This article adds to recent intergenerational family memory research by presenting an empirical study of three-generational stories recounted by thirteen families in the Czech Republic. By drawing on a detailed and rigorous methodological approach, this article focuses on the topic of stories, their emotionality, and the personal traits of the heroes. The majority of families told their family stories in a prototypical, perhaps archetypal fashion, depicting their ancestors as heroes under circumstances of danger, fear, and threat. A tendency to valorize ancestors is observed in the stories framed by important historical events while private family stories tend to have more of an amusing character. Why a family shares that or another type of stories depends on many circumstances, particularly on a long-lived and generative ancestor, intergenerational relations, and family values.

The aim of the article is to gain a more comprehensive insight into the Czech collective memory of the Second World War. The article suggests that vivid collective representations of the Second World War are formed by family memory as well as by generational memory. On the example of four generations, the article shows the transformation of a national narrative of persecution and resistance of the oldest generation into an abstracted and generalized narrative of the youngest generation. Attention is paid to family recollections, their importance for the creation of the war memory by older generations, and their gradual disappearance from younger generations. The article documents the change of the perspective with which the youngest generation remembers the Second World War and stresses the emotional engagement of remembering. It argues that holocaust memory is well included into the Czech collective memory but in a new form shaped by the new culture of remembering.

No abstract

No abstract

This article examines how memories of nobility in contemporary Czech society influence the narratives of the descendants of Bohemian nobility. First, the article focuses on the nobles’ values, which are deeply imprinted in the memory of the interviewees, even if they publicly deny this. Further, the article explores the reasons for the glorification of the interviewee’s fathers, drawing on concepts of analytical psychology. Examining the role of mothers and the role of education, the article finally illustrates how a family’s memory of nobility remains particularly stable, transcending generations.