History of Central European
Culture since the 19th century I
 spring 2023
 Monday 14.00, room C34
 Markéta Malá: 2 lectures
 Print Media and Their Role in the
19th century
 Media in Interwar Period
WHAT IS THE INTERWAR PERIOD?
 Lasted from November 1918 to September 1939
 20 years, 9 months, 21 days
 From the end of the FirstWorldWar to the
beginning of the SecondWorldWar.
PRINT MEDIA IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD
TEST: THE INDEPENDENT CZECHOSLOVAK REPUBLIC
 1)When was the independent
Czechoslovak Republic founded?
 2) What was it called?
 3) What was the population of the new
country?
THE FIRST CZECHOSLOVAK REPUBLIC
 1)When was the independent Czechoslovak
Republic founded?
 It existed from 1918 to 1938.
 2) What was it called?
 The first Czechoslovak Republic
 3)What was the population of the new country?
 The population was over 13.5 million
PRESIDENTS
 4) Do you know at least one of the two presidents of
Czechoslovakia in the interwar period?
 Do you know that MU is named after Tomáš Garrigue
Masaryk?
 The first president of independent Czechoslovakia.
 MU is the second largest university in the Czech Republic.
PRESIDENTS OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA
 4) Do you know at least one of the two presidents of
Czechoslovakia in the interwar period?
 Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1918 – 1935)
 Edvard Beneš (1935- 1938)
5) WHICH CZECHOSLOVAK POLITICAL PARTY WAS THE
MOST INFLUENTIAL DURING THE INTERWAR PERIOD?
 a)The Social Democratic Party
 b) The Republican Party
 c)The Czechoslovak People's Party
 d) The National Democratic Party
 e) The National Social Party
REPUBLICAN PARTY
All these parties were important.
The most influential was the Republican Party.
It was the voice for the agrarian population.
Most of the prime ministers in the interwar
period were from the Republican Party.
5) WHICH CZECHOSLOVAK POLITICAL PARTY WAS THE
MOST INFLUENTIAL DURING THE INTERWAR PERIOD?
ANTONÍN ŠVEHLA (1873-1933)
 He was the Prime Minister of
Czechoslovakia for three terms.
 He was one of the most important
political figures of the First
Czechoslovak Republic.
 He was the leader of the Agrarian Party.
LIDOVÉ NOVINY
• Was founded by Adolf Stránský in Brno in 1893.
 It is the oldest Czech daily newspaper still in print.
 It was popular in the interwar period.
 Most of the time under Communism, Lidové noviny wasn´t
published at all.
6) WHICH NEWSPAPER IS THE OLDEST CZECH DAILY
STILL IN PRINT?
Its high prestige was due to the number of
famous Czech personalities that were
contributing - writers, politicians and
philosophers.
A lot of great writers published their articles
in it: Karel Čapek, Ferdinand Peroutka.
It was also the first Czech daily
publishing political cartoons.
LIDOVÉ NOVINY
ČESKÉ SLOVO
 Also known as Svobodné slovo.
 It was a Czech daily newspaper
 founded and published in Prague since
1907.
 It was the most popular Czech newspaper
in the interwar period.
WHICH CZECH NEWSPAPERS WERE MOST POPULAR IN
THE INTERWAR PERIOD?
NÁRODNÍ LISTY
 Was a Czech newspaper published in Prague from 1861 to
1941.
 A lot of famous writers, politicians
 worked for Narodní listy.
 Jan Neruda,Vítězslav Hálek
 Karel Sladkovský, Josef Čapek…
WHICH CZECH NEWSPAPERS WERE MOST POPULAR IN
THE INTERWAR PERIOD?
 Several independent newspaper titles were created.
 New national and regional newspapers, new
magazines appeared.
 The Czechoslovak Press Office (ČTK) was
established.
 The pre-war structure of the press was preserved.
 Newspapers continued to be associated with
political parties.
Media in Czechoslovakia after Word War I.
During the first republic, the state censored the content
of published newspapers.
It forbade the publication of information, articles criticizing
certain police activities and areas of state policy interest.
If an article was problematic, the newspaper would appear
without it: with a blank space.
But in many newspapers the opinions about the existing
regime could be found.
CENSORSHIP
 Rudé právo was the official newspaper of the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.
 The newspaper was founded in 1920.
 During the 1920s and 1930s it was often censored
and even temporarily stopped.
 In autumn 1938 the party was abolished.
 During the German occupation the newspaper
became an underground pamphlet.
RUDÉ PRÁVO
 Karel Čapek (1890–1938)
 He was a Czech writer, playwright, critic and journalist.
 He worked as an editor for the Czech paper Národní listy,
in 1921 he joined the staff of Lidové noviny.
 He has become best known for his science fiction,
including his play R.U.R., which introduced the word robot.
 He campaigned in favor of free expression and was
strongly opposed to the rise of both fascism and
communism in Europe.
 Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times.
