The End of Faith in Burning Lights in England: The Transformation of Britain's Position on the Czech Mental Map in 1938

Western orientation of the interwar Czechoslovak foreign policy was based on a longterm effort to extricate the territory from a German sphere of influence and on the circumstances of its formation in 1918. A generally accepted narration about the friendship of France and Britain resulted in a deep mental shock after the messages about the signing of the Munich Agreement reached Czechoslovakia on the 30th of September 1938. Consequently, Czechoslovakia reoriented itself towards East. The aim of this diploma thesis is to capture this sudden turn through an analysis of the British image in selected Czech journals. Britain is in this regard examined as one of two most important interwar allies of Czechoslovakia. Discoursive analysis is applied to articles appearing in three periodicals, which represent three interwar ideological groups. Namely, the diploma thesis works with Lidove noviny, which were constructing an image influenced by the foreign policy orientation of the Castle, Venkov, which acted as a press agency of the most powerful political party, and Rude pravo, whose editorial line was comparatively noncomformist and thus represents a desirable alternative.