Evil Communists or Times when the World Was Better?: Social Networks as an Arena for Conflicting Memories of So-called Normalisation and Democratic Transformation

Bohumil Melichar

doi:10.14712/24645370.5653

No. 1 (2026) Studies and Essays

Evil Communists or Times when the World Was Better?: Social Networks as an Arena for Conflicting Memories of So-called Normalisation and Democratic Transformation

Bohumil Melichar,

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/24645370.5653

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“Evil Communists or Times When the World Was Better?: Social Networks As an Arena for Conflicting Memories of So-Called Normalisation and Democratic Transformation”. 2026. Dějiny – Teorie – Kritika, no. 1 (July): 41-72. https://doi.org/10.14712/24645370.5653.

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Abstract

This study is an analysis of the behaviour of Czech users of the social network Facebook in relation to carefully curated historical sources from the period of late socialism. It is the result of a social media campaign carried out by the author in cooperation with the Czech Television Archive in 2024, which consisted of the daily republishing of television reportage broadcasts from 1970 to 2000 on Facebook. This content attracted hundreds of thousands of users, who willingly shared their memories and attitudes towards late socialism and the democratic transformation in post discussions. Their contributions were evaluated as material suitable for an observational study of naturally occurring online discourse. Subsequent analysis of these discussions has illuminated the mechanisms of remembering, forgetting, and conflict over preferable remembrance that characterise the debate about the socialist dictatorship. The author thus analyses the persisting heated debates on the legacy of state socialism and the role of the media as a trigger of collective memory.

Keywords late socialism socialist dictatorship contested past social media remembrance nostalgia

References

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STEINHAUER, JASON, History Disrupted: How Social Media and the World Wide Web Have Changed the Past, Washington 2021. Search in Google Scholar
STURKEN, MARITA, Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering, Berkeley–Los Angeles–London 1997. Search in Google Scholar
ŠTEFEK, MARTIN, Tisková a informační politika orgánů ÚV KSČ v letech 1968 - 1989 [Press and Information Policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1968-1989], in: Optimální cenzurou bude kádrová politika. Tisková politika v období tzv. normalizace 1968- 1989 [The optimal censorship will be a cadre policy. Press policy in the period of so-called normalisation 1968-1989], (eds). Petr Andreas, Martin Štefek, Prague 2023. Search in Google Scholar
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TODOROVA, MARIA, The Process of Remembering Communism, in: Remembering Communism: Genres of Representation, (ed.) Maria Todorova, New York 2010. Search in Google Scholar
Týdeník ohlasy diváků v ČSR [Weekly Audience Survey in Czechoslovakia], internal document Československé televize, April 1989. Search in Google Scholar
UHLÍŘ, MARTIN, Zlaté časy za Husáka. Více než polovina lidí v průzkumech oceňuje bývalý komunistický režim [The golden days of Husák. More than half of the people in the surveys appreciate the former communist regime], Respekt, 13. 11. 2024, Search in Google Scholar
https://www.respekt.cz/kontext/zlate-casy-za-husaka-vice-nez-polovina-lidi-v-pruzkumech-ocenuje-byvaly-komunisticky-rezim-40492984 (accessed 19 November 2025). Search in Google Scholar
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License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

[1] 35 let demokracie [35 Years of Democracy], Prague 2024. Search in Google Scholar

[2] ADRIAANSEN, ROBBERT J., SMIT RIK, Collective Memory and Social Media, Current Opinion in Psychology, 65/2025. Search in Google Scholar

[3] AMBRUSTER, STEFANIE, Watching Nostalgia: An Analysis of Nostalgic Television Fiction and its Reception, Bielefeld 2016. Search in Google Scholar

[4] ANGÉ, OLIVIA a BERLINER, DAVID, Introduction: Anthropology of Nostalgia, in: Anthropology and Nostalgia, New York–Oxford 2015. Search in Google Scholar

