OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
From the perspective of 1989 the 20th century in Europe seemed to be the story of a contested but ultimately successful triumph of liberal democracy over the ideologies of communism, fascism and virulent nationalism. Prague was one of the main scenes of this heroic drama which contributed enduring images of European history: the proclamation of the Czechoslovak Republic 1918, the German occupation of Prague in March 1939, the seizure of power by the Communists in 1948, the protests of the Prague Spring on Wenceslas Square, the Soviet occupation in August 1968, and finally the Velvet Revolution. Twentieth-first century trends in East Central Europe seem to have reversed these developments, especially in Hungary and Poland but to a certain degree also in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Particularistic framings now dominate contemporary East Central European politics. The lecture will explore the question of whether universalism and particularism are meaningful concepts with which to understand the broader sweep of Czechoslovak history.
