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.
Recenzent připomíná plodnou vědeckou dráhu Lenky Kalinové od studia sociální struktury Československa v šedesátých letech minulého století až k současným syntetickým pracím o sociálních dějinách poválečného Československa. Její nejnovější knihu hodnotí jako velmi dobře zvládnutou syntézu, jež dosud chyběla, založenou na důkladném interdisciplinárním výzkumu a neobyčejné erudici a přinášející velké množství zčásti nových poznatků. Nakonec si recenzent klade otázky, do jaké míry lze chápat sociální politiku v socialistickém Československu jako ústupek vedení země obyvatelstvu a nakolik je současné hyperkritické hodnocení hospodářství v období takzvané normalizace dobově podmíněné. and [autor recenze] Václav Průcha.
The key idea of our project is to convey to the widest possible readership detailed abstracts of the testimonies of Roma and Sinti and thus their personal and irreplaceable experience of the Second World War. We hope that the Testimonies of Roma and Sinti project will contribute to greater awareness of their genocide and will be an irreplaceable source of information for researchers, relatives of the victims, or anyone else interested in this important topic.
First of all, we defined the project geographically: we focused on the testimonies of Roma and Sinti from the Bohemian lands (today's Czech Republic) and Slovakia. The second definition is that we are only processing printed testimonies into the database. A valuable, and extremely demanding, part of the database is the detailed abstracts of these testimonies prepared by Romani studies experts in cooperation with historians and linguistic stylists. These abstracts are important not only for Czech and Slovak readers, as many publications with testimonies are not easily accessible, but especially for users from abroad - whether researchers, members of Romani communities or any other interested parties - as the vast majority of the hundreds of published testimonies exist only in Czech, Slovak or Romani, and are thus inaccessible to most people from abroad.
Within the database, the testimonies are analyzed according to several criteria, which allow detailed searches and their classification, for example, according to the type of war experience (internment, participation in armed struggle, hiding, etc.). In the analysis, we then focused mainly on geographical data. Therefore, projections of collected data on maps are an integral part of the database, which allow us to show the war trajectory of individuals and groups, to show, for example, the locations of mass murders or guerrilla fighting, or to search for testimonies related to a place.
With respect to the history of sciences under communism, we understand the gray zone to mean academic practices originating from the negotiated autonomy of academia and the need to respect scientific values such as objectivity and a critical approach to reality. Our research explores the links between academic communities that were not directly involved in dissident activities but actively supported dissent initiatives (very often for a limited period of time) and were linked to transnational scientific networks or social movements. Specifically, we analyze the involvement of socially engaged scientists employed by the official research institutions in dissident activities related to the environmental sciences.
The aim of the work is to analyze the peculiarities of Ukrainian secondary education abroad in the 1920s and 1930s on the example of the Ukrainian secondary school („Ukrainian Gymnasium“) in Czechoslovakia. The analysis of features of the organization, methodological bases of educational work of the Gymnasium in Prague as a part of the general cultural and educational activity of the Ukrainian interwar emigration is carried out.
Tento pokus konfrontovat představy o poválečném uspořádání československých poměrů v různých oblastech s pozdější realitou hodnotí recenzent jako nepříliš zdařilý. Uznává zejména faktografický přínos některých kapitol, celkově však podle jeho soudu práce trpí selektivním zpracováním problematiky, fragmentárním využitím pramenů, žánrovou konfuzí mezi odborným pojednáním a esejistikou, sklonem k vágnímu podání a neurovnanou stylistikou., The work under review, whose title translates as ‘The Struggle for a New Czechoslovakia, 1939–46: Wartime Plans and Post-war Reality’, seeks to compare the plans for the post-war organization of Czechoslovakia in various areas with the way things actually turned out after the liberation. The reviewer, however, sees this attempt as not particularly successful. Though he finds that some of the chapters do contribute new facts, on the whole he feels that the work suffers from an overly selective treatment, fragmentary use of the sources, indecision about whether to be a scholarly work or an essay, a tendency to vagueness, and an uneven style., and [autor recenze] Aleš Binar.
