Culture Wars, Memory Politics, and Czech Post-Socialist Experience

Generally speaking, the term “culture wars” refers to political conflicts fought over the irreconcilability of opposing positions on moral, cultural, and social values (Weyrich Reference Weyrich and Williams2003, 17). Culture wars then serve as an instrument in political struggles, which are often framed as a struggle against “moral decay” (however vaguely defined), as well as an attempt to exaggerate “the right values.” Culture wars can take place on several different levels – from the local level, through argumentation at the level of political elites, to the level of a society-wide conflict having a high polarizing potential (cf. Hunter Reference Hunter1991; Smith et al. Reference Smith, Emerson, Gallagher, Kenedy, Sikking and Williams2003).

As we already know, these struggles not only in Central Europe are mainly associated with three areas (Hesová Reference Hesová2021b) – identity politics (mainly in relation to migration; e.g., Kalmar Reference Kalmar2018), moral politics (primarily the topics of gender or sexual minorities; e.g., Żuk and Żuk Reference Żuk and Żuk2020 Footnote ¹), and memory politics (mainly, though not exclusively, in relation to the Second World War and the former communist regime; e.g., Naxera and Krčál Reference Naxera and Krčál2021). The large-scale controversies about memory politics that are of primary interest to us in this article can be seen in all Central European countries – they have resonated most strongly and for the longest time in Poland (e.g., Stryjek and Konieczna-Sałamatin Reference Stryjek and Konieczna-Sałamatin2021; Belavusau Reference Belavusau2018) and Hungary (e.g., Benazzo Reference Benazzo2017), and somewhat less strongly in Slovakia and the Czech Republic (e.g., Tomczuk Reference Tomczuk2016).

The allegedly exemplary transition made it seem that the Czech conflicts over the past would be concerned mainly with the question of the previous regime (Mayerová Reference Mayerová2009) and not older matters, not to mention other aspects of identity (Holy Reference Holy1996). The issues of the state border, foreign policy orientation, or attitude towards ethnic and religious minorities did not really seem to matter in the homogeneous Czech Republic, a country based on inter-elite pro-Western consensus. The predominance of traditional approaches to history and the weakness of the cultural left did not initially give much room to the narrative of the political left.

However, the rise of identity politics and Fukuyama’s (Reference Fukuyama2018) “demands for dignity” and “politics of resentment” emerged in the Czech Republic at the end of the first decade of our century, as well as in other post-communist new democracies much earlier. Apart from the “traditional” political disputes over the past associated with the Communist regime, debates over other historical periods appeared (e.g. Sniegon Reference Sniegon and Törnquist-Plewa2016; Naxera and Krčál Reference Naxera and Krčál2021). The prevailing illusory consensus had been broken, and conflicts over the past had been linked in various ways to existing political cleavages, in some cases completely transforming them, in other cases having an effect outside this framework. Simultaneously, for the first time in the Czech Republic, the cultural left spoke up more strongly, presenting their understanding of history which replaced, or in other cases reformulated, some of the postulates of the illusory consensus whose supporters agreed with the reformulation or turned away from the existing narrative and adopted the traditionalist version of identity politics (e.g. Kopeček Reference Kopeček2011; Slačálek Reference Slačálek2010). In addition to the clash between the left and the right, cultural and identity conflicts within the right and within the left have intensified in recent years (especially in the conservatism x progressivism dimension, which has proven to be perhaps more important than the right x left division), whereas the dispute over the interpretation of history within different ideologies plays a significant role within these conflicts. In the already consolidated Czech democracy, both the disputes over the former regime and disputes over a much older past reopened, and history fully entered the political space.

These conflicts have been focused on both the historical subjects and fundamental points of collective memory, and on sites related to this memory and history (Nora Reference Nora1989; François and Schulze Reference François and Schulze2007). These sites in a specific time and space (Alexander Reference Alexander, Alexander, Giesen and Mast2006) represent a certain tale, a certain interpretation of a historical event, and at the same time allow the development of other tales, often updated and in some cases politically competitive.

