the Zlín model encountered obstacles, for example that of employment and social policy, where interventions by the state, the Nazi Party and its ancillary organisations became increasingly pronounced. For this reason, the Ottmuth company was able to copy the Zlín model of youth employment only in in its first few years of operation; following official interventions, there was rapid change in this area, and after 1935 a definitive transformation occurred in the age structure of employees, whose ranks also included forced labour during the war. The problem of reduced manufacturing productivity in this context can be understood similarly, but despite all the reversals the labour-production segment remained among the polyvalent and basically generally accepted elements of the Baťa system which also found their place in the post-war Polish economy. In Germany itself, however, the changes which occurred in connection with the overall organisation of post-war Europe contributed to a significant decline in the activities of the Baťa companies. In this new context, they were unable to resume their pre-war expansion plans.

The study focused on the factory colony of the mine „Jiří“ in Moravská Ostrava, by now only marginally refl ected upon by the regional historians, does not aim to be a monograph dealing with the history of one of the rough number of 55 miners‘ colonies on the territory of contemporary Ostrava. The study of the colony of „Jiří“ that existed from the year 1872 or 1889 to the year 1970 was motivated, fi rst, by the author’s interest in the proletarian colonies in Ostrava. But it also constitutes part of the research project begun in the year 2010. The research should culminate at producing a modern topography of miners‘ colonies of Ostrava that would replace the problematic topography of Jaroslav Bílek (1966). The study of the colony of „Jiří“ aims to refute the myth of its foundation before the year 1860, to describe in detail its constructional- architectonic development and the living standard, positively resolve the problem of the number of houses in the colony, and especially to remind the fact, unique in the region of Ostrava, of the double foundation of the colony in the years 1871 and 1888. Besides the general information concerning the setting and surroundings of the colony of „Jiří“ and its civic amenities, the study should provide the correction of the data on the population development of the colony in the years 1890–1910 presented in the thesis of Drahoslava Dušková (1976).

ŽÁČKOVÁ-BATKOVÁ, Jaromíra (rozená Martináková, psala se též Žáčková-Bátková, Batková-Žáčková, Batková), úřednice, politička a poslankyně za Československou stranu národně socialistickou, * 16. 1. 1902 Studénka (okr. Nový Jičín), † 23. 10. 1991 Francie
ŽÁČKOVÁ-BATKOVÁ, Jaromír (born Martináková, also written by Žáčková-Bátková, Batková-Žáčková, Batková), official, politician and MP for the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party, * 16. 1. 1902 Studénka (district Nový Jičín) † 23. 10. 1991 France

STUCHLÝ, Ignác, český salesiánský kněz, spoluzakladatel salesiánských aktivit v českých zemích a první provinciál české salesiánské provincie, * 14. 12. 1869 Bolesław (Polsko), † 17. 1. 1953 Lukov (okr. Zlín)
STUCHLÝ, Ignác, czech salesian priest, co-founder of salesian activities in the Czech lands and first provincial of the Czech Salesian province, *
14.1.1869 Bolesław (Poland), † 17. 1. 1953 Lukov (district of Zlin)

Smetana, Antonín, sociálnědemokratický politik, redaktor a senátor, * 7. 2. 1863 Lukavec (okres Pelhřimov), † 29. 3. 1939 Moravská Ostrava (místní část Ostravy).
Smetana, Antonin, Social Democratic politician, journalist and senator, * 7. 2. 1863 Lukavec (district of Pelhřimov), † 29. 3. 1939 Moravská Ostrava (local part of Ostrava).

PEPŘÍK, Erich, Mons., římskokatolický kněz, papežský prelát, emeritní generální vikář olomoucké arcidiecéze, * 25. 11. 1925 Slezská Ostrava (místní část Ostravy), † 9. 4. 2017 Kroměříž.
PEPŘÍK, Erich, Mons., Roman Catholic priest, papal prelate, emerite general vicar of Olomouc Archdiocese, * 25. 11. 1925 Silesian Ostrava (local part of Ostrava), † 9. 4. 2017 Kroměříž.

