Institute of Contemporary History

Articles

A Way Out of the ‘Third Resistance’ Cul de Sac:

Concepts of Resistance and the Study of Socialist Dictatorship in Czechoslovakia
Vítězslav Sommer

This article is a response to a recent debate on resistance to state socialism in Czechoslovakia. It focuses on the methods used in contemporary Czech research on the ‘Third Resistance’. The author begins by outlining developments in historical and other research on resistance. He considers in particular works by British Marxist historians in the 1950s and 1960s, James C. Scott’s concept of ‘everyday forms of resistance’, and the Indian school of ‘Subaltern Studies’ over the next two decades. He also presents some influential typologies of resistance, with special attention paid to German research on resistance to Nazism and state socialism, American research on resistance in the Stalinist era, and controversies that emerged amongst scholars in these areas. From the perspective of this international research, he then analyzes Czech scholarship on the ‘Third Resistance’. In his conclusion, the author offers possible ways out of what he sees as the currently desolate state of research on the topic, hoping thereby to provide an impulse to the historiographical debate.

For the Liberation of the ‘Captive Nations’:

A Comparison of Political Organizations of Anti-Communist Exiles from East-Central Europe and the Balkans
Martin Nekola

This article discusses the formation and development of groupings of political exiles from the countries of east-central and southeast Europe in the West, particularly in the USA, during the Cold War. The author states that although Czech historians have in recent years begun to pay more attention to anti-Communist exiles from Czechoslovakia after the Communist takeover of February 1948, the inclusion of this topic in the wider international context and comparitive research on exile movements of other East Bloc nations is still fundamentally lacking. The chief aim of the article is therefore to provide a basic factual overview to enable scholars to assess the extent to which Czechoslovak (or Czech and Slovak) post-February-1948 exiles cannot be discussed using the usual model of the operation of the exile community during the Cold War or, on the contrary, do fit nicely into it. Using records in North American archives, the author first outlines the general preconditions for the operation of the anti-Communist exile movement in Western countries and he describes the work of supranational political representatives of exiles, the most important of which was the Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN), established in New York City in 1954. He then gradually introduces the political organizations and representatives of the individual national exiles of Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Baltic countries, and the countries of the former Yugoslavia. He demonstrates that the role and standing of the political exile associations from eastern Europe were essentially derived from changes in international politics and were to a considerable extent dependent on the support of US institutions. That was a consequence of their origin in the second half of the 1940s, their expansion in the 1950s, and their gradual decline over the next three decades. The characteristic image of the anti-Communist exiles includes internal crises and conflicts, which were often rooted in petty causes, personal animosity, problems with the legitimacy of the leading bodies, an absence of charismatic figures, and the predominance of propaganda in their work.

Three Views of Dissent:

Discourses on Politics, Society, and History in the Czech, Slovak, and East German Dissident Movements in the 1970s and 1980s
Jan Pauer

In this article the author has undertaken a summarizing comparison of dissidents and dissent in Czechoslovakia and East Germany in the 1970s and 1980s, pointing out their similarities and differences, which he endeavours to explain. He points out the asymmetry of the cases he compares, which stems from the nature and scope of the source material, the current state of historical research, and the results that have been achieved, as well as the terminology used. He also offers a more precise definition of dissent and dissidents, which he then employs. He also reminds his reader how dissent and dissidents in the Bohemian Lands, which arose after the defeat of the 1968 Prague Spring reform movement, separated into Reform-Communist, Christian, liberal, cultural, and sub-culture branches. This pluralism was linked together by the establishment of an umbrella organization, Charter 77, eventually also developing into other groups (občanské iniciativy) of Czechoslovak citizens seeking to act independently of Party and State control. In Slovakia, where Charter 77 never really took root, dissent was expressed in religious, national, and, from the mid-1980s, environmentalist terms.
In East Germany in the 1970s, voices of Marxist dissent were sporadically heard and the socialist orientation was also particular to the independent alternative movements (Bürgerinitiative) that emerged in the 1980s and developed as a peace movement in the Protestant Church. East German dissent and dissidents, unlike Czech and Slovak, were characterized by some generational and ideological homogeneity. They did not have at their disposal internationally recognized intellectual authorities who would symbolize civil protest. And they lacked a programme that would help them to put down roots. They derived their legitimacy from the rhetoric of antimilitarism rather than from human-rights discourse. Of key importance to the different nature of the dissident movement in East Germany were the existence of another German state next door and, related to that, the massive defection to West Germany, the different status of the churches, and the attitude towards a national tradition burdened with the legacy of Nazism, which, unlike in Czechoslovakia, severely hampered the expression of different points of view about the past.