Sites of memory are thus reifications of narratives about people and events that are significant enough for a particular community to deserve public spotlight (Cingerová and Dulebová Reference Cingerová and Dulebová2020: 71). Sites of memory are a tool for localizing memories and, if appropriately instrumentalized by political actors, can serve as a source of political mobilization in the form of heroizing the actions of those who are commemorated (Forchtner Reference Forchtner2016). A series of political rituals also often take place around sites of memory. From our perspective, primarily important are reconciliation rituals, in which the culprits and victims of (historical) wrongs are identified and atonement is made,Footnote ² and commemoration rituals. Who shall be included in these rituals and who shall be celebrated and commemoratedFootnote ³ is one of the fundamental instruments of (self-)legitimation of political regimes (Benazzo Reference Benazzo2017, 198).Footnote ⁴

Building on Katherine Verdery (Reference Verdery1999), we locate our research terrain in the post-socialist space, characterized by a specific instrumentalization of the past. First, in this space, defining against the communist period has become a political calculus (Benazzo Reference Benazzo2017, 201); second, political actors within commemoration rituals show a tendency to link them to the communist past even when the celebrated historical event has nothing to do with the communist regime (Tomczuk Reference Tomczuk2016: 108; Naxera and Krčál Reference Naxera and Krčál2021). This is, among other things, the case in our research field – defining oneself against communism (and also Russia) is an essential part of the annual celebration of the liberation of the city of Pilsen. As we have already stated, although it is a “local battleground,” the culture war being fought there is of a society-wide character.

Discussions on the politics of memory, as well as other disputes within the culture wars, have a broader dimension (not only in the Czech Republic but in the whole area of Central and Central-Eastern Europe) and are drawn to the question of the (non-)affiliation of given political communities to the “West” (Chlup Reference Chlup2020). After the fall of the communist regime, the question of self-identification as part of the West was clearly resolved not only in the Czech Republic. There was talk of “rejoining Europe” and a consensus on a pro-Western orientation of foreign policy, culminating in accession to NATO and the EU (Barša, Hesová, and Slačálek Reference Barša, Hesová, Slačálek, Barša, Hesová and Slačálek2021). However, with the intensification of conflicts over the politics of memory, identity, and morality in the last decade at least, voices calling for a departure from the West, for an own “Central European” path (manifested by an emphasis on cooperation within the Visegrad Four), or openly for turning towards Russia, have begun to grow in the Czech environment. These voices began to be heard at the highest political level and were driven, among other things, by the strengthening of the far-right in the form of Tomio Okamura’s SPD not only as a result of the so-called migration crisis (Stulík Reference Stulík2019; Wondreys Reference Wondreys2021), by the change in the political orientation of President Miloš Zeman and his inclination towards Russia and China (Naxera and Krčál Reference Naxera and Krčál2018), or by the worsening attitude of former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš towards the EU (Vachudova Reference Vachudova2020), as well as by the growing prominence of the Communist Party, which supported Babiš’s minority government between 2018 and 2021. The symbolic culmination of these tendencies was the visit of Viktor Orbán at the start of Andrej Babiš’s election campaign in 2021. With this move, Babiš clearly demonstrated his vision of a post-election direction to his voters. In this perspective, the West is presented as the bearer of values incompatible with the traditions of the Central European space and a symbol of negative deviances (for example, in the form of accepting migrants [Kalmar Reference Kalmar2018] or discussions on gender issues, sexual minority rights, ecology, or political correctness).