MALÝ, Oskar, římskokatolický kněz, spoluzakladatel Církve československé, * 5. 2. 1876 Wien (Rakousko), † 13. 12. 1948 Uherský Brod (okres Uherské Hradiště).
MALÝ, Oskar, Roman Catholic priest, co-founder of the Czechoslovak Church, * 5. 2. 1876 Wien (Austria), † 13. 12. 1948 Uherský Brod (district of Uherské Hradiště).

KUČERA, Felix, podnikatel v pohřebnictví, sociálně demokratický politik a činovník sociálně demokratického bezvěreckého hnutí, * 26. 11. 1892 Košatka nad Odrou (místní část Staré Vsi nad Ondřejnicí, okres Ostrava-město), † 11. 10. 1980 Ostrava.
KUČERA, Felix, a funeral entrepreneur, a social democratic politician and a member of the social democratic free movement, 26. 11. 1892 Košatka nad Odrou (local part of Stará Ves nad Ondřejnicí, district Ostrava-city), † 11. 10. 1980 Ostrava.

KLIMENT, Gustav (Augustin), československý politik, meziválečný a poválečný poslanec Národního shromáždění za KSČ, legionář, rudoarmějec, ministr průmyslu, * 3. 8. 1889 Třebíč, † 22. 10. 1953 Praha.
KLIMENT, Gustav (Augustin), Czechoslovak politician, inter-war and post-war MP of the National Assembly for the Communist Party, Legionnaire, Red Army, Minister of Industry, * 3. 8. 1889 Třebíč, † 22. 10. 1953 Prague.

HERLINGER, Wilhelm, dělník Vítkovických železáren a komunistický senátor německé národnosti, * 11. 2. 1874 Hrabová (místní část Ostrava), † 19. 10. 1942 Treblinka (Polsko); strýc spisovatelky a básnířky Ilse Weber.
HERLINGER, Wilhelm, Worker of the Vítkovice Ironworks and Communist Senator of German Nationality, * 11. 2. 1874 Hrabová (local part of Ostrava), † 19 October 1942 Treblinka (Poland); uncle of the writer and poet Ilse Weber.

HAAS, Viktor, JUDr., advokát, poslanec Národního shromáždění, ředitel Revírní bratrské pokladny, * 21. 7. 1881 Krásno nad Bečvou (místní část Valašského Meziříčí, okres Vsetín), † 12. 10. 1964 Smethwick (Velká Británie).
HAAS, Viktor, JUDr., Attorney, Member of the National Assembly, Director of the Mining Insurance Company, * 21. 7. 1881 Krásno nad Bečvou (local part of Valašské Meziříčí, Vsetín District) † 12. 10. 1964 Smethwick (Great Britain).

BÍLEK, František: politik a poslanec Národního shromáždění za KSČ, * 25. 3. 1891 Palkovice (okres Frýdek-Místek), † 27. 7. 1973 Praha.
BÍLEK, František: politician and deputy of the National Assembly for the Communist Party, * 25. 3. 1891 Palkovice (district of Frýdek-Místek), † 27. 7. 1973 Prague.

BARDON, František, esoterik, léčitel, iluzionista, autor esoterické literatury, * 1. 12. 1909 Kateřinky (m. č. Opavy), † 10. 6. 1958 Brno.
BARDON, František, healer, illusionist, author of esoteric literature, * 1. 12. 1909 Kateřinky (Opava), † 10. 6. 1958 Brno.

