Formování symbolického tvaru regionu a odmítnutí názvu Nové Sudety

Abstract

The planning of a new European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) on the Czech-Polish border generated a debate about the name of the newly emerging body. The Czech side refused to accept the name Sudety [Sudetenland] and later also the name Nové Sudety [New Sudetenland]. The article analyses the attitude of mayors from the border districts of the area in question on the Czech side of the border to the issue of using the name Nové Sudety. The analysis wants to assess the influence of the location of a municipality on the relict Czech-German language boundary from 1930 and of a mayor’s political affiliation on the acceptance of the name Nové Sudety by a municipality mayor. The mayors’ attitudes were revealed by means of a targeted online poll. The rejection of the name was interpreted in a wider historical-geographical context, taking into account the etymology of the Sudeten geographical name and within the theory of institutionalisation of regions by geographer Anssi Paasi.