Monday, 5 May 2025

Opening Ceremony (Marble Hall)
Ivo Macek (Director, Museum of Prague)
Jiří Pospíšil (City of Prague representative)
Adéla Gjuričová (Director of the Institute of Contemporary History
of the Czech Academy of Sciences)

Opening Session
Bohuslav Rejzl (Museum of Prague)

Lecture Hall I (Marble Hall)

Keynote lecture:
Resurrection of the oldest Prague Bell
Jana Bělová (Museum of Prague)

Panel I: Cities at the End of World War II

Chair: Zdenko Maršálek

Glimmers of Bad Times: Operation Tempest and the Lwów Uprising in 1944 against the Background of the Polish–Ukrainian Conflict
David Svoboda (Museum of Memory of the 20th Century)

When Lublin was a capital of Poland. Life in Lublin at the end of World War II
Adrian Świerbutowski (Jagiellonian University in Cracow)

Coffee Break

Chair: Stanislav Kokoška

Führer befiehl, wir folgen! The Twilight of the German Occupation
Administration as Seen by Karel Wild, Mayor of Plzeň

Karel Řeháček (State Regional Archive in Plzeň)

The Uprising in Přerov on 1 May 1945 in the Context of Similar Anti-Nazi Demonstrations during World War II
Pavel Kopeček (Palacký University Olomouc, Faculty of Education)

Ruzyně Airport: The Struggles for the Airport in May 1945 and Its Restoration in the Early Post-War Years
Michal Plavec (National Technical Museum in Prague)

Lunch Break

Chair: Stanislav Kokoška

The May Events in Chlumec nad Cidlinou
Miloš Bernardt (Museum of Memory of the 20th Century)

The Liberation and Restoration of the “Rebellious” Banská Bystrica in 1945
Lukáš Volentier (Museum of the Slovak National Uprising)

Iglau versus Jihlava: The Path to Power
Teresa Urbář (independent researcher)

Coffee Break

Panel II: Post-War Reconstruction of the Metropolis

Chair: Bohuslav Rejzl

The rebuilding of Warsaw’s Old Town and the development of the historic district concept in early post-war Poland
Mikołaj Getka-Kenig (Polish Academy of Sciences)

Justice, Governance, and Reconstruction: Luxembourg City in the Aftermath of WWII
Jóe Voncken (Université du Luxembourg, Luxembourg Centre For Contemporary and Digital History )

Czechoslovak Security Forces and the Presence of the Red Army in Liberated Prague in 1945
David Hubený (National Archives of the Czech Republic)

Coordinating Relief: Networks of Towns, Network of Humanitarian Delegations in Europe in the Aftermath of the Second World War
Camille Meyere (independent researcher)

Coffee Break

Panel III: Cities on the Threshold of Political Change

Chair: Magdaléna Šustová

The Hopes and Illusions of Town Halls: Changes in Municipal Administration after 1945
Jan Dobeš (Faculty of Arts, Charles University / Institute of Contemporary History of the CAS)

Zenkl or Vacek: A Dispute over the Mayor of Prague after May 1945
Jiří Kocián (Institute of Contemporary History of the CAS)

Local Government and Governance Changes during the Third Czechoslovak Republic: The Case of Moravian Ostrava
Lubomír Nenička (School of Business Administration in Karviná, Silesian University in Opava)

The Virtue of Necessity: The Unification of Trade Unions in Czechoslovakia in 1945
Jiří Pokorný (Faculty of Education, Charles University)

School as a Means of Creating a “New Man“: Educational Policy of the Communist Authorities in Zagreb in the Immediate Aftermath of the Second World War
Tomislav Kardum (Croatian Institute of History Zagreb)

Lecture Hall II (Kaláb Hall)

Panel IV: War Memory and Ideology in Monument Culture

Chair: Jiří Pokorný

The Echoes of the Slovak State in Slovak Visual Arts after 1945
Katarína Ihringová (Trnava University, Faculty of Philosophy and Arts)

The Origins of the Cults of the Red Army/Stalin/USSR in Post-War Czechoslovakia
Marie Černá (Institute of Contemporary History of the CAS)

Coffee Break

Forming the Memory of the Liberation of Czechoslovakia: Representing Memorials
Markéta Devátá (Institute of Contemporary History of the CAS)

Competing memory politics in contemporary Subotica (Serbia).
Local cultural traumas of the World War II
Viktor Fehér (University of Novi Sad)

The Memorials of World War II in Post-War Czechoslovakia: Instruments of Memory and Ideological Legitimacy
Petra Hudek (Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences)

Lunch Break

Chair: Markéta Devátá

Tábor and Its Sites of Remembrance in Evolving Times
Lenka Vandrovcová (The Hussite Museum in Tábor)

World War II Monuments and Memorials in the Pardubice Region
David Kučera (Faculty of Education, Charles University)

From Memory to Memorial: The Reconstruction and Use of Churches Destroyed during World War II
Martin Čechura (Museum of Prague)

Coffee Break

Panel V: Post-War Reconstruction of a Small Town

Chair: Petr Chlebec

The End of Frývaldov, the Origin of Jeseník: The Transformation of the Borderland District Town from 1945 to 1948
Ondřej Kolář (Silesian Museum in Opava)

The First Post-War Year in Vsetín
Pavel Mašláň (Museum of the Wallachian Region)

A Village in the Borderlands: The Construction and Activities of Post-War Municipal Governments in the Czech Borderlands in 1945
David Kovařík (Institute of Contemporary History of the CAS)

“Let Them Bite the Dust!” The Case of the Hanke Camp and Its Significance for the Development of Local Power Elites in the Ostrava Branch of the Moravian-Silesian Provincial National Committee
Lubomír Hlavienka (Silesian Museum in Opava)

Coffee Break

Panel VI: Life Paths of Personalities in the War and Post-War Period

Chair: Renáta Kalašová

Pavel Tigrid – the Criminal of the Pen: Pavel Tigrid in the People’s Party Periodicals Obzory (Horizons) and Vývoj (Development) during the Third Czechoslovak Republic
Kryštof Zeman (Museum of Memory of the 20th Century)

Karel Lutovský: A Confident or a Hero
Jitka Vandrovcová (The Hussite Museum in Tábor)

Escaping from Lety: The Resistance Activities of Josef Serinek in the Light of Newly Discovered Memories
Anna Míšková (Museum of Romani Culture)

Lecture Hall I (Marble Hall)

Official closing of the first day of the conference, organizational guidelines for the evening programme

Public programme on the anniversary of the Prague Uprising in May 1945

Dinner