Paper short abstract:

My paper deals with narratives and written texts of Czechs from Volhynia who re-migrated to Czechoslovakia after World War II. It discusses the ways how they coped in them with their re-migration and their integration into the Czech society in post-war Czechoslovakia.

Paper long abstract:

The Czechs from Volhynia, inhabitants of Czech origin left Bohemia for Russia mostly in the 1870s and re-migrated to Czechoslovakia after World War II. After re-migration they were settled in the border regions of the Czech Republic. They were the most numerous group (34 thousand people) among all groups of Czech and Slovak re-migrants and they were the best organized group too. To push for their own rights they founded their own organization called "Union of the Czechs from Volhynia" in 1946 and they issued their own magazine "Faithful Guard" (1946-1952). They returned "home" but they had to cope with specific political and socio-cultural conditions in the post-war Czechoslovakia. They were not seen as Czechs by the majority of Czech population and lost their high status.

I am interested in the way in which the Czechs from Volhynia dealt with their experience of re-migration as well as in the way in which they dealt with their experience of starting new life in Czechoslovakia. I ask how their symbolic universe (shared experience, behaviour and expectations) was constructed, how it influenced their integration in the post-war Czechoslovak society.

My paper is based on analysis of oral narratives (during the fieldwork biographical method and oral history method were used) and of written texts that were published in the magazine "Faithful Guard".