popular culture

The present study traces the history of Summer Theatre in Bratislava, a matter long overlooked in current research, through a source-based and comparative approach enabling the art form to be viewed as a space of both popular culture and social control. In a time when Enlightenment thinking saw theatre as a tool for educating the populace and building loyalty to the regime, theatre for non-elites gradually became a form of entertainment no longer tolerated. The sensitivity of authorities to any hints of prohibited expressions or ridicule is evident in the sources.

The paper is aimed to explore possibilities of analysing popular culture of the era of the state socialism. There is demonstrated how the relationship between popular culture and the so­cialist society can be described by the same model as in West European societies - from the viewpoint of the Gramscian concept of hegemony. The paper deals with the role of popular culture in the Czechoslovak society, particularly with its participation in the process of reaching a con­sensus between the governing minority and subordinated majority.