Ostrawskie kolonie robotnicze przechodziły w ciągu ponad półtorej stulecia swego istnienia kilka historycznych etapów, z których ten ostatni, bez względu na to czy kolonia dotąd istnieje, lub czy była po rozpoczęciu socjalistycznej industrializacji skazana na wymarcie, nierozłącznie związany był z obecnością mniejszości romskiej. Podczas gdy przed I wojną światową kolonie były homogenicznymi społeczno-zawodowo osadami z dramatycznie rosnącą populacją i często złymi warunkami mieszkaniowymi i podczas gdy w latach międzywojennych osadami stabilnymi ludnościowo i społecznie z bogatym życiem społecznym i towarzyskim, wraz z początkiem industrializacji socjalistycznej przyszło im znów grać rolę zakładowych osad z niskim poziomem mieszkaniowego standardu i wiekowo, narodowościowo
i kulturowo-społecznie zróżnicowaną populacją, w której niebagatelną rolę odgrywali romscy imigranci z regionów wschodnio-słowackich. Przedwojenna i międzywojenna społeczna i społeczno-zawodowa homogeniczność została zastąpiona kontrowersyjnymi stosunkami ludnościowymi i izolacją społeczną oraz przestrzenną. Ta ostatnia, potęgowana całkowicie pod względem jakości zacofanym w porównaniu z nowymi osiedlami zasobem mieszkaniowym i jego obcością w urbanistycznej całości przestrzennie i pod względem budownictwa szybko przekształcanego terenu miasta przemysłowego ery socjalistycznej, była wygodna zarówno dla społeczeństwa większościowego, ponieważ umożliwiała koncentrację i pozornie łatwiejszą kontrolę ludności romskiej, jak i dla samych Romów, przywykłych do przestrzennie i społecznie izolowanego stylu życia. Zapobiegała wszakże oczekiwanej przez większość resocjalizacji Romów. Jednak również w dobie gospodarki socjalistycznej kolonie robotnicze spełniały funkcję paternalistycznych kompleksów mieszkalnych, których mieszkańcy mieli być „ucywilizowani”. Podczas gdy przed 1945 r. byli obiektem intensywnej kontroli społecznej pracowników lokalnych zakładów przemysłowych poza siedzibą firmy, od połowy lat 50. w coraz większym stopniu rolę tę przejmowali właśnie Romowie, w epoce państwowej polityki społecznej, której dominacji ustąpiła w koloniach firmowa polityka społeczna w segmencie zakładowego zakwaterowania, kontrolowania, cywilizowania i resocjalizowania zgodnie z polityką państwa dotyczącą tzw. rozwiązania kwestii cygańskiej. Mimo, że Romowie po mniej więcej pięćdziesięciu latach obecności w ostrawskich koloniach robotniczych nadal pozostają obiektem państwowej polityki społecznej, wciąż się o nich nie mówi w publicznym dyskursie jako o tradycyjnych mieszkańcach ostrawskich kolonii robotniczych, choć mogłoby w nich mieszkać już czwarte pokolenie Romów.

The chapter describes the role of a woman in the life of the miners in the Ostrava and Karviná coalfield region in the period from the mid-19th century to the beginning of the First World War. The main topics of the essay are women's work in the mine and in the household, the hierarchy of women in the workers' colonies, the possibilities of communication, marital and illegitimate fertility, and sexual contacts in the masculine world of work in the coal mining.

Ein fl üchtiger Blick auf die historiografi sche Produktion der mit den tschechischen Ländern benachbarten Staaten beweist das ständige Interesse an der Problematik der Arbeitersiedlungen, die immer wieder ein beliebtes Thema der Architekturhistoriker, Kulturanthropologen, Urbanethnologen und Denkmalpfl eger sind. Mit dem aktuellen Stand der Erforschung von Arbeiterkolonien in den tschechischen Ländern, deren Forschungsanfänge in die Zeit um das Jahr 1950 zurückgeht, ermöglicht der Aufsatz den Lesern, als Resultat des langfristigen Interesses des Verfassers an der Problematik der tschechischen Arbeiterschaft in den Arbeitersiedlungen und Arbeitervierteln in den Industriestädten und -gebiete bekannt zu machen. Im neuen Jahrtausend zeigt sich das Interesse an den Arbeiterkolonien in den tschechischen Ländern durch ihre partiellen topografi schen Beschreibungen (Brno/Brünn, Ostrava/Ostrau, Ústí nad Labem/Aussig), ihre Erwähnungen in den Monografi en über die Steinkohlenreviere (Revier Kladno und Bergbaurevier Ostrava/Ostrau) und durch die Publikation einer ganze Reihe kleiner und auch monografi scher Studien, die aus den älteren nach dem Jahr 1989 unveröffentlichten Forschungen verfasst wurden. Immer häufi ger kehren die Arbeitersiedlungen als Themen von Fach- und wissenschaftlichen Tagungen und Zusammenkünften zurück. Eine eindeutig dominante Stellung unter den in der Geschichtsforschung der Arbeiterkolonien vor und nach dem Jahr 1989 führenden Regionen erhielt das Ostrauer Gebiet – einzelne Region tschechischer Länder, die sich mit der Monografi e der konkreten Arbeitersiedlung – der Salomonschacht-Kolonie (Na Šalomouně), wie auch mit der dreibändigen topographischen Abhandlung ungefähr eines Hunderts von Arbeiterkolonien auf dem Gebiet der Stadt Ostrau präsentieren kann. Trotz des nicht nachlassenden Interesses an dieser Problematik sind die aktuellen Forschungen in den tschechischen Ländern von limitierter Interdisziplinarität, heuristischer Unausgewogenheit und unzureichender thematische Innovationsfähigkeit geprägt.

