CZECHOSLOVAK STUDIES
ASSOCIATION BOOK PRIZE
2009 BOOK PRIZE COMPETITION
(Books published in 2007-2008)
Winner:
Tara Zahra, Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for
Children in the Bohemian Lands 1900-1948
Tara Zahra has written a pioneering study of how Czech and German nationalists
for half a century battled over children in the Bohemian Lands in an effort to
win them over for the national community. Zahra convincingly shows how these
nationalists shared a political culture centered around claims on children and
driven by a desire to eradicate national indifference and the ‘inappropriate
behavior’ of parents who defied nationalist expectations about the obligations
following from belonging to a national community. Even before the First World
War, Czech and German nationalists succeeded in challenging traditional legal
assumptions about the right of parents to freely determine their own national
affiliation and with it also the choice of school for their children. And
although the intensity and national bias of official legal and administrative
interference into the sphere of child upbringing and education shifted
dramatically with each regime change in the Bohemian Lands – from the Habsburg
Empire to the Protectorate and beyond – strong institutional, legal, and
discursive continuities affected the interplay between state, nationalist
agencies and parents throughout these decades. Zahra admirably demonstrates how
this political culture constructed institutions that were both disciplinary
mechanisms and had a progressive potential, resulting in the creation of a
remarkably dense welfare-state-like network of schools, day-care institutions,
and orphanages that offered state-of-the-art educational facilities and services
for children and working mothers in the Bohemian Lands.
Zahra has conducted exhaustive archival research into an impressive range of
sources in Czech and German. She takes risks in formulating her hypotheses
sharply and clearly, and she tests these hypotheses against an exceptionally
wide range of theoretical and historical arguments in the literature. While
admirably maintaining the focus of her argument, she skillfully manages to
produce original and thought-provoking insights into more general issues of
childhood and gender studies, understandings of democracy and minority rights,
the nature and functioning of nationalism, welfare state studies and much more.
There is much to learn from this well-written book, much to discuss and also at
times points to disagree with. This in itself is another essential and
praiseworthy quality in a remarkable piece of scholarship that will undoubtedly
be a major source of inspiration for future studies of the political, cultural
and social history of the Bohemian Lands in the first half of the twentieth
century.
BOOK PRIZE COMPETITION
RULES
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The Czechoslovak Studies
Association Prize for the Best Book
in the Field of Czechoslovak
Historical Studies.
1. The prize will be awarded in alternate
years to the best book among eligible submissions published in a prior two-year
period. The competition for this prize will be held alternately with the
competition for the Stanley Z. Pech Prize.
2. The monetary amount of the award will
be $200, with adjustments possible by vote of the membership.
3. A prize committee of three CSA members
will select the winning entry. One member of the committee will be designated
as chair. The CSA president will appoint the committee. Authors are responsible
for supplying the committee with the book they wish to enter in the competition.
4. To be eligible for
consideration, books must be primarily concerned with the history of
Czechoslovakia, its predecessor and successor states, or any of its peoples
within and without its historical boundaries. The field of historical studies
will be broadly construed, with books in all fields considered for the prize if
they are substantially historical in nature. The prize committee will decide
whether a book matches these criteria. Books under consideration must be new
works by a single author written originally in the English language. The
competition will be open to members and non-members of the CSA.
5. The decision of the prize committee is
final. If the committee members agree that more than one book should share the
prize, the monetary award will be divided evenly among the prize recipients. If
the committee judges that no submission is worthy of the prize, no prize will be
awarded.
6. The CSA Executive Committee will
undertake fund-raising for the prize directly, or via a committee they appoint.
The Secretary-Treasurer of the CSA will manage the prize fund.
7. The CSA Executive Committee authorizes
the CSA to donate $500 from its operating funds to lay the foundation for the
prize fund. Future donations from the CSA operating fund will be contingent
upon a separate vote of the membership.
PAST BOOK PRIZE WINNERS
2007 BOOK PRIZE COMPETITION
(Books published in 2005-2006)
Winner:
Pieter Judson, Guardians of the Nation: Activists on the Language
Frontiers of Imperial Austria (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2006).
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