Bruce R. Berglund

Six million people visit Prague Castle each year. Here is the story of how this ancient citadel was transformed after World War I from a neglected, run-down relic into the seat of power for independent Czechoslovakia?and the symbolic center of democratic postwar Europe. The restoration of Prague Castle was a collaboration of three remarkable figures in twentieth-century east central Europe: Tom ? Masaryk, the philosopher who became Czechoslovakia?s first president; his daughter Alice, a social worker trained in the settlement houses of Chicago who was founding director of the Czechoslovak Red Cross and her father?s trusted confidante; and the architect, Jo?e Ple?nik of Slovenia, who integrated reverence for Classical architecture into distinctly modern designs. Their shared vision saw the Castle not simply as a government building or historic landmark but as the sacred center of the new republic, even the new Europe?a place that would embody a different kind of democratic politics, rooted in the spiritual and the moral. With a biographer?s attention to detail, historian Bruce Berglund presents lively and intimate portraits of these three figures. At the same time, he also places them in the context of politics and culture in interwar Prague and the broader history of religion and secularization in modern Europe. Gracefully written and grounded in a wide array of sources, Castle and Cathedral in Modern Prague is an original and accessible study of how people at the center of Europe, in the early decades of the twentieth century, struggled with questions of morality, faith, loyalty, and skepticism.

Longing for the Sacred in a Skeptical Age

Castle and Cathedral in Modern Prague

"How do you pick Olympic GOATs? Is it gymnast Simone Biles or swimmer Michael Phelps? Or maybe it's the entire 1992 basketball team. With so many sports, how do you choose? It comes down to stats, history, and hunches. Read more about some of the legends of the Olympic Games and see if you agree that they're the greatest of all time"--

The Greatest Athletes of All Time

Olympic GOATs

Brian A. Porter

Disgraceful collusion. Heroic resistance. Suppression of faith. Perseverance of convictions. The story of Christianity in twentieth-century Eastern Europe is often told in stark scenes of tragedy and triumph. Overlooked in the retelling of these dramas is how the region's clergy and lay believers lived their faith, acted within religious and political institutions, and adapted their traditions---while struggling to make sense of a changing world. The contributors to this volume, coming from the U.S. and Western and Eastern Europe, look beyond the narratives of resistance and collaboration. They offer surprising new evidence from archives and oral history interviews, and they provide fresh interpretations of Christianity as it was lived and expressed in modern Europe: from religiosity in the industrial cities of the late nineteenth century to current debates over immigration and European identity; from theological debates in East Germany to folk healing in post-socialist Bulgaria; and, counter-intuitively, from religious fervor among the Czechs to indifference among the Poles. Addressing Christianity in diverse forms---Orthodox, Protestant, Roman and Greek Catholic---as an integral part of the region's politics, society, and culture, this collection is a major addition to studies of both Eastern Europe and religion in the twentieth century. "A volume that specialists in the history of Christianity in other regions of the world will read with great interest, and a degree of envy. As an historian of religion in Western Europe, I can say that although there is a vast literature on the religious history of the nineteenth century and a growing literature on the twentieth century, there is nothing quite like this." From the Foreword by Hugh McLeod, author of The Religious Crisis of the 1960s. "This is a path-breaking book in two different ways. It contributes to the re-evaluation of the nature of modern European religion generally, and to the nature of religion in the modern world." Jeffrey Cox, University of Iowa, author of Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India.

Christianity and Modernity in Eastern Europe

Brian Porter-Szűcs

Religious history more generally has experienced an exciting revival over the past few years, with new methodological and theoretical approaches invigorating the field. The time has definitely come for this “new religious history” to arrive in Eastern Europe. This book explores the influence of the Christian churches in Eastern Europe's social, cultural, and political history. Drawing upon archival sources, the work fills a vacuum as few scholars have systematically explored the history of Christianity in the region. The result of a three-year project, this collective work challenges readers with questions like: Is secularization a useful concept in understanding the long-term dynamics of religiosity in Eastern Europe? Is the picture of oppression and resistance an accurate way to characterize religious life under communism, or did Christians and communists find ways to co-exist on the local level prior to 1989? And what role did Christians actually play in dissident movements under communism? Perhaps most important is the question: what does the study of Eastern Europe contribute to the broader study of modern Christian history, and what can we learn from the interpretative problems that arise, uniquely, from this region?

This book takes a new approach to interwar Prague by addressing religion as an integral part of the city's cultural history. Berglund views Prague's cultural history in the broader context of religious change and secularization in 20th-century Europe. Based on detailed knowledge of sources, the monograph explores the interdisciplinary linkages between politics, architecture and theology in the building of symbolism and a "new mythology" of the first Czechoslovak republic (1918-1938). Berglunds text provides an important service for understanding both Czech history as well as current Czech political debate. The author's method can be characterized as culture history, able to connect several disciplines, emphasizing common topic (religion, politics, symbolics). Modern Czech elites, superficially characterized as "ateistic", appears in a new light to be deeply religious, a transition from more traditional, (mostly) Catholic religiosity, to a concept of a new, modern, ethical religion. The study incorporates biographical research, focusing on three principal characters: Tomás Garrigue Masaryk, Czechoslovakia's first president; his daughter Alice Garrigue Masaryková, founding director of the Czechoslovak Red Cross; and Joze Plecnik, the Slovenian architect who directed the renovations of Prague Castle.

Bruce R. Berglund

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