These processes of the departure of some representatives of the executive power from supporting the Western direction were accompanied by, at that time, opposition center and right-wing parties increasingly emphasizing “the Czech Republic as part of the West.” In many ways, however, this was a political calculation on the part of these actors. In this case, it is interesting to mention the Civic Democratic Party, the main pole of the right-wing part of the party spectrum and once the strongest political grouping in the country. It was the leaders of this party who emphasized perhaps most strongly the need for a Western orientation, but on the other hand, they have long defined themselves against a number of issues that resonate with the political mainstream in Western countries, whether it is the issue of progressive taxation, minority rights, political correctness, or the debate on climate change. (The party’s chairman and candidate for prime minister shortly before the 2021 elections, for example, presented an opinion in an interview questioning the influence of humans on climate change.) These and other topics are not only rejected in the Czech case by actors who openly proclaim anti-Western positions, but also by the Civic Democratic Party. Even from the party’s side, these topics are framed as a global attack against the local (Graff and Korolczuk Reference Graff and Korolczuk2021) and against “common sense,” in some cases using the labels of neo-Marxism or cultural Marxism (Busbridge, Moffitt, and Thorburn Reference Busbridge, Moffitt and Thorburn2020), or argued as an attempt to return to the days of communism. In some cases, this is accompanied by expressions of sympathy of party leaders towards Donald Trump or Viktor Orbán. At the same time, the Civic Democratic Party has relatively strong Eurosceptic tendenciesFootnote ⁵ (Hanley Reference Hanley2004), and its representatives within the European Parliament are part of the European Conservatives and Reformists faction, together with, among others, the Spanish party Vox or the Polish Law and Justice Party. The rhetorical alignment with the West is thus, in many cases, to be read as a foreign policy orientation towards the United States and at the same time a manifestation of anti-Russian and anti-communist positions.

Particularly during Andrej Babiš’s government and the presidency of Miloš Zeman, it has also been an act of the opposition defining itself. The reaction to the political orientation of some representatives of the executive branch was the strengthening of anti-communistFootnote ⁶ and anti-Russian statements of the opposition. After all, anti-communism has a specific position in the Czech environment (Navrátil and Hrubeš Reference Navrátil and Hrubeš2017 and Reference Navrátil and Hrubeš2018), as well as anti-Russian stances (Klvaňová Reference Klvaňová2019). More than 30 years after the fall of the regime, the negative framing of the communist past by the Czech right is still strongly instrumentalized and, in some cases, masks the absence of other political topics. The possibility of a “return to communism” and information about the number of victims of the communist regime have become an integral part of election campaigns, including the 2021 elections. It is the “victims” argument that is crucial for us and will be addressed in the following sections.

Therefore, it can be concluded that one of the basic topics addressed in the culture wars in the Czech context is the inclination towards/departure from Western values, which are represented in a very specific and simplified form and are reduced primarily to the relationship with the USA, anti-communism, and the relationship with Russia. Such creation of binary heterotyped categories and their amplification meets the basic definition of culture wars as a metaphorical struggle between two opposing positions related to moral, cultural, and social values (Weyrich Reference Weyrich and Williams2003, 17).

Anti-Russian attitudes have significantly intensified in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and have taken various forms. On the one hand, this is an understandable rejection of the Russian aggression by political representatives and a large segment of society. On the other hand, the struggles of this kind sometimes involve the use of almost bizarre strategies of de-Russification, such as renaming the traditional product “Russian ice cream” to “Ukrainian ice cream,” or the application of collective guilt, in some cases in the form of symbolic or physical attacks on Russian children in Czech schools. From the perspective of “political necromancy,” what is interesting is, among other things, the efforts of the Capital City of Prague to surround the Russian embassy with dead bodies. Besides the fact that the Boris Nemtsov Square and the Promenade of Anna Politkovskaya (i.e., victims of the Putin regime) are already located in the immediate proximity of the embassy, the street in which the embassy is located and has its official address is currently in the process of being renamed the Ukrainian Heroes Street.