In the period between the two world wars, Czechoslovak-Swiss economic relations had to contend with numerous barriers of various types–legislative, logistical, cultural, as well as purely economic and capital-related barriers; this is reflected in the fact that most accounts of Czechoslovakia’s international economic relations in the 1920s and 1930s omit coverage of the country’s links with Switzerland. One exception to this rule was the Baťa corporation, which in the late 1920s rose to become the world’s largest shoe exporter. Baťa not only exported a complete model system of business and production to Switzerland–embodied in the company town of Möhlin –but it also established a number of subsidiaries in Switzerland whose purpose was to protect Baťa’s capital interests across Europe. This paper does not focus primarily
on the holding company Leader AG (1931), the B. S. F. Foundation (1940) or the Kotva company (1941); the main attention is paid to Baťa’s two Swiss manufacturing
operations: Bata-Schuh AG (1929) and Argo AG (1936), which imported the corporation’s Ford-inspired production model and social practices to Switzerland. Despite numerous legislative restrictions and stiff opposition from local industry associations (which only began to wane during the Second World War), Bata-Schuh AG built up
a stable position on the Swiss market; in the mid-1930s the company became the leading Swiss producer of part-rubber or all-rubber footwear. The Bata-Schuh AG factory in Möhlin (on the banks of the Rhine, near the German border) played
a pioneering role in introducing production-line systems to Switzerland, and it also created a Baťa-style company town–a unique concept in Swiss urban development. In Möhlin, the corporation implemented a number of its trademark social practices related to employee care, housing and leisure activities–even though the company’s schools and print media were not actually located in the town itself.

The declaration of the new Czechoslovak national state in October 1918 brought revolutionary changes not only to the political, social, economic and cultural scene, but also to the religious life of the country. The new Czechoslovak national church created thirteen months later combined national orientation, the reformed clerical movement, theological modernism, the Hussite and reformation tradition and protest against the Catholic Church, definitively discredited in World War I. The newly established Czechoslovak Church received support from various authorities and was seen as the proper option for the good Czechoslovak citizen, primarily the worker. At the same time, it produced a violent conversion movement (1921, 1930) and many local conflicts (1920s). The paper will focus on the workers’ religious and national identification and changes in today’s Ostrava region – an industrial region (the centre of Czechoslovak heavy industry) situated on the ethnic borderline and in the melting pot of many nationalities (Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Germans and Jews). It will analyse the interactions between class and the religious and national identification of workers. It will try to clarify the process and the motivation to convert between different churches. Special attention will be given to conversions among the working class population in the 1920s and 1930s. This analysis will be based on conversion protocols, census documents from 1921 and 1930 and ecclesiastical files of the Roman Catholic and Czechoslovak church.

The long-standing significance of Ostrava as an economic and industrial centre of the Czech lands (from around 1850 to 1989) continues to thematically determine Ostrava’s position in Czech, Czechoslovakian and Central European historiography. The social scientists studying the spiritual and religious history of 20th-century Ostrava are somewhat on the periphery, and unlike research into the persecution of the Roman Catholic clergy and monks during the time of the Protectorate and the post-February period, interest in researching this issue of the interwar period has been slightly more cautious. This paper focuses on a brief description of the institutional development of the traditional players in interwar religious life in Greater Ostrava – the Roman Catholic Church, the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession, the Jewish religious community – and above all the new players in spiritual and religious life between the world wars: the Czechoslovak Church, the Association of Social Democratic Atheists and the spiritistic Brotherhood association, which used Ostrava as a centre of First Republic spiritual and religious life.

