LEADER 04713nam 2200697 a 450 001 9910456588903321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a0-8014-6214-2 010 $a0-8014-6215-0 024 7 $a10.7591/9780801462153 035 $a(CKB)2550000000036217 035 $a(OCoLC)732956588 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10467987 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000537287 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11314640 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000537287 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10554140 035 $a(PQKB)10082458 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3138108 035 $a(DE-B1597)527055 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780801462153 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse58413 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3138108 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10467987 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL769564 035 $a(EXLCZ)992550000000036217 100 $a20090821d2010 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 14$aThe greengrocer and his TV$b[electronic resource] $ethe culture of communism after the 1968 Prague Spring /$fPaulina Bren 210 $aIthaca, [N.Y.] $cCornell University Press$d2010 215 $a1 online resource (264 p.) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 $a0-8014-7642-9 311 $a0-8014-4767-4 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $a"A criminal comedy but of a revivalist spirit" : the beginning and the end of the Prague Spring -- Purge and the remaking of a socialist citizenry -- Intellectuals, hysterics, and "real men" : the Prague Spring officially remembered -- The quiet life versus a life in truth : writing the script for normalization -- Broadcasting in the age of late communism -- Jaroslav Dietl : normalization's narrator -- The socialist family and its caretakers -- Self-realization and the socialist way of life. 330 $aThe 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia brought an end to the Prague Spring and its promise of "socialism with a human face." Before the invasion, Czech reformers had made unexpected use of television to advance political and social change. In its aftermath, Communist Party leaders employed the medium to achieve "normalization," pitching television stars against political dissidents in a televised spectacle that defined the times. The Greengrocer and His TV offers a new cultural history of communism from the Prague Spring to the Velvet Revolution that reveals how state-endorsed ideologies were played out on television, particularly through soap opera-like serials. In focusing on the small screen, Paulina Bren looks to the "normal" of normalization, to the everyday experience of late communism. The figure central to this book is the greengrocer who, in a seminal essay by Václav Havel, symbolized the ordinary citizen who acquiesced to the communist regime out of fear. Bren challenges simplistic dichotomies of fearful acquiescence and courageous dissent to dramatically reconfigure what we know, or think we know, about everyday life under communism in the 1970's and 1980's. Deftly moving between the small screen, the street, and the Central Committee (and imaginatively drawing on a wide range of sources that include television shows, TV viewers' letters, newspapers, radio programs, the underground press, and the Communist Party archives), Bren shows how Havel's greengrocer actually experienced "normalization" and the ways in which popular television serials framed this experience. Now back by popular demand, socialist-era serials, such as The Woman Behind the Counter and The Thirty Adventures of Major Zeman, provide, Bren contends, a way of seeing-literally and figuratively-Czechoslovakia's normalization and Eastern Europe's real socialism. 606 $aCommunism and culture$zCzechoslovakia$xHistory$y20th century 606 $aPolitical culture$zCzechoslovakia$xHistory$y20th century 606 $aTelevision and politics$zCzechoslovakia$xHistory$y20th century 607 $aCzechoslovakia$xPolitics and government$y1968-1989 607 $aCzechoslovakia$xSocial life and customs$y20th century 607 $aCzechoslovakia$xIntellectual life$y20th century 607 $aCzechoslovakia$xHistory$yIntervention, 1968$xInfluence 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aCommunism and culture$xHistory 615 0$aPolitical culture$xHistory 615 0$aTelevision and politics$xHistory 676 $a943.704/3 700 $aBren$b Paulina$01033585 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910456588903321 996 $aThe greengrocer and his TV$92452209 997 $aUNINA