Political Necromancy: Ghosts, Spectres, and Revenants as Weapons of Culture Wars

Dead bodies and their political instrumentalization are one of the tools used by political actors to support their arguments. By referring to the “heroically fallen,” the “insidiously murdered,” or simply the deceased, political actors add a symbolic level to the demands they express and make. This is often anchored in references to important components of (modern) national mythology.

The issue of the political significance of dead bodies and their political instrumentalization is a relevant topic in contemporary social science debates (cf. Verdery Reference Verdery1999; Harrison Reference Harrison2003; Mbembe Reference Mbembe2019). Dead bodies and how they are treated have been analyzed in different ways in scholarly discourse. Katherine Verdery (Reference Verdery1999) discusses the political lives of dead bodies, and her perspective is focused on how dead bodies (whether real or their metaphorical reifications in the form of statues) are used as political symbols within the so-called “post-socialist necrophilia.” Verdery’s analysis focuses on the post-socialist space and on explaining why the high level of activity concentrated around dead bodies is emblematic of this area. She argues that, on the part of political actors within the post-socialist space, dead bodies represent politically significant artifacts. Thus, the conclusions of her analysis suggest that the politics of dead bodies is a relevant tool for political actors and can shape significant political conflict leading to significant political mobilization (Verdery Reference Verdery1999, 3). Disputes over which dead bodies are to be revered and immortalized can very often translate into social cleavages based on narratives of national heroes and villains. Dead bodies and their instrumentalization can therefore polarize society. Social contestation is conducted along the lines of which specific dead bodies will be remembered and which, on the contrary, will be ignored and forgotten ( Gugushvili, Kabachnik and Kirvalidze Reference Gugushvili, Kabachnik and Kirvalidze2018).

The political instrumentalization of dead bodies brings a number of controversies and debates about whether it is ethically appropriate to treat dead bodies (whether real or symbolic) as a tool to achieve political goals (Domańska Reference Domańska2005). The ways of utilizing corpses and cadavers are quite numerous – starting, for example, with the way the political sphere produces dead bodies by deciding who will die and how (Mbembe Reference Mbembe2019), which represents the fulfilment of the concept of biopolitics in its absolute sense (Foucault Reference Foucault2010; Prozorov Reference Prozorov2013). Furthermore, dead bodies can serve as artifacts bearing symbolism related to their death, around which specific narratives are subsequently (re)produced (Verdery Reference Verdery1999; Sendyka Reference Sendyka2016; Naxera and Krčál Reference Naxera and Krčál2021). Another approach that addresses the political relevance of dead bodies is the so-called “ghost hero” approach (Eglitis and Kelso Reference Eglitis and Kelso2019). This is a concept that is intertwined with collective memory and based on the celebration, commemoration, and glorification of historical figures, especially those whose actions (whether positive or controversial) have earned them a place in a society’s historical memory and its narratives about the past (Eglitis and Kelso Reference Eglitis and Kelso2019: 271).

In addition to the above examples of perspectives on the political lives of dead bodies, we can refer, for instance, to the analysis of Nagy (Reference Nagy2019), which focuses on the interpretation of how the obituaries of (politically relevant) personalities are politically instrumentalized. The way they are written, structured, and framed is often a tool for working with social memory and instrumentalized towards an appropriate interpretation of the past and its relation to the present. In a similar vein, Ben-Amos (Reference Ben-Amos2000) points out that in the political instrumentalization of dead bodies, another possible dimension is how the remains are dealt with. State funerals play a specific role in this regard. On the one hand, they are an instrument of glorification of the buried, but on the other hand, they serve as an instrument of government (e.g., to perform a symbolic adherence to the values that the buried professed/promoted). Thus, state funerals are an instrument that does not primarily serve the dead (the buried) but the living (state apparatuses, political actors, society) as a tool of ritualized performance of specific values.