The Birth of the ‘Opposition Agreement’:

An Analysis of the Origin of One of the Most Controversial Pacts in Czech Politics
Lubomír Kopeček

The so-called ‘opposition agreement’, signed in July 1998 between the Civic Democratic Party led by Václav Klaus and the Czech Social Democratic Party led by Miloš Zeman, has been among the most problematic and contentious factors in Czech politics since the end of the Communist régime in late 1989. The signing of the agreement enabled the emergence of a minority Social Democratic government with a guarantee of support from the main opposition party, and created a very unusual political arrangement. In this article the author first recapitulates the main political events in the Czech Republic from the collapse of Klaus’s coalition government in late 1997, as a result of a scandal concerning Civic Democratic Party funding, to early general elections in June 1998. He then analyzes the post-election negotiations amongst the political parties, which resulted in the signing of the opposition agreement. He pays particular attention to the main factors influencing the talks, considers the role of President Václav Havel, and analyzes possible alternatives to the agreement. He regards as completely unrealistic the formation of the centre-right coalition of the Civic Democratic Party, the Christian Democratic Union–Czechoslovak Populist Party, and the Freedom Union; this coalition was the subject of much speculation. He also explains why the two other variants under consideration – namely, a government of Social Democrats, Populist Party members, and Freedom Union members and a minority government of Social Democrats and Populist Party members with the support of the Freedom Union – turned out during the talks to be unworkable. The negotiating strategy of the two minority parties, in the author’s view, was negatively influenced by underestimating the possibility of an agreement between the Civic Democrats and the Social Democrats and excessive reliance on interventions by President Havel, and the lack of unity of the Freedom Union and the wavering of its leaders.

Reviews

The Life and Death of Hitler’s Hangman:

Reflections on a New Biography of Reinhard Heydrich
Milan Hauner

Robert Gerwarth, Reinhard Heydrich: Biographie. Munich: Siedler, 2011, 478 pp.;
Robert Gerwarth, Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011, 393 pp.

In this review of the English and German editions of a new biography by the young German historian Robert Gerwarth, the reviewer considers the paradoxes and key moments in the career and nature of a high-ranking Third Reich functionary, Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942). The reviewer focuses mainly on Heydrich’s devastating work as Deputy Reich Protector in Prague and some aspects of his assassination carried out by Czechoslovak paratroopers whom the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile sent from the United Kingdom. The reviewer assesses Gerwarth’s biography positively in comparison with the existing literature on Heydrich, calling it a solid piece of work in the contemporary sociological trend in German historiography. But he notes that the author has failed to explain the psychological motives of Heydrich’s actions and the contradictory aspects of his personality.

Socialist Czechoslovakia as a Welfare State:

An Inspirational Work on Its Theory and Development
Lenka Kalinová

Jakub Rákosník, Sovětizace sociálního státu: Lidově demokratický režim a sociální práva občanů v Československu 1945–1960. Prague: Fontes and Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy, 2010, 502 pp.

In this long review of a work whose title translates as ‘The Sovietization of the Welfare State: People’s Democracy and Social Rights in Czechoslovakia, 1945–60’, the reviewer discusses the main points of this new monograph. On the whole she assesses it highly as a considerable contribution to our understanding of the subject. She praises in particular the comprehensive approach, the thoughtful conceptualization laid out in a long theoretical introduction and thoroughly tested in the author’s own interpretation, as well as his considerable linking of historical and legal knowledge, his continuous efforts to see the Czechoslovak question in an internationally comparative perspective, a keen sense of the continuity of historical phenomena, the effective use of statistics, and an overall clear, comprehensible method of interpretation.

Wartime Expectations, Post-war Disappointments:

Reservations about a New Work on the Formation of Post-war Czechoslovakia
Aleš Binar

Michal Pehr, Zápas o nové Československo 1939–1946: Válečné představy a poválečná realita. (Knižnice Dějin a současnosti, vol. 41.) Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2011, 237 pp.

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.

