Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on the history of commemoration of Tomas Bata in Zlin, the industrial city build by his factory. It will discuss the meanings of the memorials connected to him and also the techniques used to rewrite the meanings during the period of communist regime and after the 1989 again.

Paper long abstract:

Tomas Bata was the Czech entrepreneur and the main founder of the Bata shoe company. The story about him represents an important part of the Czech modern "mythology ": He was able to build in two decades (1918-1939) not only a worldwide company, but also a functionalist industrial city of new Zlin for more than thirty thousand workers. One of the core places of the new city became after his sudden death during air crash (1932) the "Tomas Bata Memorial", a functionalist building made of glass, giving the impression of a showcase with the falling airplane just before the impact. After the WWII the company was nationalized and the communist coup d'état made the whole story inside out. The Bata myth was waked up and reconstructed after 1989 again as one of the examples of "national skillfulness" which should be followed by the post-communist Czech Republic. At this time also the figure of Bata joints the cityscape of Zlín again - in a figurative sense but also as a new figural monument.

The paper will be focused on the history of commemoration of Bata in the urban space of the city. It will analyzed (1) the meaning of Memorial and its place in the urbanism of functionalist Zlin, (2) the technics of re-writing the meanings during the communist government and (3) the way Bata is commemorate today. The paper presents a partial conclusions of the broader research of the social-cultural transformations of the industrial city of Zlin during the 20th century.