The use of symbolism of dead bodies is not only directed inside the society but also outside, and thus serves as one of the tools in international relations. In the context of dead bodies at the international system level, the so-called “spectropolitics” is often discussed. This “is where the mediatic structures of spectrality meet biopolitics/necropolitics to highlight the global power relations that dispossess subjects, producing death-in-life and inhuman states of existence” (Papailias Reference Papailias2019, 1053). In a general sense, then, the instrumentalization of dead bodies and the use of their legacy and symbolism serves as one of the arguments used in diplomacy (Auchter Reference Auchter2014).

In a more general sense, it is thus possible, at the social science level, to speak of a spectral turn (Hite and Jara Reference Hite and Jara2020). The scholarly discussion focuses on the role and political relevance of dead bodies and their symbolism. This refers both to dead bodies in the sense of physical remains and their politically ritualized exhumations/reburials (Rolston and Berastegi Reference Rolston and Berastegi2018; Iturriaga Reference Iturriaga2019), and the political instrumentalization of dead bodies viewed in a more metaphorical sense, namely in terms of working with their legacy and symbolism. This is the direction and aim of the concept of political necromancy, which we elaborate on in this study and illustrate below with the example of political necromancers at the Liberation Festival in Pilsen. Dead bodies are instrumentalized by state apparatuses and political actors in the sense that they are appropriated and transformed into symbols and artifacts. Often to such a degree that dead bodies are completely dehumanized and depersonalized by political actors and reduced to the level of symbols (Uzelac Reference Uzelac2019).

From the above, it is evident that the political instrumentalization of dead bodies, whether in the sense of manipulating physical remains via exhumations/reburials or performative work with their symbolism, is a relevant research topic that is still alive in current social science debates. Our ambition is to contribute to this debate by viewing the instrumentalization of dead bodies through the lens of political necromancy. From this perspective, political actors play the role of necromancers who, through specific rituals performed in specific places on specific dates, summon armies of the dead to serve as weapons in the culture wars they wage. The armies of the dead in the culture wars represent a weapon mainly because they are metaphorical reifications of specific values and symbols and can serve as “peculiar mechanisms of digesting and actualizing the past” (Iordachi and Trencsényi Reference Iordachi and Trencsényi2003, 426).

The places where their “magic of raising the dead” is performed play an important role for political necromancers. Sites of memory, in our understanding, are places where political necromancers summon dead bodies through commemorative rituals and send them to fight against their enemies. In post-socialist societies, commemorative rituals play a key role in that their post-revolutionary re-arrangement/creation of new ones is crucial for creating and maintaining the narrative of “breaking away from a troubled past” (Tomczuk Reference Tomczuk2016; Nagy Reference Nagy2019). Thus, it can be concluded that the dead bodies that perished in the name of freedom form bones and spirits that haunt the society and symbolically impose on it how it should (not) act (Fontein Reference Fontein2010). This establishes an underlying narrative relating to the fact that we as a society should not abandon the legacy of the dead. On the contrary, we are obliged to continue to uphold the ideals for which they fell (Kücher Reference Kücher, Forty and Kücher1999). The commemoration and celebration of the deeds of dead bodies and cadavers are subsequently reified in the form of physical sites of memory that evoke strong emotional appeal (Etkind Reference Etkind2013; Moshenska Reference Moshenska, Gilbert, McLaughlin and Munro2020).

As mentioned above, the instrumentalization of dead bodies often uses the argument that the commemorated and glorified dead gave their lives in the past so that the present living could “do something.” The standard argument goes on to say that in order for the dead not to have died in vain, the current generation “must” or, conversely, “must not” do something – otherwise the memory of the dead would be violated. Political actors often do not address (or deliberately ignore/distort) the motivations of those who have fallen.Footnote ⁷ The motivations of the fallen are very often framed in specifically glorifying narratives that fit into the overall situational definition of political necromancers and reflect current ideological positions within the culture wars.

