pracující inteligent (intellectual laborer).

Though the communist regime declared itself to be a workers' state and elevated manual labor above other forms of work, at least symbolically, it also couldn't ignore the services produced by non-manual laborers like doctors, engineers, and lawyers. This term was a way of putting these fucntions on the level of miners and factory workers.

soudci z lidu (people's judges).

This communist innovation to the legal system saw panels of judges supplemented with ordinary citizens without any legal education. The idea was that "The people don't just make the laws, they also carry them out."

středisková obec (central municipality).

In its drive for centralization of power as well as efficiency, the communist party eliminated the self-governance of many small towns and villages. Their powers were transferred to the nearest larger town known as a středisková obec and their cultural, transportation, and commercial needs were all subordinated to this center. Since the Velvet Revolution, self-governance has been returned to villages with the result that a country of ten million now has six thousand self-governing municipalities, most of them with populations of less than 2,000.

SCSP (Svaz československo-sovětského přátelství/Union of Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship)

Membership in this organization was mainly a way to signal one's loyalty to the regime and its activities included planning the celebration of the Great October Socialist Revolution (=> VRSR) and other events that showed the close ties between the two countries like readings of Soviet authors, trips to the Soviet Union, and courses in the Russian language.

SVAZARM (Svaz pro spolupráci s armádou/Association for Cooperation with the Army).

This organization was borrowed from the Soviet Union to help popularize the army and connect it with civilian life. Numerous hobbies that were considered potentially dangerous could only be pursued under the auspices of SVAZARM. This included dog training, sport shooting, amateur radio, sport flying, as well as driver education.

úderník (shock worker).

This was the Czech version of the Soviet word Stakhonovite which referred to Alexei Stakhanov, the mythical worker who overfulfilled his norm by 1400% by mining 102 tons of coal in one shift. These shock workers were not much admired by their fellows who often had to help them to achieve their records.

umistenka (placement ticket).

High school and university graduates under communism couldn't simply look for a job whereever they pleased, but had to obtain a placement ticket from the party allowing them to work at a particular enterprise. In the absence of market signals, this was the way that the regime allocated labor to places where it was most in demand.

šmelinář (black marketeer).

Price controls under communism led to massive shortages and thus gave birth to a wide-ranging black market. Though the black market in fact made most goods more available than they would have been otherwise, black marketeers were frequently blamed for shortages and punished accordingly. Most communist states, however, gradually came to tolerate the black market as a way of defusing public discontent over shortages. Among the goods most widespread on the black market were Western consumer goods, fruits and vegetables from garden plots, and foreign as well special domestic (=> bony) currency.

sběrová akce (collection action).

The inefficiency of the communist economy meant that most enterprises suffered shortages of key inputs. The regime thus frequently called upon students and sometimes adults to collect scrap paper or metal for recycling or pick wild herbs for making tea. As motivation, prizes were offered for the classes or individuals who collected the most.

RsDr (doktor sociálně politických věd/doctor of social political sciences).

This academic title was held by graduates of the Vysoká škola politická (=> VUML) in Prague-Vokovice and represented the highest party education that one could achieve under communism. Because the completion of these courses mainly signified one's undying loyalty to the party rather than any educational merit, it was commonly said that the abbreviation stood for rozhodnutím strany doktor (doctor by decision of the party) or rychle snadno doktor (doctor fast and easy).

pan Vajíčko (Mr. Egg).

This character was featured in communist-era television advertisements for eggs. One of the peculiarities of these ads was that since just about every good was produced by a state-owned monopolist, they simply promoted a product - meat, milk, tea - without any mention of a particular brand (because there was only one).

Poučení z krizového vývoje (Lessons from the Critical Development).

This document, adopted in 1970 by the Congress of the Communist Party, represented the official interpretation of the Prague Spring (=> Prazske jaro) and the invasion of the Warsaw Pact. It averred that since January 1968 the country had found itself in a crisis and required the brotherly help of the Warsaw Pact to find its way out. Agreement with this interpretation - in the form of signing a form of assent - was a precondition for remaining in or attaining any position of authority in the seventies.

osožak.

A member of the ozbrojená stráž železnic or armed railway patrol. One aspect of communist control of the citizenry was limitations on their ability to travel freely, not just abroad but even within the country. Citizens weren't supposed to travel unnecessarily - both for economic and political reasons - and as a result the railways were given their own police force to make sure that travelers had legitimate business and weren't moving themselves or goods without reason.

Aleš, Mikoláš (1852-1913).

Though Josef Manes was the country's first "great" painter of the modern era, it is Ales who has won the hearts of the people as the most Czech painter. His realist paintings of ordinary Czech life showed village life as it was without Manes's romanticizing. His output was prodigious and ranged from his famous lunettes in the National Theater (=> Národní divadlo) and large-scale historical scenes to illustrations for magazines and text books, shooting targets, playing cards, calendars, and post cards.

Mozorov, Pavlik.

The Soviet Union had a large set of communist role models who were gradually transferred to the other satellite states. The most infamous was Pavel Mozorov, a young boy who reputedly turned in his father to the police for selling forged documents and was then brutally murdered by his family. The lesson was supposedly that one could trust the state more than one's family. Others included Alexei Maresiev, a World War II pilot who was shot down by the Nazis, had both his legs amputated, but still managed to return to battle (immortalized in Polevoy's novel Story of a Real Man) and Pavel Korchagin, a timid youngster who finds the strength to enter the ranks of the revolutionaries, goes blind as a result of his wounds, but still manages to be useful to society (immortalized in Ostrovsky's novel How the Steel Was Tempered). In both cases, the lesson was that for true believers nothing was impossible.

hlášení pobytu (report of residence).

