A New Ecological Order. Development and the Transformation of Nature in Eastern Europe

0566850 - ÚSD 2023 RIV US eng M - Monography Chapter
Janáč, Jiří
From Nature to National Networks. Hydraulic Bureaucracy and the Modernization of Waters in Czechia, 1890s-1960s.
A New Ecological Order. Development and the Transformation of Nature in Eastern Europe. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022 - (Dorondel, S.; Şerban, S.), s. 130-155. Intersections: Histories of Environment, Science, and Technology in the Anthropocene. ISBN 9780822947172
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GJ18-05095Y
Institutional support: RVO:68378114
Keywords : environment * Czechoslovakia * experts
OECD category: History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)

The chapter looks at the transformation of environment in Czechoslovakia in the 20th century from the perspective of a specific group of national technocratic elite – the so called hydraulic bureaucracy, or hydrocracy. Since late 19th century, in the context of European modernity (Wagner 1991), science and technocracy started to be recognized by political authorities as a crucial instrument of building of the state and legitimization of its existence (Kohlrausch and Trischler 2014). In this context, hydraulic expertise became a strategic resource for serving national interests, as water started to be regarded primarily as a national natural resource. In this sense, it seems appropriate speak of co-construction of the state and its wet infrastructures, a process epitomized in the construction of large symbolic water structures – most famously gigantic multipurpose dams in the post-war period (Hecht 1999. Pritchard 2011).
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0338123