As we have already mentioned, (not only) in the Czech case, criticism of the former communist regime is frequently instrumentalized (Benazzo Reference Benazzo2017), which includes the symbolic use of the legacy of people persecuted or killed by the regime. It has been an integral part of discussions about the former regime throughout the post-communist period. A good example is a typical ghost hero whose legacy is almost fetishized. This is Milada Horáková, a democratic politician loyal to the democratic first Czechoslovak republic and its Masaryk’s tradition, and, at the same time, former MP of the National Socialist Party executed in a mock trial in 1950. In 2017 (almost 30 years after the fall of the communist regime), a feature-length historical film has been made about her. The way in which the legacy of Milada Horáková resonates in political discussions borders on political kitsch. For example, representatives of the Czech conservative right adore Horáková as a fighter against injustice. But if she were a contemporary politician, instead of being adored as a socialist and feminist, she might be labelled a neo-Marxist.

Disputes about the communist regime have been a part of Czech society throughout its evolution since the fall of the regime (Mayerová Reference Mayerová2009). In recent years, disputes over the interpretation of the past have deepened and focused on the pre-communist periods, including the Second World War (Hesová Reference Hesová2021b). Typically, however, discussions about the pre-communist past tend to be linked to discussions about the communist regime (Tomczuk Reference Tomczuk2016). This is also reflected in the debates about dead bodies, whether real (e.g., the legacy of fallen soldiers) or metaphorical (statues). The discussion about removing the statue of Soviet Marshal Ivan Stepanovich Konev can serve as an example from recent years that combines both these levels and demonstrates the intensification of disputes about memory politics. The figure of Konev is represented by several lines – during the Second World War, he commanded the Eastern Front troops, which drove the Germans out of much of Central and Eastern Europe and took part in the conquest of Berlin. Konev’s statue was erected in Prague in 1980, officially on the occasion of the 35^th anniversary of the liberation of Czechoslovakia. Disputes over the statue began shortly after the fall of the communist regime when several other statues reminiscent of the earlier regime were removed. However, the final decision (which led to the diplomatic conflict between Czech Republic and Russia) was made by the council of the given city district in 2019. The statue was finally removed in the spring of 2020 after it had been damaged repeatedly. For several days, the news was filled with clashes between opponents and supporters of the removal. Proponents of the statue’s removal mainly argued that the statue is not a reminder of Prague’s liberation by the Red Army, such as a monument to fallen soldiers built immediately after the war would be, but a manifestation of Soviet imperialismFootnote ⁸ and symbolic consolidation of Soviet power over Czechoslovakia that, by the time of the statue’s construction, the Soviet troops had occupied for more than ten years.

Spectres of American Soldiers as Anti-Communist and Anti-Russian Warriors?

The Liberation Festival is a several-day celebration and a commemoration of the liberation of Pilsen by American and Belgian troops at the end of the Second World War. Every year, the festivities follow a similar scenario and consist of a whole range of events – from official memorials, through concerts, to an accompanying program for military enthusiasts. Pilsen was the largest Czech city that was not liberated by the Red Army,Footnote ⁹ which affected the (non)celebration of liberation both before and after the fall of the communist regime. The Pilsen festival is one of the largest events associated with the celebrations of the US Army in all of Europe. The liberation of Pilsen was relatively peaceful. Laconically speaking, it was almost without a shot. The massiveness of the Pilsen commemoration event, which has been held since the 1990s, is related to the defining against the communist pastFootnote ¹⁰ and with a bit of exaggeration, it is a manifestation of the attitude described as “we were not able to celebrate it for years, so now we will celebrate in a big way.” A number of memorial events held as part of the several-day festival (the organizational aspects of which we have described earlier; cf. Naxera and Krčál Reference Naxera and Krčál2019) are attended not only by local and regional politicians, who are in charge of organizing the festival, but also by top constitutional officials.