In order to keep better control of the population, the communist regime required citizens to keep the local National Committee (=> Národní výbor) informed of their place of residence as well as any temporary stays of more than 30 days. One's current official residence was noted in citizen's identity cards (=> občanka) and the police (=> VB) would conduct spot checks of these cards to make sure that people had a justified reason for being where they were.

hraniční pásmo (border zone).

Besides closing the country's borders and laying down barbed wire, the communists also designated a several kilometer wide buffer zone inside the official boundary known as the hraniční pásmo. Citizens could only enter these areas with special permission and many towns and villages were either moved or destroyed because they stood too close to the border.

Otec Kondelik (Father Kondelik).

The title character of Ignat Herrmann's novel Otec Kondelik and Zenich Vejvara (The Father Kondelik and the Groom Vejvara) has since come to symbolize a certain kind of provincial Czech type (=> maloměšťáctví). The novel concerns the attempts of Vejvara to persuade Kondelik to give him his daughter's hand in marriage which Kondelik initially opposes then consents to. The critic Josef Jedlicka describes Kondelik as an "honorable artisan, a little hidebound, a little narrow-minded, comfortable and petty, and at the same time on his own level a person of firm principles, good-natured social feeling and simple but uncompromising morality" who represents the attempt to hold onto the traditional and patriarchal values of the village even after moving to the city.

funkcionalismus (functionalism):

In addition to Czech baroque, it is this architectural style that gives many Czech cities their distinctive look. Named for the idea that form should follow function, functionalist buildings eschew ornament and use simple geometric forms, often giving them a boxy or blocky look. Czech architects were among the leaders in worldwide movement and included Brno native Adolf Loos, who worked mainly in Vienna, along with Bohuslav Fuchs. Some of the country's functionalist landmarks are Mies van der Rohe's Villa Tugenhadt, Vladimir Karfik's company town of Zlin (later => Gottwaldov), and Loos's Villa Muller. Socialist realism and => panelaks might be viewed as the bastard child of functionalism, but stripped of its aesthetic qualities and quality of workmanship.

družba (friendship).

It was this word that summed up the country's official relationship with the Soviet Union under communism. Friendship meant that children learned Russian in school and corresponded with Russian pen-pals. It also meant study in Russia for upwardly mobile bureaucrats and politicians as well as friendship parties (družební večírky) with the Russian soldiers based in the country after the 1968 invasion. Though there was some sincerity to this friendship in the early years of communism when Russian soldiers could at least be plausibly portrayed as liberators, by the time of the invasion this friendship was purely a show to keep in the good graces of one's superiors.

uhelné prázdniny (coal holiday).

Common in the fifties and sixties, schools were often closed for several days in the heart of winter due to shortages of coal and other heating material. Students last experienced a sustained closure in 1979, when a particularly severe cold stretch led to a two-week vacation. The problem was a combination of inefficient use of resources, lack of foreign currency to buy fuel, poor insulation of most buildings, and a tendency to overheat interiors in the winter. Those who were children at the time, however, remember these surprise vacations with fondness.

bývalí lidé (former persons).

The communist regime was expert in devising names for its enemies. Besides such standards as buržoazie (bourgeoisie), kapitalista (capitalist), konzervativec or pravicak (conservative, used to refer to supporters of the Prague Spring),  individualista (individualist - that is, one who did not subordinate himself to the collective), světoobčan (world citizen, in other words, a cosmopolitan who did not have enough national feeling), šovinista (chauvinist, in other words, someone who had too much national feeling), oportunista (opportunist), fluktuant (one who changed jobs too frequently), příživník (parasite), Titoista (Titoist), Trockista (Trotskyite), Sionista (Zionist), kulak (a farmer who owned more than 15 hectares), and revisionista (revisionist), the regime came up with such originals as bývalí lidé (referring to members of the defeated classes like factory owners and aristocrats) and deklasované vrstvy (declassed segments, referring to those like dissidents who lived at the expense of society).

alegorické vozy (literally allegorical vehicles): These parade floats were an indelible part of May Day celebrations. Individual firms and associations might present their wares in the form of live pictures or portray an ideological allegory  - a hydra of imperialism beaten back by the combined forces of the communist party and the labor unions - all complete with the requisite socialist slogans. Similarly memorable for children were the lantern processions (lampionove pruvody) that accompanied these parades.

Rema plátky (Rema slices).

This substitute for genuine cuts of meat - the name is a shortening of rekonstituovane maso or reconstituted meat - emerged in the sixties as a response to shortages in pork and beef. It was manufactured from scraps and lower quality cuts of meat. Such substitutes were common in a general economy of shortages and represented a way to replace quality with quantity.

interupční komise (abortion commission).

In line with its relatively areligious culture, abortion was legalized in Czechoslovakia at the rather early date of 1957, but the communist-era government still restricted its availability. One of these restrictions was the requirement that women who sought an abortion along with the father of the child sit before a commission of doctors and nurses who had the power to grant or refuse their request. Though most abortions were granted, the process - likr most encounters with the communist state - was humiliating: women were typically upbraided or browbeaten by the commission and forced to involve fathers who had often done little more than impregnate them. Interestingly, the abortion rate has dropped since the fall of communism despite the introduction of abortion on demand.

UHO (univerzální hnědá omáčka/universal brown sauce).

This abbreviation referred to the standard, tasteless brown gravy that accompanied the typical meat and dumplings (=> knedlíky) entree at communist-era cafeterias. The sauce was a corruption of the traditional sauces (=> omáčka) like mushroom or dill that form the basis of classic Czech cuisine and testimony to the homogenizing as well as destructive tendencies of the communist regime in all aspects of life.