FAMOUS CZECH JOURNALISTS – INTERWAR PERIOD
 Ferdinand Peroutka (1895–1978)
 He was a prominent political thinker, journalist and
writer during the First Czechoslovak Republic.
 Peroutka was persecuted by the Nazi regime for his
democratic convictions and imprisoned at the
Buchenwald concentration camp.
 Following the 1948 coup by the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia, he emigrated to the United Kingdom.
FAMOUS CZECH JOURNALISTS – INTERWAR PERIOD
 Karel Poláček (1892–1945)
 He was a Czech writer, humourist and journalist of
Jewish descent.
 In Lidové noviny he published his feature stories and
very popular series called „Soudničky“.
 Near the end of 1943, he was transported to the
Theresienstadt concentration camp and then
transferred to Auschwitz.
 He died in the Gleiwitz camp.
FAMOUS CZECH JOURNALISTS – INTERWAR PERIOD
 Paul Sethe (1901–1967)
 He was a German writer and journalist.
 From 1934 until the moment when the newspaper was
banned in 1943 by the Nazis, he was editor of the
Frankfurter Zeitung.
 After World War II Sethe was one of the founding
editors of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung developed soon to the
leading national newspaper in Germany.
FAMOUS EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS – INTERWAR PERIOD
 Fritz Michael Gerlich (1883 – 1934)
 He was a German journalist and historian.
 Editor-in-chief of the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten
and Der Gerade Weg.
 He was one of the main journalistic opponents
of Adolf Hitler.
 He was arrested, later killed at the Dachau
concentration camp.
FAMOUS EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS – INTERWAR PERIOD
 John Black Atkins (1871–1954)
 He was a British journalist.
 He served as a war correspondent for the Manchester
Guardian in the Spanish–American War, the GraecoTurkish
War.
 Atkins became a friend of his fellow correspondent
Winston Churchill.
 He left The Manchester Guardian in 1907 and joined
The Spectator as an assistant editor.
FAMOUS EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS – INTERWAR PERIOD
 Harold Gordon Cardozo (1888–1963)
 He was an English journalist, soldier, war
correspondent, and author.
 Cardozo’s main career was as the Daily Mail
correspondent.
 He covered the Spanish Civil War for the
newspaper.
FAMOUS EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS – INTERWAR PERIOD
 Albert Londres (1884 –1932)
 He was a French journalist and writer.
 He was a reporter working for Le Petit Journal and Le
Petit Parisien.
 One of the inventors of investigative journalism.
 Londres not only reported the news but created it, and
reported it from a personal perspective.
 Albert Londres gave his name to a journalism prize,
the Prix Albert-Londres, for francophone journalists.
FAMOUS EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS – INTERWAR PERIOD
FAMOUS NEWSPAPERS IN EUROPE IN THE
INTERWAR PERIOD
In Germany
 There were a lot of local newspapers in
Germany, every town had a newspaper.
 Munchener Post, Der Gerade Weg: all of
them warned against Hitler.
 The most famous daily
The Frankfurter Zeitung: it was a German-language
newspaper that appeared from 1856 to 1943.
GREAT BRITAIN: WAR BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW
 Important newspapers in the interwar period:
 TheTimes
 The Daily Telegraph
 The Daily Mail
 The Daily Express
 The Daily Mirror
 The Daily Herald
 The Express
NEWSPAPER WARS IN BRITAIN
 A war between the existing newspapers and the new
popular papers founded in Britain at the start of the
twentieth century.
 The Express belonged among the
 new newspapers.
 Arguably, this newspaper came out on top after the
newspaper wars.
 It was the best-selling newspaper in Britain from the mid-
1930s until the late 1940s.
FRANCE: THE MOST IMPORTATNT NEWSPAPERS IN THIS
ERA
 Le Figaro
 La Croix
 L'Intransigeant
 Le Petit Journal
 Le Matin
 Le Petit Parisien.
PARIS SOIR
 Paris Soir was the major postwar success story.
 Lacked any political agenda.
 It was dedicated to providing sensational reporting
FRANCE: THE MOST IMPORTATNT NEWSPAPERS IN THIS
ERA
HISTORICAL EVENTS IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD
 The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed in
June 1919.
 It was the most important treaty of World War I.
 Germany had to pay reparations. The treaty's terms
against Germany resulted in economic collapse and
bitter resentment which powered the rise of the Nazi
Party.
 There were numerous new or restored countries in
Southern, Central and Eastern Europe. For example:
Latvia, Poland, Czechoslovakia etc.
HISTORICAL EVENTS IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD
• The Twenties were prosperous:A time of both social
mobility and economic mobility for the middle class.
• Followed by the Great Depression, which was a worldwide
economic depression that took place after 1929.
• Politically: it was the era when communism and fascism rose.
• A lot of revolutions took place:
• Revolutions in Russia
• The Chinese Civil War
• The Spanish Civil War
WHO ARE THESE POLITICIANS?
NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN
ÉDOUARD DALADIER
ADOLF HITLER
HISTORICAL EVENTS IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD
Édouard Daladier (1884 – 1970)
 He was a French Radical-Socialist
(centre-left) politician.
 The Prime Minister of France who
signed the Munich Agreement before the
outbreak of WorldWar II.
WHO ARE THESE POLITICIANS?
NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN (1869 – 1940)
 British politician. Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940.
 Leader of the Conservative Party.
 He is best-known for his foreign policy of
appeasement.
 He signed the Munich Agreement in September 1938.
 Followed the German invasion of Poland and the
Second World War began.
The Munich Agreement
 Was an agreement concluded in Munich in September
1938.
 The agreement enabled the German annexation of the
lands on the border between Czechoslovakia and
Germany called the Sudetenland.
 In the Sudetenland lived more than three million
people, mainly ethnic Germans.
 The pact is also known as the Munich Betrayal,
because of the previous 1924 alliance agreement and
the 1925 military pact between France and the
Czechoslovak Republic.
Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945)
 Was an Austrian-born German politician.
 The dictator of Germany from 1933 until his suicide
in 1945.
 He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party.
 What else do you know about Hitler or nazism?
 Did nazism effect your country or your family?
FEMINISM
 Feminism is a range of socio-political movements
and ideologies that aim to define and establish the
political, economic, personal, and social equality
of the sexes.
 Feminist movements have campaigned for
women's rights, including the right to vote, run for
public office, work, earn equal pay, own property,
receive education etc.
 TheWoman's Leader
 Time and Tide
 Birth Control News: The journal had a strange
name, but it was very progressive.
• About feminism and gender, divorce, marriage,
women´s work, parenthood for children, sex etc.
TIME AND TIDE (MAGAZINE)
 It was entirely controlled, staffed and
edited by women.
 The journal constantly drew attention to
women's advances.
 such as the election of women to
parliament
INTERWAR WOMEN JOURNALISTS
 Newspapers were a public forum.
 Journalism became a source of power.
 Women became journalists, too.
 FRANTIŠKA PLAMÍNKOVÁ, KÄTHE LEICHTER,
 SIMONE TÉRY, MARGARET RHONDDA…
FRANTIŠKA PLAMÍNKOVÁ (1875–1942)
 Was a Czech feminist, teacher, journalist and senator.
 She wrote articles to Časopis učitelek, Ženský obzor,
Čas, České slovo, etc.
 She became involved in feminism because teachers
were forbidden to marry. She couldn´t marry her
boyfriend either.
INTERWAR WOMEN JOURNALISTS
FRANTIŠKA PLAMÍNKOVÁ
 A vice president of the International Council of
Women, as well as the International Woman's
Suffrage Alliance.
 Attended many international feminist congresses.
 She was brave.
 She even wrote an open letter to Hitler, criticizing
his regime.
 Plamínková was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942 and
executed.
KÄTHE LEICHTER (1895-1942)
 Was an Austrian Jewish economist, women's rights activist,
journalist and politician.
 She published articles and reports about women's work in
Austria.
 Also gave school lectures and radio broadcasts to advocate
women's rights.
 She was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria.
 She was detained in Ravensbrück concentration camp during the
Nazi regime and killed in 1942.
OLGA FASTROVÁ (1876-1965)
 Was the first Czech professional journalist.
 Also teacher, translator, writer.
 Between 1907–1936, she was permanent editor
of the newspaper Národní politika.
EA VON ALLESCH (1875-1953)
 Was an Austrian journalist and writer.
 Worked for the fashion section ofViennese
cultural magazines.
MILENA JESENSKÁ (1896-1944)
 Was a Czech journalist, writer, editor and translator.
 She worked for Národní listy, Pestrý týden and Lidové
noviny.
 After the occupation, Jesenská joined underground
resistance movement.
 Helped many Jewish and political refugees to emigrate.
 In November 1939, she was arrested by the Gestapo.
 Jesenská died of kidney failure in Ravensbrück in 1944.
SIMONE TÉRY (1897-1967)
 Was a French journalist.
 Wrote several books.
 Was a war correspondent.
 She wrote for L'Humanité,Vendredi, and
Regards.
 She reported on the Irish CivilWar,
interwar France, and the Spanish Civil War.
MARGARET RHONDDA (1883–1958)
 Businesswoman and an active suffragette in the
United Kingdom.
 Rhondda foundedTime and Tide magazine in
1920.
 Time and Tide was a left-wing feminist weekly
magazine.
Bibliography
John Grenville: A history of the world in the twentieth
century. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2000.
Martin Gilbert: A History of the Twentieth Century Harper.
Harper Collins Publishers 2022.
Kenneth E. Olson: The history makers: The press of
Europe from its beginnings through 1965, LSU Press
1966.
Franklin, Bob: Pulling newspapers apart: analysing print
journalism. Routledge 2008.
Paul Manning: News and News Sources: A Critical
Introduction. SAGE Publications 2001.