Recenzent obšírně představuje práci, jež je podrobnou analýzou vybraných případů poválečných nucených vnitrostátních migrací v Československu. Její autor Tomáš Dvořák důkladně rekonstruuje přípravy a realizaci přesídlení a „rozptýlení“ desetitisíců neodsunutých německých obyvatel do českého a moravského vnitrozemí, jakož i přesunu dalších tisíců Němců do oblasti uranových dolů na Jáchymovsko, kde tak vznikl nový svébytný německojazyčný ostrov. Tyto migrace lze chápat jako svého druhu pokračování „velkého odsunu“ většiny Němců z Československa. Nejdetailnější pozornost věnuje osudu několika stovek moravských Chorvatů ze tří obcí blízko rakouské hranice na jižní Moravě, kdy se jednalo o kompletní deportaci celé této národnostní menšiny. Recenzent lituje, že případům dalších uskutečněných nebo jen zamýšlených přesunů skupin obyvatel na československém území (slovenští Maďaři, obyvatelé pohraničních zón, Poláci ve Slezsku) se zde dostalo jen souhrnného zpracování. Recenze oceňuje, že autor nepopisuje pouze jednotlivé procesy hromadných přesídlení, nýbrž podává také dosti výstižný obraz fungování československé společnosti a československých státních a bezpečnostních složek v poválečné době., The reviewer presents this publication, whose title translates as ‘Internal transfer, 1947-53: The final phase in the “purging of the borderlands” in the political and social contexts of post-war Czechoslovakia’, as a detailed analysis of select cases of forced migration in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War. The author of the work, Tomáš Dvořák, has, according to the reviewer, thoroughly reconstructed the preparation and execution of the resettlement and the ‘dispersal’ of tens of thousands of unexpelled German Czechoslovaks to the Bohemian and Moravian interior, as well as the transfer of thousands of other Germans to the area of the uranium mines in the Jáchymov region, thus creating a distinctive new island of German speakers. It is reasonable to see these migrations as a continuation of the ‘great transfer’ of most of the Germans of Czechoslovakia. The most attention is paid in the book to the fate of several hundred Moravian Croatians from three rural districts in south Moravia near the Austrian frontier, the complete deportation of a whole ethnic minority. The reviewer regrets that the other unexecuted or only planned transfers of other groups of the population of Czechoslovakia (Slovak Hungarians, inhabitants of zones in the borderlands, Poles of Silesia) are only generally considered here. The reviewer does, however, appreciate that the author not only discusses the individual processes of mass resettlement, but also provides a vivid picture of the workings of Czechoslovak society and the Czechoslovak authorities and secret police in the post-war period., [autor recenze] David Kovařík., and Obsahuje bibliografii
This paper focuses on the memoirs of František Ježek, politician and member of the Czechoslovak National Democratic Party (after 1935 the National Union). In 1938 Ježek was a member of the Czechoslovak cabinet as the Minister of Public Health. His text is one of the most important unpublished Czechoslovak memoirs dealing with the topic of the Munich Agreement in 1938. This manuscript provides detailed information on the activities of the Czechoslovak government and political parties in the critical year of 1938. and Článek zahrnuje poznámkový aparát pod čarou
Communist Czechoslovakia was looking for opportunities for ideological action in western countries at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. It should have the widest possible range, at the same time it had to be however so inconspicuous so that it did not prompt a negative reaction of local authorities. Purpose-built updating of selected anniversaries of historical events was an interesting tool of Czechoslovak propaganda. In the case of France, particularly events related to Germany were remembered. Actually, the aim of that propaganda was – first of all – to point out the alleged danger arising from the cooperation of western countries with the Federal Republic of Germany, which resulted for example in the Élysée Treaty in 1963.