[5] ASMANN, ALEIDA, Erinnerungsräume Formen und Wandlungen de Kulturellen Gedächtnisses, Munich 2003. Search in Google Scholar

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[8] BAUMAN, ZYGMUNT, Liquid Modernity, Malden 2006. Search in Google Scholar

[9] BAUMAN, ZYGMUNT, Retrotopia, Cambridge 2017. Search in Google Scholar

[10] BEHR, VALENTIN, BLAIVE, MURIEL, CONSTANTIN, ANEMONA, NEUMAYER, LAUERE, ZOMBORY, MÁTÉ, Anti-Communist Consensus: The Black Book of Communism, in: Revue d'études Comparatives Est-Ouest, 51/2020. Search in Google Scholar

[11] BEN-DAVID, ANAT, OREN MEYERS, MOTTI NEIGER, How social memory works on social media: A methodological framework, Memory, Mind & Media 3/2024, e20. Search in Google Scholar

[12] BOBBIO, NORBERTO, Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction, Cambridge–Chicago 1997. Search in Google Scholar

[13] BOYM, SVETLANA, The Future of Nostalgia, New York 2001. Search in Google Scholar

[14] BREN, PAULINA, The Greengrocer and His TV: The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring, Ithaca–London 2010. Search in Google Scholar

[15] BUCHER, TAINA, If…Then: Algorithmic Power and Politics, New York 2018. Search in Google Scholar

[16] CALIANDRO, ALESSANDRO, GANDINI, ALESSANDRO, BAINOTT, LUCIA, and ANSELMI, GUIDO, The Platformisation of Consumer Culture: Digital Methods Guide, Amsterdam 2024. Search in Google Scholar

[17] ČINÁTL, KAMIL, Naše české minulosti aneb jak vzpomínáme [Our Czech Past or How We Remember], Prague 2005. Search in Google Scholar

[18] DAVISON, J. J., Nostalgia: Sanctuary of Meaning, Lewisburg 2005. Search in Google Scholar

[19] DE MATAS, JARREL, Making the Nation Great Again: Trumpism, European Populism and the Politics of Nostalgia, Journal of Comparative Politics 10/2017, no. 2. Search in Google Scholar

[20] DUJISIN, ZOLTÁN, Post-Communist Europe. On the Path to a Regional Regime of Remembrance?, in: Thinking through Transition: Liberal Democracy, Authoritarian Pasts, and Intellectual History in East Central Europe After 1989, (eds.) Michal Kopeček, Piotr Wcislik, Budapest 2015. Search in Google Scholar

[21] FIDELIUS, PETR, Byla normalizace normální? [Was normalisation normal?], Slovo a smysl [Word and Sense] 35/2020. Search in Google Scholar

[22] FOUCAULT, MICHEL, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, New York 2012. Search in Google Scholar

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[27] [Main directions of the work of Czechoslovak Television editorial offices: supplement to the programme guidelines], Prague 1986. Search in Google Scholar

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[29] KALINOVÁ, LENKA, Konec nadějí a nová očekávání. K dějinám české společnosti 1969-1993 [The End of Hopes and New Expectations. On the History of Czech Society 1969-1993], Prague 2012. Search in Google Scholar

[30] KOLÁŘ, PAVEL, Langsamer Abschied vom Totalitarismus-Paradigma? Neue tschechische Forschungen zur Geschichte der KPTsch-Diktatur, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Froschung 55/ 2006, H. 2 Search in Google Scholar

[31] KUNDERA, MILAN, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, London 1995. Search in Google Scholar

[32] KUNŠTÁT, DANIEL, Za rudou oponou. Komunisté a jejich voliči po roce 1989 [Behind the Red Curtain. Communists and their Voters after 1989], Prague 2013. Search in Google Scholar

