The Military Profession in the Memorial Reflection of the Soldiers Serving in the Brandýs nad Labem-Stará Boleslav Garrison (1989 - 2005)

The aim of this thesis is to present the military profession in the military garrison Brandýs nad Labem-Stará Boleslav in the years 1989-2005. The research was carried out using oral history methods. The output was the memoirs of nine narrators who served in the military garrison in the researched period. These outputs were analysed and compared with available sources and thematic bibliography. The thesis is divided into theoretical and empirical parts. In the theoretical part, the methodological procedures and the history of the mentioned military garrison between 1989 and 2005 are elaborated. In the empirical part, the interviews of the narrators are analysed, focusing on general topics (joining the army, basic military service, gender in the army, military maneuvers and foreign missions, etc.) and on historical milestones in the period under study (the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the disintegration of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1993, joining NATO in 1999 and the professionalisation of the Czech Army in 2005). Keywords Czech Army, professional soldier, NATO, Velvet Revolution, oral history, memory