Since the early 1990s, there has been a clear consensus on the course of the festival at the level of the city of Pilsen. The city coalition has always been formed by parties with a clearly declared pro-Western stance. Regardless of who exactly constituted the coalition, the festival was held in a similar spirit. It has been primarily about adoration of the USA and a clear opposition to communists (who had not allowed the celebrations to be organized earlier) and also to the Soviet regime (as the guarantor of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia). This course was supported, among other things, by the fact that the celebrations have not been attended by politicians viewing the Communist regime as favorable (i.e., for example, members of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, which has never participated in the city’s government). On the other hand, it should be stated that despite the clear anti-Soviet appeal, the festival has not been used extensively as a tool for defining oneself against contemporary Russia. The symbolic demarcation has been conducted against the “past sources of threat,” Nazi Germany and the USSR. Contemporary Germany, on the other hand, has been usually framed as a NATO ally, while contemporary Russia long remained out of focus.

The year 2015 was crucial for the instrumentalization of dead bodies as a tool of culture wars, because a significant part of the speeches reacted to the Russian invasion and subsequent annexation of Crimea in 2014. In the period under study (2015–2021), the Liberation Festival in Pilsen can thus be seen as one of the platforms on which political necromancers evoke dead bodies and then metaphorically instrumentalize them as a weapon of culture wars. In this way, public political events can be seen as metaphorical battlefields, within which pro-Western values are reified, albeit in a clear reduction related primarily to the enactment of symbolic inclination towards the USA and opposition to Russia. Although this festival has a local character, the narratives emerging here take on a society-wide relevance (Furedi Reference Furedi2018, 47).

In the course of the several years of celebrations we have observed, there have been many references to the fallen who sacrificed themselves for something. Those who also helped to liberate Pilsen (i.e., suffered in combat), but survived, are effectively isnstrumentalized during the festival in the same way as the fallen. The figures of American soldiers (whether fallen or survivors) are an essential component of the annual celebrations. In all the cases we will mention, there is a linking of the pre-communist past with the framing of the communist regime (which is typical of culture wars and memory politics in the post-communist region; cf. Tomcuzk Reference Tomczuk2016) and with interpretations from the perspective of contemporary values.

Every year, the American presence at the festival is crucial. Dozens of American veterans participated already in the spontaneous celebrations in 1990. The largest number of them arrived in 1995 on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of the liberation – almost two hundred. Over the last few years that we have been conducting the research, their numbers have dropped to the low teens at most. Their function is mainly symbolic; they represent a reification of an American veteran (not just a veteran of the liberation of Pilsen). This timelessness of the American veteran was aptly played out during one of the festivals. One of the real veterans of the Pilsen liberation pointed out that due to advanced age, it is likely that the direct participants of the liberation will not be able to attend in the upcoming years. At the same time, he introduced his friend, an American veteran of the Korean War, who was also a member of the Second Infantry Division, which had liberated Pilsen and later fought in Korea. The Korean War veteran took over the symbolic baton. Once the direct participants are not available, they will be replaced by another category of American war veterans (having only a symbolic bond with Pilsen – an American veteran and a former member of the Second Infantry Division). However, the figure of an American veteran is key to the festival’s dramaturgy and plays a vital role in the symbolic transmission and reification of the narrative portraying the USA as the liberator and contemporary ally. The way in which American soldiers (both those who have fallen and those who have survived) are treated is equivalent to complete depersonalization (Uzelac Reference Uzelac2019). Whether fallen or survivor (and fighting in any war), the American soldier is a symbol and a de facto prop in the hands of political necromancers (Goffman Reference Goffman1956).

In 2021, at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, the festival took place in a different format. There were only a few small memorial events, and much of the program went online. In-person presence of the veterans was not possible, but dozens of banners with life-size photos of the veterans were set up downtown. These included both those still living and those who have died in recent years. Such a display illustrates the reduction of a veteran-man (living or deceased) to a veteran-symbol or a veteran-prop that serves the participating politicians in paper as well as bodily form.

