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Toppling Columns, Building a Capital in Revolutionary Prague w  Preface In 990, my father’s first cousin Miluška Voclová brought me to the street where my father was born. I was the first of my family to return to Czechoslovakia after the fall of Communism, and I was embraced by an extended family I hardly knew existed. Never did I guess that, five years later, I would return to the little row house in Prague 0, to live in the home my grandparents had built more than a half-century earlier. I have stayed in that home many times—on my own, with my husband and daughter, with my parents, with my sister, with many friends, and with my grandfather. Living there brought me closer to history and to the power of place, and helped make this book what it is. I am grateful to the many people and institutions that contributed to this project. Financially, I received generous support from Columbia University, the U.S. Department of Education (which provided a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Abroad fellowship), the International Research Exchange Board (IREX), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and The College of New Jersey (through its Support for Scholarly Activities, Mini Grant, and Sabbatical Leave awards). Some works in this volume appeared previously in other venues, and I appreciate the permission of these presses and journals to use revised forms of these publications. A version of chapter six appeared as “‘The Czech Nation must be Catholic!’ An Alternative Version of Czech Nationalism during the First Republic,” Nationalities Papers 7. A version of chapter seven appeared as “Religious Heroes for a Secular State: Commemorating Jan Hus and Saint Wenceslas in 90s Czechoslovakia,” in Nancy Wingfield and Maria Bucur, Staging the Past: Commemorations in the Habsburg Lands. Material in chapters five, twelve, and thirteen previously appeared in “The Fall and Rise of Prague’s Marian Column,” Radical History Review 79 (reprinted in Daniel J. Walkowitz and Lisa Maya Knauer, Memory and the Impact of Political Transformation on Public Space). I have also drawn on my articles “Rotating Spheres: Gendered Commemorative Practice at the 90 Jan Hus Memorial Festival in Prague,” Nationalities Papers 8; “The Battle for Prague’s Old Town Square: Symbolic xi Space and the Birth of the Republic,” in Blair Ruble and John Czaplicka, Composing Urban History and the Constitution of Civic Identities; and “The Sacred and the Profane: Religion and Nationalism in the Bohemian Lands, 890–90,” (cowritten with Nancy M. Wingfield) in Pieter Judson and Marsha Rozenblitt, Constructing Identities in East Central Europe. My work has benefited from the advice and support of many scholars, friends, and colleagues. At the University of Richmond, John Rilling, Martin Ryle, Bob Nelson, and John Treadway believed in my potential. At Columbia University, István Deák challenged me to rethink my assumptions about nationalism and the nation-state. Atina Grossmann and Victoria de Grazia were role models for women scholars. Richard Wortman helped me to think about memory and commemoration as an essential part of history, and Isser Wolloch shared with me that working in archives was “better than drugs.” Special thanks go to Eagle Glassheim, Wendy Urban-Mead, Eliza Johnson Ablovatski, David Frey, Robert Nemes, Dan Unowsky, and Alon Rachimimov for stimulating conversations and unmatched collegiality. I have been fortunate to be welcomed into a community of scholars who have generously shared resources and ideas. Claire Nolte has supported my career since its earliest days. Blair Ruble, John Czaplicka, and fellow members of the Woodrow Wilson Center and Central European University (Prague branch) urban history workshop enthusiastically encouraged the new directions in which I was taking my work. Jindřich Toman organized Czech cultural studies workshops through the University of Michigan Slavic department, creating an interdisciplinary community that advanced the work of younger scholars. I experienced the ideal model of friendly scholarly exchange with the “Kennebunkport Circle”: Melissa Feinberg, Paul Hanebrink and Eagle Glassheim. Later, Melissa Feinberg reread the final manuscript and gave me exceptional feedback. I would also like to thank Brad Abrams, Hugh Agnew, Jonathan Bolton, Maria Bucur, Peter Bugge, Alice Freifeld, Pieter Judson, Jeremy King, Lisa Kirschenbaum, and Matthew Witkovsky. In 995, Nancy M. Wingfield sent me a Franz Kafka postcard from Prague, excitedly telling me that we held similar research interests. Since then, she has shared sources, editing skills, and friendship. She read...

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