Early life, education and social contacts of the Czech-born Egyptologist Jaroslav Černý (who identified himself as a citizen of Czechoslovakia in his lifetime) are shown in the context of his family history, social expectations and developing academic practices in Austria-Hungary and early Czechoslovakia. Černý’s family aspired to be considered middle class in terms of social interaction, although they lived in straitened circumstances exacerbated by the economic austerity of the First World War era. Černý himself trained as a Classical scholar and later as an Egyptologist at Prague University, but did not fit the role model combining a teaching career (which offered sustenance) with a university Privatdozent role (which offered participation in the academic community), which was the practice accepted in his teachers’ generation. Instead, he embarked on a career in financial services, alongside pursuit of his academic studies that soon encompassed major European museum collections with Egyptian exhibits and put him in contact with the international Egyptological community. His solution was appreciated by his sponsors, including major political and financier figures of the then Czechoslovakia, as being practical as well as showing single-minded determination. It is also suggested that the skills developed during his years in portfolio work were later applied to his research. Translated by Hana Navrátilová and Paul Sinclair and Překlad redumé: Hana Navrátilová and Paul Sinclair
The paper offers a synthetic overview of the historical and social sciences writings on 19th and 20th century Romanian elites. Following the original local sociological constructs developed
during the interwar period, the early socialist regime stopped almost all research on the topic for the next two decades. The interest rose again slowly in the 1970s and 1980s, when preliminary investigations highlighted some of the future research subjects: intellectuals,
economic, and political elites. After 1989, historians were the first to enter the field, opening workshops on the previously mentioned categories, and more recently on ecclesiastical, military, and administrative elites. Social and political scientists followed shortly, focusing mainly – but not exclusively – on the socialist and post-socialist elites. Despite the flourishing period of the last two decades, and the generally positive trend, the historical research on elites in Romania produced mainly empirical studies. The methodological and theoretical framework was left unapproached, partly due to a lack of tradition, partly because of the low level of collaboration between historians and social scientists.