Probably the most important apolitical, non-physical education organization in interwar Ostravsko was the Sdružení českých bezvěrců [Association of Czech Atheists] (1919) or Sdružení sociálnědemokratických bezvěrců [Association of Social Democratic Atheists] (1919), from 1933 the Unie socialistických svobodných myslitelů [Union of Free Socialist Thinkers], which was the largest atheist organization in the region and, together with its press organ Volné slovo [The Free Word], was the main ideological rival to the Catholic Church. The development of atheism was facilitated by urbanization, anti-clerical propaganda from the socialist press, the experiences of the war, the antiCatholic ideology of the Czechoslovak state and generations’ experiences of religion failing to reflect the social realities of industrial Ostravsko. The association organised lectures and Sunday talks on natural morality, but also demonstrations (in 1925 for freedom of conscience, in 1935 for freedom of education, the 1936 Ferrer celebrations). In 1938 the Union transformed into the Osvětový svaz [Educational Union], which ended in 1940. Postwar attempts to revitalize the organization never recaptured the significance of the interwar atheist movement.

As in other European localities it selected from among economically stagnating regions, the Baťa concern’s activity in Upper Silesia was a turning point in the local history there. The concern was behind the transformation of Ottmuth from an agrarian and boating village into an industrial municipality, and later into a town (1954). The Baťa concern was not only responsible for Ottmuth’s urban transformation into a modern industrial municipality with the civic amenities of a small town, but also for the rapid growth of its population: While there were some 1,500 residents before the concern’s arrival, the population had doubled in less than a decade (2,900 residents in October 1937). Although the concern’s infl uence in the areas of population and urban development can be viewed as clearly positive, evaluating its activity in the economic sphere is more complicated. While certain economically acceptable principles of the Baťa business and production model were retained at the Otmęt plant – to the benefi t of Poland’s postwar economy – at least until the replacement of machinery around 1970, and – as German trade oversight authorities were loath to concede – they had spread even before the war to other nearby plants as well (e.g. the Moll company in the town of Brieg/Brzeg), the concern apparently gave up on expansion on the German market already in the mid-1930s, even though it profi ted in subsequent years at least from war contracts. The postwar organization of Europe, the nationalization of the concern’s enterprises in Poland, and its inability to resume large-scale production in the Soviet or the Anglo-American zone on the territory of today’s Federal Republic of Germany signifi cantly limited the Baťa concern’s subsequent activities on German territory.

The study about the factory colony of the Jindřich mine in Moravská Ostrava, the oldest workers’s colony in the urban area as a part of a wider research project, relates to some older research work of M. Myška and has been, so far, the only compact text on the already nonexistent Jindřich colony. In the introduction of the study the workers’s colony is localized within the urban area, however, the major part of its text, drafted on the basis of the study of contemporary press, contemporaries’ narratives and the archive materials in several Moravian-Silesian archives, contains an excursion into the historical development of the colony’s architecture with the reflection of its housing conditions.

Probably the most important apolitical and non-gymnastic associations in inter-war Ostrava were the Association of Czech Atheists and Association of Social Democratic Atheists, which in 1933 became the Union of Socialist Free Thinkers - the largest atheist organisation in the region and, via its newsletter Free Word, the main ideological opponent of the Roman Catholic Church. The development of atheism was caused by modernization, anti-clerical propaganda in the socialist press, the experience of wartime, the anti-Catholic ideology of Czechoslovak state, and generations of experience of a clergy which failed to reflect the social reality of the industrial conurbation of Ostrava. The association organized lectures and Sunday discussions on humanist morality, as well as holding demonstrations. Post-war attempts to revive the organization failed to restore it to the importance it had enjoyed between the wars.

During the interwar years, the footwear industry was confronted with similarly revolutionary changes and processes to those in the automobile industry which tend to be associated with the name of Henry Ford. Their major vehicle became the originally very modest enterprise of the Baťa siblings (Zlín, Czechoslovakia, today the Czech Republic), which, during the first half of the twentieth century, grew into a gigantic concern with global reach. From today’s perspective, the Baťa concern can be considered a textbook example of a modern enterprise oriented toward mass production of consumer goods which was constituted based on Fordian principles. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, a progressive model of enterprise took shape there, the substantive components of which included not only production, technological, and managerial elements, but also social rationalization supported by a vision of a new industrial culture which seemed to be inseparably linked to the new concept of organizing human life and labor.