The Certainties of an Academic School and the Isolation of a Woman Scholar in a Man’s World

Doubravka Olšáková

Albína Dratvová, Deník 1921–1961: Scientific Diary. Ed. Klára A. Čápová, Libuše Heczková, and Zuzana Leštinová. Prague: Academia, 2008, 478 pp.;

Marie Havránková (ed.), Pražský lingvistický kroužek v korespondenci: Bohuslav Havránek, Vilém Mathesius, Roman Jakobson, Jan Mukařovský, Bohumil Trnka, Miloš Weingart: Korespondence z let 1923–1974. Prague: Academia, 2008, 447 pp.

In each of the two publications considered here the reviewer finds points in common as well as opposing views, and has been prompted to raise some interesting questions, for example, about the continuity and discontinuity of scholarship in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, reflections on changes to academic paradigms, a strategy to establish new scholarly approaches and to achieve success in one’s academic career, and the status of women and women’s liberation in academia. The reviewer acquaints us with the underappreciated philosopher Albína Dratvová (1892–1969) and her academic diary, and considers the lives of members of the Prague Linguistic Circle and the legacy of their pre-war academic works in post-war Czechoslovakia.

The Story of Poland in the History of the Twentieth Century

Jiří Pešek

Włodzimierz Borodziej, Geschichte Polens im 20. Jahrhundert. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2010, 489 pp.

The reviewer presents a series of monographs on the history of individual European countries. Called Europäische Geschichte im 20. Jahrhundert (European History in the Twentieth Century), the series was initiated by C. H. Beck, Munich, and is edited by an expert on contemporary history, Ulrich Herbert. The reviewer then considers one of the books in the series, Borodziej’s history of Poland. According to the reviewer, it is among the most inventive of the volumes published so far. Borodziej is a leading Polish scholar of contemporary history, and, according to the reviewer, the approach he takes in the book is factually critical, combining ‘new political history’ with socially perceived economic history and aspects of the history of mentalities. He considers the chief contribution to be its differentiated view of Polish history, comprising a plurality of historical actors with different aims and perceptions of reality.

The Tsarist Elite and the Russian Revolution

Dalibor Vácha

Matthew Rendle, Defenders of the Motherland: The Tsarist Elite in Revolutionary Russia. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, xii + 274 pp.

This work, according to the reviewer, is in the inspiring current of Anglo-American historiography of the Russian revolutions and the beginnings of the Soviet régime. In this publication the author considers the social strategies employed by members of the aristocracy, landowning classes, and the military – which he groups together under the label ‘Tsarist élite’ – to deal with the precipitous political and social changes brought about by the Russian revolutions of 1917.

Martin Luther King’s Dream Come True and Not Yet Come True

Vlastimil Hála

Marek Hrubec et al., Martin Luther King proti nespravedlnosti. Prague: Filosofia, 2010, 116 pp.

The book under review, whose title translates as ‘Martin Luther King against Injustice’, is a volume of articles from a conference organized in 2008 to mark the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of the clergyman and civil rights activist Martin Luther King (1929–1968). In the individual articles the reader is acquainted with King’s life and works from various angles, particularly the political, social, ethical, philosophical, and theological. The volume, the reviewer believes, will thus help Czechs to form a rounder picture of this exceptional figure, because to the extent that King was thought of positively in this country, it was almost exclusively as someone who fought against racism and for the rights of Afro-Americans, whereas his struggle for social justice, the other side of the coin, has largely been ignored.

Chronicle

Ninety Years of Czech and Slovak Communism:

A Conference
Vítězslav Sommer

From 3 to 5 November 2011, an international conference entitled ‘Ninety Years of Czech and Slovak Communism’ took place in Hrzán Palais, Prague. It was organized by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes and the Institute of Contemporary History at the Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic, both of which are based in Prague, together with the Institute of History at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, to mark the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Though many of the papers were in the spirit of established historiographical conceptions, a striking recent trend, according to the author of this report, has been the gradual shift from traditionally conceived political history to broadly defined cultural and social history. Together with this trend there has also been a historicization of the phenomenon of Communism in Czech and Slovak historiography.

Environmental Histories of the Visegrád Countries:

A Workshop
Emma Hakala

On 24 and 25 March 2012, the Institute of Contemporary Historyat the Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic, Prague, together with the Centre for Russian, Central and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow, held an international workshop in Prague. Entitled ‘Environmental Histories of the Visegrád Countries: Cold War and Environmental Sciences’, the workshop was supported by the Visegrád Fund. The aim of the meeting was to enable people researching environmental history and the history of scholarship to work together more closely in this field, focusing on the role of environmental history in the relations between East and West during the Cold War.