[33] KUŽELOVÁ, MARIE, Češi jsou frustrovaní. Třetina jich hodnotí současný stav jako horší než komunistický režim [The Czechs are frustrated. A third of them rate the current situation as worse than the communist regime], Novinky.cz, 14. 10. 2024. Search in Google Scholar

[34] LOWENTHAL, DAVID, Nostalgia tells it like it wasn’t, in: The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia, (eds.) Christopher Shaw, Malcolm Chase, Manchester–New York 1989. Search in Google Scholar

[35] MASON, JENNIFER, Qualitative Researching, London–New Delhi 2002. Search in Google Scholar

[36] MAŠKOVÁ, TEREZA, RIPKA VOJTĚCH, Železná opona v Československu. Usmrcení na československých státních hranicích v letech 1948–1989 [The Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia. Executions at the Czechoslovak State Borders in 1948–1989], Prague 2015. Search in Google Scholar

[37] NAVRÁTIL, JIŘÍ, Czech Republic, in: Civil society and leftist values—Comparative study mapping the state of civil society organizations from a leftist perspective in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, Prague 2020. Search in Google Scholar

[38] NOLČ, MARCEL, Příručka novináře. Sborník informačních dokumentů pro novináře [A journalist's handbook. Compendium of Information Documents for Journalists], Prague 1989. Search in Google Scholar

[39] PAPPIN, GLADDEN J., Machiavellian Politics, Modern Management and the Case of Donald J. Trump, in: Trump and Political Philosophy: Leadership, Statesmanship and Tyranny, (eds.) Angel J. Torres, Marc B. Sable, Cham 2018, pp. 144–145. Search in Google Scholar

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[41] PEHE, VERONIKA, Velvet Retro: Postsocialist Nostalgia and the Politics of Heroism in Czech Popular Culture, New York–Oxford 2020. Search in Google Scholar

[42] PEHE, VERONIKA, WAWRZYNIAK, JOANA (eds.), Remembering the Neoliberal Turn: Economic Change and Collective Memory in Eastern Europe after 1989, London–New York 2024. Search in Google Scholar

[43] PICKERING, MICHAEL, KEIGHTLY, EMILY, The Modalities of Nostalgia, Current Sociology 54/2006, no. 6. Search in Google Scholar

[44] PINK, SARAH, HORST, HEATHER, POSTILl, JOHN, HJORTH, LARISSA, LEWIS, TANIA, TACCHI, JO, Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practice, London–Washington DC 2016. Search in Google Scholar

[45] PINKAS, JAROSLAV, Jak vzpomínáme na normalizaci. Obrazy normalizační minulosti ve filmu [As we Remember Normalisation. Images of the Normalisation in Film], Prague 2020. Search in Google Scholar

[46] PULLMANN, MICHAL, Konec experimentu. Přestavba a pád komunismu v Československu [The End of Experiment. Perestroika and the Fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia], Prague 2011. Search in Google Scholar

[47] RAMEŠ, VÁCLAV, Trh bez přívlastků, nebo ekonomickou demokracii? Spory o podobu ekonomické transformace v porevolučním Československu [A Market without Attributes or Economic Democracy? Disputes over the Shape of Economic Transformation in Post-revolutionary Czechoslovakia], Prague 2021. Search in Google Scholar

[48] REIFOVÁ, IRENA, Theoretical framework for the study of memory in old and new media age, in: Journalism, Representation and the Public Sphere, (eds.) Leif Kramp, Nico Carpentier, Andreas Hepp, Ilija Tomanić Trivundža, Hannu Nieminen, Risto Kunelius, Tobias Olsson, Ebba Sundin and Richard Kilborn, Bremen 2015. Search in Google Scholar

[49] ROBARDS, BRADY, LINCOLN. SIAN, PINKARD, BENJAMIN C., HARRIS, JANE, Remembering Through Facebook: Mediated Memory and Intimate Digital Traces, in: Digital Intimate Publics and Social Media, (eds.) Amy S. Dobson, Brady Robards, Nicholas Carah, Washington 2018. Search in Google Scholar

