Communicating with the Occupied and Exiled: The BBC and Czech-Language Broadcasts, 1940-1945

The opportunity for this collaboration arose after Czech Radio, the Czech counterpart to BBC Radio, contacted the University of Bristol for advice about a unique, previously unexplored, uncatalogued collection of BBC Czech-language broadcasts made in London between 1940 and 1945. The enquiry indicated both the need for sustained British academic involvement to make sense of the collection and the significance to a British audience of what the collection could show.

The collection of 700 gramophone records features new recordings of President Benes and Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk and much about Czech RAF pilots and their families, including broadcasts from airfields and interviews. The recordings were created by an independent Czech-language service, the Voice of the Free Republic (VFR), established by the government-in-exile alongside the BBC Czech Service to counter the claims of German broadcasts and raise morale at home. The two services, however, had a fraught relationship because the VFR did not conform to BBC standards of objectivity, and initially had different views about the Munich agreement and the loyalty of occupied Czechoslovakia. The collection, stored in the Czech(oslovak) Foreign Ministry since 1945, was unavailable for investigation during the Communist period (1948-1989), when information about 'Western-based resistance' to the German occupation was suppressed, and therefore no authoritative account of BBC Czech-language broadcasting during the war exists. This project will therefore uncover a whole new dimension of a subject that still fascinates Czechs and defines British-Czech relations.

The project focuses on a key unwritten chapter in the history of the BBC, exploring its working practices and political role during the war in the context of its relationship with the Czechoslovak exile government and providing a case study for comparison with other examples from the period. It will examine the relationship between the BBC and the VFR and their contrasting agendas, shed light on editorial and technical processes, including censorship, and reveal new information about the activities and opinions of major Czech political and cultural figures who contributed to the broadcast. The student will spend about a year in total working at the Czech Radio archive, supervised by experienced archivists, broadcasters and technicians, and will create a searchable, electronic on-line catalogue of the collection for future researchers and programme-makers.

The project will benefit historians working throughout the world on media history, propaganda, the BBC and British broadcasting history, British-Czech relations and British relations with exile governments and occupied countries, and twentieth-century Czech and Central European history and politics. The student will be able to pursue a career based either in any of these academic areas or in radio archive work, programme-making or broadcasting. During the project, alongside academic presentations and publication, the student will make a programme for Czech Radio's English-language strand and give an illustrated public lecture about the research. Following an existing model, Czech Radio will also consider publishing a bilingual, popular-historical monograph with CD based on the research. The catalogued collection will support further programming about the activities of Czechs during the Second World War, while providing access to recordings of important voices from the period and previously unavailable sound effects for use in other contexts. Czech Radio and Modern Languages at Bristol University will establish new relationships with the BBC and the British Library Sound Archive, with a view to exchanging archival resources and creating joint research and broadcasting projects, and aim to replicate the model of collaboration in future partnerships with other Europ

Public interest in the history of the BBC, the Second World War, and - in the Czech Republic - the long-suppressed experience of exile in London mean that the findings of this project of benefit to specialists may easily be re-presented for a wider public audience. This re-presentation of archival research is, indeed, already fundamental to the work of Czech Radio, especially those engaged in this project.

The student will assist in making at least one programme specifically about the project for Czech Radio's English-language strand, which will be available internationally via the web. Czech Radio's publishing arm, Radioservis, will consider publishing a version of the doctorate on the model of Vaughan's bilingual, popular-historical monograph, Battle for the Airwaves (2008), with accompanying CD, or a CD of collection highlights with accompanying text written by the student. Using existing working relationships between the BBC in Bristol and Historical Studies at UoB, and through the Centre for Public Engagement, the student and supervisors at UoB will identify other methods of publicly accessible and attractive dissemination of findings, including an illustrated lecture likely to attract a large and varied audience in a city with long-standing, close links with the BBC, where actual and historical memories of the Second World War are strong.

Thanks to the detailed cataloguing of the collection, Czech Radio anticipates that many programmes devoted to different aspects of the broadcasts and the personalities involved will arise as a result of this project, reflecting the substantial part played by WWII in its current output. Already, by chance, Czech Radio's technician has identified one example where a speech contained in the collection by Jan Masaryk may be matched to colour silent film of the same event, indicating that television and newsreel archives will also benefit from the catalogued collection. Czech Radio will be able to extract voices or sounds from the broadcasts (e.g. sounds of aircraft, bombs being loaded) for use in other contexts. Czech Radio will ensure that the whole organisation is aware of this project through internal seminars and its in-house magazine, thereby encouraging programme makers and journalists to explore the potential of the archive.

The British Library Sound Archive has responded positively to initial information about the project, and both partners will explore with the curator opportunities for collaboration as the project develops. Czech Radio welcomes the real opportunity through the project of creating new relationships with the BBC and British Library Sound Archive, leading to exchanges of archival resources or joint projects.

Both Czech Radio and the School of Modern Languages will exploit the methodology envisaged by this project and the CDA in future collaborations with European academic institutions and radio archives, respectively. Czech Radio notes in particular BBC Czech-language broadcasting during the Communist period, other aspects of the BBC's influence on Czechoslovak Radio between the wars, and its unique, so-called 'war booty' collection of German broadcasts from Reich Radio. A successful collaboration with Bristol will provide a model for handling source material and pave the way for future projects with British, German and other organisations.