Ghosts of Marx

Commemoration of Labor History in Czechia and Its Contemporary Relevance

Abstract

This article examines the changing memory of the labor movement in post-socialist East Central Europe through a case study of Liberec, an industrial center in northern Czechia. It focuses on the transition from the active commemoration of working-class and socialist traditions during the Eastern Bloc era to their contemporary marginalization. Through a combination of archival research and ethnographic fieldwork, the study explores several sites associated with the region's labor movement history to demonstrate how political and economic transformations changed both public memory and the urban landscape. The article argues that this shift reflects broader ideological changes linked to deindustrialization and the region's current status as a semi-peripheral production site of global capitalism.