Edice mapuje pět poválečných let (1946–1951) trvající korespondenci mezi začínajícím slovenským historikem, správcem Východoslovenského kulturního ústavu Svojina Ondrejem R. Halagou a prof. Václavem Chaloupeckým, jehož si Halaga zvolil za konzultanta plánované dizertace o kolonizaci východoslovenského regionu. Korespondence představuje dialog dvou generačně odlišných, avšak na čechoslovakistickém stanovisku setrvávajících badatelů, zejména však ze specificky východoslovenského úhlu pohledu glosuje pozadí proměn společenského klimatu zapříčiněných politickými změnami během poválečných let. Zachycuje především centralizační tlaky, prosazované novou politickou garniturou z bratislavského centra, v jejichž důsledku byl Halaga nucen ukončit své publikační a redakční aktivity spojené se spolkem a revue Svojina., Edited documents cover five years (1946–1951) of correspondence between then young Slovakian historian Ondrej R. Halaga and his tutor, renowned Czech medievalist Václav Chaloupecký. Their correspondence deals with the issue of Czechoslovak unity as both of them were of the last few who still abode with the idea at that time. They also discussed the question of collonisation of Eastslovakian region, which became the main subject of Halaga´s early paper published in Eastslovakian cultural revue Svojina. Chaloupecký´s letters show his late focus on the history of Slovakia and its contemporary problems. From the specific Eastslovakian point of view the letters also quote the atmosphere of political changes that Czechoslovak republic went through during the formentioned period, especially the centralistic and unificating tendencies pursued by the Slovakian Communist Party (KSS), which put Halaga´s activities bound with Svojina to an end. (Translated by Milan Ducháček.), and překlad resumé: Milan Ducháček
Through an analysis of Zdeněk Doskočil’s monograph on a key period in Ladislav Novomeský’s life and work, this essay attempts to examine the possibilities and limits of biography as a historiographical genre. The author relies on attempts to reformulate biography as a distinct but traditionally convention-bound genre of “writing about the past” so as to bring it closer to what is known as contextual biography (Hans Renders, Binne de Haan). The text places Doskočil’s book among a number of other monographs published in recent years on luminaries of the Czech and Slovak Marxist intellectual elite (e.g. Zdeněk Nejedlý and Gustáv Husák). It focuses on the dilemmas faced by the author, who attempts to follow a different emplotment than the traditional, chronological and rather holistic one.