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.
Petro Shelest (1908–1997), the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was one of the strongest advocates of an armed invasion of Czechoslovakia among Soviet leaders in 1968. The Soviet leadership tasked him to maintain contacts with the so-called healthy forces in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia; in the beginning of August, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Vasil Biľak (1917–2014) secretly handed over to him the notorious “letter of invitation” in public lavatories in Bratislava. The author asks a fundamental question whether it is possible to identify a specific Ukrainian factor which stepped into the Prague Spring process and contributed to its tragic end. He attempts to capture Shelest’s position in the decision-making process and describe information that Shelest was working with., To this end, he has made use of reports of the Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti – KGB) of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on developments in Czechoslovakia and reactions thereto among Ukrainian citizens produced in the spring and summer of 1968, which were being sent to Shelest and other Ukrainian leaders. These documents have lately been made available in Ukrainian archives and partly published on the website of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. Their analysis brings the author to a conclusion that they were offering a considerably distorted picture of the situation. Instead of relevant information and analyses, they only present various clichés, ideological rhetoric, inaccuracies, or downright nonsenses. Their source were often members of the Czechoslovak State Security who were often motivated by worries about their own careers and existence and were acting on their own., and The uncritical acceptance of the documents contributed to a situation in which in the leader of the Ukrainian Communists and other Soviet representatives were creating unrealistic pictures of the events taking place in Czechoslovakia, believing that anti-socialist forces were winning, anti-Soviet propaganda was prevailing, and Western intelligence agencies were strengthening their position in Czechoslovakia, and that there was a threat that the events that had taken place in Hungary in 1956 would repeat themselves again. As indicated by his published diary entries and other documents, Petro Shelest was using these allegations both in discussions inside his own party and during negotiations with Czechoslovak politicians. Just like in the case of the leaders of Polish and East German Communists, Władysław Gomułka and Walter Ulbricht, respectively, the principal reason why Shelest was promoting a solution of the Czechoslovak crisis by force was, in the author’s opinion, his fear of “contagion” of his own society by events taking place in Czechoslovakia which the Ukraine shared a border with.
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
This article draws upon the remarkable diaries of Vojtěch Berger
to offer an original perspective on left-wing politics and the transformative effects of war, occupation, and violence in early twentieth-century Central Europe. Berger, a trained carpenter from southern Bohemia, began writing a diary at the turn of the century when he was a member of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party in Vienna. He continued to write as he fought for the Habsburg monarchy during World War I; moved to Prague and joined the Communist Party; endured the Nazi occupation; and questioned the
Communist Party, and his place in it, after liberation in 1945. Berger’s diary speaks to two constituencies that deserve more attention from historians: Czech-speaking veterans of World War I and rank-and-file members of the interwar Communist Party. The article argues that Berger’s politics, while informed by his experiences and framed by party ideologies and structures,
obtained significance through relationships with like-minded “comrades”. Furthermore, the article examines how Berger used his diary to create political self-understanding, to fashion a political self. Each world war, the article concludes, threw this sense of self into disarray. Each world war also spurred Berger to reshape his political self, and with that to reconstitute his political beliefs, his public relationships, and his sense of belonging in the world. and Článek zahrnuje poznámkový aparát pod čarou
The study stems from the author’s long-time interest in the history of the Czechoslovak foreign resistance during the Great War, particularly in Russia. As to its sources, it draws from a collection of published recollections of Czechoslovak legionnaires and their autobiographic novels and other texts of prose. The author attempts to reconstruct the picture of the return of Czechoslovak legions from Russia to their home country; due to the nature of his sources, however, his intention is not to convey an authentic experience of the return in the fi rst days and weeks, but rather to examine the construct created by the legionnaires’ memories and novels. In this respect, he makes use of, in particular, Anglo-Saxon historical literature dealing with similar topics. The key issues include how individuals or whole social groups were coping with the reality of the newborn republic, which was rather different from the visions of the home country they had been dreaming about while away. An important factor affecting their refl ections was also the required political nonaffi liation of organizations of legionnaires, as well as the criticism of the situation not just among the veterans, but in the entire society. The extent of the idealization of Russia, which was a fairly frequent phenomenon among them, was directly proportional to the disillusionment after their return, and was a mirror image of their previous idealization of home while they had been in Russia. In the author’s opinion, the topic of the return of Czechoslovak legions home and their life in their home country is far from exhausted; this is why the present study should be just a springboard to further broadly conceived research. and Přeložil Jiří Mareš
Text reflektuje postavení podniku pro zahraniční obchod (PZO) Artia ve struktuře tuzemských hudebních vydavatelství v období normalizace s cílem přiblížit modus operandi exportně orientované hudebně vydavatelské činnosti v Československu. V porovnání s hudebními vydavatelstvími zaměřenými na domácí trh se Artia odlišovala svou koncepcí ediční i obchodní politiky, u níž ideologický a estetický diktát determinovaný systémem řízení a kontroly kulturní tvorby ustupoval obchodním zájmům Ministerstva zahraničního obchodu. Sledování dynamicky se proměňujícího střetu ideologických a ekonomických zájmů v oblasti kultury je zajímavé zejména v období nastupující normalizace charakteristické zesílenou kontrolou ideologické čistoty uměleckého projevu, a nejen proto je toto téma vhodné pro všechny zájemce o multidisciplinární zkoumání kulturních dějin Československa., The article reflects the position of a foreign trade enterprise called Artia within Czechoslovak music industry. The primary goal is to reveal the modus operandi of the music industry in international trading on the example of Artia. Given its export orientation, Artia was a specific organization dealing more than other Czechoslovak record companies with commercial success instead of ideological and aesthetical issues in its editorial policy. Such an approach was dramatically challenged in the period of „normalization“ (1969-1989) when ideological requirements on record companies were reinforced in the system of management and control of cultural production in Czechoslovakia. Artia, therefore, is a suitable object for exploring the relationship between ideological and commercial aspects of cultural production in Czechoslovakia from a multidisciplinary perspective., Martin Husák., and Obsahuje bibliografii