The Frank A. Belousek Lecture support speakers engaged with Czech History in the Department of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Frank A. Belousek (1902-1982) was a native Czechoslovakian, naturalized American citizen, and University of Nebraska alumnus (1923). His generosity advances the study of the Czech heritage and perpetuates its legacy and contributions to the state of Nebraska and the region of the Great Plains. The Belousek Fund was established in October 1985 for the Department of History by the University of Nebraska Foundation.
About “Echoes of Exile: A Family’s Odyssey through the Holocaust and Cold War”
A sweeping exploration of survival, resilience, and the fate of one family amid Europe’s most turbulent century
“Echoes of Exile” reveals the seismic disruptions of twentieth-century European history through the intimate lens of one family’s struggle to survive. Setting out to record the life of her mother, Ruth, Daniela Spenser unearthed personal facts and stories that additionally illuminate the shared traumas and experiences of millions of Czech, Polish, and German Jews who died in the Holocaust, as well as the stories of those who survived and lived under Communism and the Cold War. Her resulting work is a fascinating hybrid that combines family letters and interviews with deeply researched political history spanning from the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Spenser’s fascinating work reveals the difficult choices her mother and family faced, the tests to their loves and loyalties, and the lingering scars of exile. More than a family history, it weaves personal and historical narratives with mundane and momentous threads to create a fresh, distinctive fabric. Spenser recovers fragments of the past that contribute to a map of the present and possibilities for the future. An engrossing account of survival, resilience, and the enduring human spirit amid the maelstrom of Europe’s savage twentieth century, “Echoes of Exile” will interest readers who value firsthand accounts of significant events, appreciate diverse cultural perspectives, and seek to understand the complexities of survival, identity, and political change through intimate, lived experiences.
About Daniela Spenser
https://www.uapress.ua.edu/author/daniela-spenser/
Daniela Spenser is a fellow at CIESAS (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social) in Mexico City. She is author of “The Impossible Triangle: Mexico, Soviet Russia, and the United States in the 1920s” and “Stumbling Its Way Through Mexico: The Early Years of the Communist International.”
Past Belouseks
2018
Reluctant Warriors: How One Professor and 50,000 POWs Destroyed an Empire, Founded a Republic, and Remade the Map of Europe
On 2 October 2018, the Department of History presented the inaugural Frank A. Belousek Lecture in Czech History. The lecture was given by Kevin J. McNamara and centered on his book, Dreams of a Great Small Nation: The Mutinous Army that Threatened a Revolution, Destroyed an Empire, Founded a Republic, and Remade the Map of Europe. The book is a lively yet comprehensive account of the highly dramatic events that led to the founding of Czecho-Slovakia in 1918. The story involves an ad hoc army of ex-POWs that inadvertently seized all of Siberia, global espionage, high-stakes diplomacy, and America’s own Czechs and Slovaks, who raised funds and pressured President Woodrow Wilson to grant their peoples independence.
A former journalist, bureau chief, and U.S. congressional aide, McNamara is an associate scholar of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Philadelphia, PA, and a former contributing editor of Orbis, its quarterly journal of world affairs. More information about the author can be found on his website, www.kevinjmcnamara.com.
The recording of this event can be viewed at https://mediahub.unl.edu/media/10251 or via the Department of History’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbu78dMetJQ.