The project deals with the question of how different political regimes in the Czech lands from 1945 to the present defined who war heroes were and what symbolic and material awards they gave them. It examines the construction of heroic status through state administration, veterans’ own activities and their organisations, and through expert knowledge, especially in the field of medical sciences. It traces not only the development of the domestic veterans’ scene but also transnational influences on the formation of ideas of who is a veteran and what they need. The project thus aims to understand the processes of heroization and de-heroization in a society that was repeatedly divided into victors and defeated in the 20th century and where resistance against illegitimate rule was a celebrated and at the same time contested form of fighting.
