Student Life as a National Concern: Social Representations and Dormitories for Czechoslovak Students in 1920s Prague

The establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918 brought questions about the character of the new state to the fore. Leading intellectuals posed these questions explicitly, but they also emerged in everyday communication, including discussions about university students. In particular contexts, various actors associated students with the future of the state itself, seeing them as a future intelligentsia expected to occupy important positions. This article shows that such representations were not necessarily confined to rhetorical or symbolic expression. They could enter debates over practical concerns of student institutions and thereby become relevant to financial decision-making and institutional planning. Drawing on Serge Moscovici’s theory of social representations, the article traces this process through three cases involving Prague student dormitories in the 1920s: a debate over food, a sculpture and the construction of a new dormitory for poor students whose ambitious plans ultimately made it unaffordable to many of its intended residents.