A History of the Czechoslovak Ocean Shipping Company, 1948–1989

How a Small, Landlocked Country Ran Maritime Business During the Cold War

Lenka Krátká

• Publisher: Ibidem Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9783838267166
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia rusa

This book offers a comprehensive history of the Czechoslovak Ocean Shipping Company (C. O. S.) from its beginning in the late 1940s until the fall of communism. Owned by the Czechoslovak state, C. O. S.'s activities were shaped by Soviet standards. This unique study is structured according to the different phases of the Cold War and highlights the political aspects that determined C. O. S.'s fate. Lenka Krátká focuses on two contradictory economic dimensions that C. O. S. had to engage with. Being part of the planned economy of a socialist state, it also dealt with companies in the capitalist West. Another paradoxical aspect of C. O. S. emerges from the memories of former Czechoslovak seamen, who experienced relative freedom when being aboard and strict communist regime control while at home with their families. Krátká's book offers fascinating insights into a neglected topic, using thus far untapped sources and building on primary research in oral history and personal memory.

1 Introduction: Maritime business in landlocked Czechoslovakia as a research topic

This book seeks to address the topic of ocean shipping, seafarers, and ocean ships in socialist Czechoslovakia (1948–1989), while also examining the processes that allowed Czechoslovak ships to cruise the oceans and for seafarers to live and work on them. Although this topic may seem rather specific and marginal in a landlocked country, seafaring in those times was a matter of pride for Czechoslovaks, especially for those men sailing the seas. Their families shared this pride but they often experienced loneliness when men set off for their work on a ship for long months. As hardly anybody was allowed to travel in socialist Czechoslovakia, many people envied seafarers their work and their opportunities to travel freely around the world, obtain foreign (Western) currency and buy goods perceived as luxurious and inaccessible. But envy was aroused not only because of travelling and money. It was also the exceptional nature of the seafarers' job, the sense of something distant, adventurous, and exotic. Looking closely at seafarers' lives, their destinies and memories, we get a completely different picture of the motivation behind their sea cruises—a profound love of the sea.

Initially, this book was supposed to portray the personal and professional life of Czechoslovak seafarers so that they would not sink into oblivion. This was mainly because the former Czechoslovak fleet no longer exists—approximately a decade after the Velvet Revolution, seafarers lost their ships and along the way, many of them lost their purpose in life. However, centring this book on seafarers only would involve two dangers. First, it is impossible to write about seafarers without reflecting on the company they worked for and the role of the state during the socialist period, when private enterprises were excluded from the economy. Second, building up the book (only) around the seafarers' memories could overwhelm the reader with the sadness and nostalgia that these men often indulge in when speaking or writing about their past spent on the sea. Thus, approaching this topic only through memoirs could lead to biased and oversimplified conclusions similar to those that are today presented by seafarers themselves or by the media. The most frequent comments include, for instance, that they worked for a prosperous company, worked hard and thus could be proud of their work and ships, of that Viktor Kožený,[1] with the help of government officials, stole their ships and were it not for him, they would be sailing the ships successfully to this day.

As we will see throughout the book, these voices are generally right; nevertheless, the issue becomes more complicated when covering the topic of maritime business in Czechoslovakia before 1989 in its entirety and colourfulness. The following essential questions arise: Why did a landlocked country establish this kind of maritime business? Whom did this business serve? Who profited from it? For what purposes was the business operated? Was it really prosperous throughout its ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Maritime business in landlocked Czechoslovakia as a research topic
• 2 Prologue: First attempts to run the maritime business after World War I
• 3 1950s: From the foundation of the People's Republic of China to the foundation of the Czechoslovak Ocean Shipping company
• 4 1960s: From the Caribbean Crisis to the mutiny on the ship Kladno
• 5 1970s: The transition from ideological tasks to business tasks
• 6 1980s: From a drop in earnings to fleet renewal
• 7 Epilogue: Czechoslovak and Czech maritime business after the Velvet Revolution
• 8 Seafarers' lives and memories
• 9 Ship memoirs
• 10 Conclusion: Four decades of Czechoslovak shipping in a nutshell
• List of archival resources and interviews
• Summary in Czech and German
• Notes
• Series
• Copyright