[50] ROUBAL, PETR, Spartakiads. The Politics of Physical Culture in Communist Czechoslovakia.,Prague 2019. Search in Google Scholar

[51] RŮŽIČKA, DANIEL, Major Zeman. Zákulisí vzniku televizního seriálu [Major Zeman. Behind the scenes of the making of the TV series], Prague 2005. Search in Google Scholar

[52] Sčítání lidu, domů a bytů [Census of Population, Houses and Flats], Praha 2021, https://scitani.gov.cz/vekova-struktura#skupina-282357 (accessed on 19 November 2025). Search in Google Scholar

[53] SCHEIRING, GÁBOR, AZAROVA, AYTALINA, IRDAM, DARJA, DONIEC, KATARZYNA, MCKEE, MARTIN, STUCKLER, DAVID, KING, LAWRENCE, Deindustrialisation and the post-socialist mortality crisis, Cambridge Journal of Economics 47/2023, no. 2. Search in Google Scholar

[54] SIXTA, VÁCLAV, MELICHAR, BOHUMIL, Czech pupils’ attitudes towards dictatorship and democracy, in: Changing Democracies in Local Contexts: Researching Educational Projects on Dictatorship and Democracy, (ed.) Martin van Alstein, Brussels 2025. Search in Google Scholar

[55] STEINHAUER, JASON, History Disrupted: How Social Media and the World Wide Web Have Changed the Past, Washington 2021. Search in Google Scholar

[56] STURKEN, MARITA, Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering, Berkeley–Los Angeles–London 1997. Search in Google Scholar

[57] ŠTEFEK, MARTIN, Tisková a informační politika orgánů ÚV KSČ v letech 1968 - 1989 [Press and Information Policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1968-1989], in: Optimální cenzurou bude kádrová politika. Tisková politika v období tzv. normalizace 1968- 1989 [The optimal censorship will be a cadre policy. Press policy in the period of so-called normalisation 1968-1989], (eds). Petr Andreas, Martin Štefek, Prague 2023. Search in Google Scholar

[58] ŠUBRT, JIŘÍ, VINOPAL, JIŘÍ, Historické vědomí obyvatel České republiky perspektivou sociologického výzkumu [Historical Consciousness of the People of the Czech Republic from the Perspective of Sociological Research], Prague 2013. Search in Google Scholar

[59] THER, PHILIP, Europe since 1989: a history, Princeton 2016. Search in Google Scholar

[60] TODOROVA, MARIA, The Process of Remembering Communism, in: Remembering Communism: Genres of Representation, (ed.) Maria Todorova, New York 2010. Search in Google Scholar

[61] Týdeník ohlasy diváků v ČSR [Weekly Audience Survey in Czechoslovakia], internal document Československé televize, April 1989. Search in Google Scholar

[62] UHLÍŘ, MARTIN, Zlaté časy za Husáka. Více než polovina lidí v průzkumech oceňuje bývalý komunistický režim [The golden days of Husák. More than half of the people in the surveys appreciate the former communist regime], Respekt, 13. 11. 2024, Search in Google Scholar

[63] https://www.respekt.cz/kontext/zlate-casy-za-husaka-vice-nez-polovina-lidi-v-pruzkumech-ocenuje-byvaly-komunisticky-rezim-40492984 (accessed 19 November 2025). Search in Google Scholar

[64] VANĚK, MIROSLAV, MÜCKE, PAVEL, Velvet Revolutions: An Oral History of Czech Society, New York 2016. Search in Google Scholar

[65] WAGNER, PETER, A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and Discipline. London–New York 1994. Search in Google Scholar

Dějiny – teorie – kritika

Dějiny – teorie – kritika

Evil Communists or Times when the World Was Better?: Social Networks as an Arena for Conflicting Memories of So-called Normalisation and Democratic Transformation

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