One of the few non-depersonalized yet highly instrumentalized veterans was Earl Ingram, the unofficial spokesman for the veterans during the annual festivities. Even a banner with his photo was placed downtown during the 2021 festival. Earl Ingram died in the fall of 2021 at the age of 99 and immediately after his death became a prime example of a ghost hero (Eglitis and Kelso Reference Eglitis and Kelso2019) used in political struggle. He died less than two weeks before the Czech parliamentary elections.

Martin Baxa (MP, mayor of Pilsen, and vice-chairman of the Civic Democratic Party) immediately began addressing Ingram’s death. He performed the imaginary necromancy in several steps. First, through a series of commemorative rituals, including a specific form of obituary on social media (Nagy Reference Nagy2019), in which he presented Ingram as “a hero who brought freedom.” But the crucial step came about a week after when Baxa faced a Communist Party representative in a televised pre-election debate. During the discussion, he clearly instrumentalized Earl Ingram’s dead body in order to use it as a weapon in the political clash.

He posted a video of the discussion on his social media profileFootnote ¹¹ with the following comment:

In the discussion,Footnote ¹² among other things, Baxa said:

Even though Earl Ingram died at the age of 99 and was therefore not a soldier killed during the liberation, his legacy was used in the same way as if he had given his life for freedom. Moreover, this example demonstratively links the pre-communist past with the framing of the communist regime and uses them to support contemporary political arguments. Earl Ingram, who fought against the German army, was thus used instrumentally in the electoral clash with the Communist Party.

While Ingram is an example of a highly personalized ghost hero, in other situations, the depersonalized (Uzelac Reference Uzelac2019) mass of “American soldiers/fallen/veterans” is used as a political argument, especially when creating the metaphorical dichotomy of “the American soldier fell for freedom” while “the Soviet soldier fell as an occupier.” The creation of this dichotomy stretches across the years of the festival and was particularly striking in 2015, shortly after the annexation of Crimea. It was during these celebrations that the link between the pre-communist and communist past and the present was made (especially by the aforementioned Martin Baxa). While the American soldier (living, fallen, or a veteran) is a timeless source of freedom, the Russian or Soviet soldier is an equally timeless source of occupation. Arguments were made such as, “Young American soldiers fought far away from home to bring us freedom. In order not to trample on their legacy, we must support the current foreign policy of allying with the US.” But also, “American soldiers brought freedom to Pilsen, but it didn’t last long.” So, while American soldiers brought freedom in 1945, Soviet soldiers were bringing occupation throughout Central Eastern Europe at the same time. This was discursively linked to the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and ultimately to the annexation of Crimea.Footnote ¹³ On the part of political necromancers, the dead bodies of American soldiers killed in the fight for freedom are sent to fight communism and Russia. In contrast, Russian or Soviet dead bodies are entirely ignored (Gugushvili, Kabachnik, and Kirvalidze Reference Gugushvili, Kabachnik and Kirvalidze2018).

A number of sites of memory serve to commemorate the dead bodies of American soldiers in Pilsen, mostly in the form of small monuments, but also in the form of the sacred topography of the city – in Pilsen, among others, we can find the American Street or Patton Bridge. General George Patton, who commanded the American troops, is another good example of a ghost hero. In 2015, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the liberation, a statue of him was erected in the city center, representing a dead body cast in bronze (Verdery Reference Verdery1999). However, discussions about Patton’s statue have been going on in Pilsen for a longer period of time and have shown a significant potential for conflict based on the connection between the pre-communist and communist past. Initially, a different statue of Patton was supposed to be erected elsewhere in the city center in 2005, but the city did not approve its erection at the last minute. It turned out that the author of the statue had been a confidant of the secret police before 1989. The then-mayor from the Civic Democratic Party himself stated that the communist past of the author played a role in his decision-making. From this perspective, in the context of the ongoing controversy over memory politics, the possibility of having the dead body of a “hero of the West” cast in bronze by a “minion of the East” was rejected.