Growing Up as Vicar’s Daughter in Communist Czechoslovakia: Politics, Religion, and Childhood Agency Examined

Abstract

This chapter discusses resistance towards communist regime and ideology as experienced by a 13-year-old daughter of a protestant minister, growing up in a small town in socialist Czechoslovakia during the 1980s. Using anthropological lens and drawing on autoethnographic material, I critically reflect and comment on my original diary entries and letters to a Russian penfriend. The essay is set against theatre framework of Marc Abélès and the perspective of a serious play by Pierre Bourdieu. Socialist childhood is perceived as a play; the school is portrayed as a stage, where acts of resistance take place; school personnel as well as pupils and parents are envisioned simultaneously and interchangeably as protagonists, directors, and spectators of the play, in which theatre is often perceived as reality and vice versa.