Cottagers: Social Aspects of a Subculture in the so-called normalization Period

Cottagers: Social Aspects of a Subculture in Everyday Life Studies in the So-Called Normalization Period in Czechoslovakia. Petra Schindler-Wisten The subject of the doctoral thesis is to analyze the cottage dwelling, its development and expansion in the period of the so-called normalization period, with particular attention to its impact on the daily lives of citizens in Czechoslovakia. This paper is based on an oral history research that has been carried out with 30 cottagers from all regions of the Czech Republic. The main aim of this project has not been only to collect interviews with members of this particular group, but also to conduct the analysis of these interviews, to critically deal with their content and confront them with other sources, partly also with interviews from other projects. Cottaging as a social phenomenon started to develop dynamically after the WWII. In the second part of the 20th century it went through several phases. The phenomenon of cottaging is usually talked about in close connection with the period of the so-called normalization. However the origins of this phenomenon can be traced back to the end of the 19th century. It is a fact that the number of cottages was three times higher during the so-called normalization era than in the previous period. The author focused on the..