Obnovení pořádku v Československé akademii věd patřilo mezi prvořadé úkoly československé normalizace. Některé instituce byly ''očištěny'' dříve, jiné později, každopádně propuštění Ivana Svitáka z Filosofického ústavu v létě 1969 představovalo precedens, podle něhož bylo o nedlouho později postupováno vůči vědcům ocitnuvším se v kapitalistické cizině. Hlavně se ale jednalo o symbolický akt likvidace nepohodlného exponenta ''pravice a kontrarevoluce''. Svitákova institucionální exkomunikace vypovídá mnohé o samotných normalizačních mechanismech i tehdejších aktérech. Publikovaná korespondence odhaluje myšlenkový svět hlavního aktéra, jeho odpor vůči technokracii, byrokracii i zdeformovanému socialismu, přibližuje jeho pracovní plány a do jisté míry i představy o fungování společnosti demokratického socialismu. Úřední strohost Richtových listů oproti tomu nese jisté stopy cynismu expertně orientovaného vědce, který nepřipouští výraznější projevy odstředivých tendencí a vyžaduje ''klid na práci''. Edice je chápána jako příspěvek k intelektuálním dějinám, stejně jako k dějinám vědní politiky a rané normalizace., The restoration of order in the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences was among the chief tasks of the so-called ''normalization'' process in Czechoslovakia after the end of the Prague Spring. Some institutions were ''cleansed'' sooner, some later, but the expulsion of Ivan Sviták from the Philosophy Institute in the summer of 1969 set a precedent that would later be used in dealing with other scholars who went to capitalist countries after the military invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Above all, Sviták’s expulsion was a symbolic act that represented the elimination of ''rightwing and counterrevolutionary'' elements. Sviták’s institutional excommunication sheds light both on the mechanisms of normalization, on Sviták as an individual, and on then-director of the Philosophy Institute Radovan Richta. The correspondence presented here reveals Sviták’s intellectual world: his distaste for technocracy, bureaucracy and deformed socialism; his work projects; and to some extent his vision of democratic socialist society. In contrast to Sviták, Richta’s administrative curtness shows the cynicism of expert-minded scientists, who were prepared to fight any disruptive tendencies and who required normalized ''peace for work.'' The publication of these documents is understood as a contribution to intellectual history as well as to the history of science policy and to the history of the early period of Czechoslovak normalization. (Translated by Jan Mervart), and Překlad resumé: Jan Mervart
Present study is conceived as a contribution to the development of Czech humanistic Marxism and is devoted to the philosophers Karel Kosík, Robert Kalivoda and Ivan Sviták during the Czechoslovak spring of 1968. The author considers their philosophical positions, their social critique and their vision of a future democratic socialism as well as their distinctive political commitment inseparable from their philosophical development. For all three, those were long term concerns culminating in the political thaw of 1968. The study deals with their successive texts, written intentionally as contributions to a society-wide discussion or even as programmatic proclamations, showing the moments with which they contended at the time and what goals they followed. At the same time it points to quite evident difference between the thought of I. Sviták on the one hand and K. Kosík and R. Kalivoda on the other, while also attempting a more detailed sketch of differences in their views as well as of the agreements not evident at first glance.