Institute of Contemporary History

Fields of research:

• Comparative and transnational modern intellectual history of Central and Eastern Europe
• History of state socialism and communism in Central and Eastern Europe
• Nationalism and identity politics
• Democratization and post-communism
• History and theory of historiography, memory studies
• Civic dissent and human rights history

Current position:

• 2016–present, Head of the Department for History of Ideas and Concepts, Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague

Previous positions:

• 10/2016–10/2022, Co-Director, Imre Kertész Kolleg, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany
• 2003–2017, Head of the Department of Late and Post-Socialism, Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
• 2001–2002, Junior Research Fellow, Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
• 1998–2000, Freelance journalist – Public Broadcasting – Czech Radio–1 ‘Radiožurnál’ – Foreign Desk Reporter for Regions of Russia, Central and Eastern Europe

External positions and fellowships:

• 01/2024-02/2024, Jan Patočka Fellowship, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna
• 10/2023-11/2023, International Visegrad Fund Fellowship, Institute for History, SAV, Bratislava
• 02/2021-06/2022, Leverhulme Visiting Professor, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
• 2010–2016, External Lecturer of Czech and Central European History, Institute of Czech History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague
• 08 – 09/2016, Research Fellowship, German Historical Institute, Warsaw
• 01 – 03/2015, Visiting Professor, History Department, Central European University, Budapest
• 08 – 09/2014, Visiting Research Fellowship, Graduiertenschule für Ost- und Südosteuropa Studien, IOS, Universität Regensburg, Germany
• 09/2012–08/2013 Research Fellowship, Imre Kertész Kolleg, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany
• 06–07/2011, Visegrad Research Scholarship at Open Society Archives, Budapest
• 2001–2008, External Lecturer, Institute of International Area Studies, Russian and East European History, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague
• 09/2005–06/2006, Fulbright Scholar-in-residence Fellowship, Endicott College, Beverly, MA, USA
• 09/2003 – 06/2004 International Visegrad Fund Fellowship, István Bibó Research Center, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest
• 07/2002 CEU Summer School Fellowship, ‘Global Mappings: Symbolic Geographies Revisited’, CEU Budapest
• 01 – 06/2001, Robert Bosch Junior Visiting Fellowship, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna
• 09 – 10/2000, DAAD Research Fellowship, Humboldt University, Berlin.

Education:

• 2005 PhD in Russian and Eastern European Studies, Institute of International Area Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague
• 1998 MA in General and Comparative History, Charles University Prague

Languages:

• native: Czech; fluent: English, German, Polish, Russian, Slovak; reading knowledge: Belarusian, Hungarian, Ukrainian

Professional membership:

• Member of Academic Board of the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague
• Member of Collegium Carolinum, Munich
• Member of American Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Research Associate of the RECET, Research Center for History of Transformations, Vienna University
• External Associate Member of Centre for Advanced Study, Sofia
• Member of the editorial board of academic journal Soudobé dějiny/Czech Journal of Contemporary History (Prague)
• Member of the editorial board of academic journal Dějiny – Teorie – Kritika (History, Theory, Criticism; Prague).

Select publications:

Monographs

• Architekti dlouhé změny. Expertní kořeny postsocialismu v Československu. Praha: Argo 2019, spoluautoři A. Gjuričová, V. Rameš, P. Roubal, M. Spurný, T. Vilímek.
• A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe. Volume II, Part I Negotiating Modernity in the “Short Twentieth Century” and Beyond (1918–1968). and Part II Negotiating Modernity in the “Short Twentieth Century” and Beyond (1968-2018). Trencsényi, M. Kopeček, L. L. Gabrijelčič, M. Falina, M. Baár, M. Janowski, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
• A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe. Volume I: Negotiating Modernity in the ‚Long Nineteenth Century‘, Balázs Trencsényi, Maciej Janowski, Monika Baar, Maria Falina, and Michal Kopeček, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2016.
• Rozděleni minulostí. Vytváření politických identit v České republice po roce 1989. Spoluatoři: A. Gjuričová, P. Roubal, J. Suk, T. Zahradníček. Praha, Knihovna Václava Havla 2011.
• Hledání ztraceného smyslu revoluce. Zrod a počátky marxistického revizionismu ve střední Evropě 1953-1960. Praha, Argo 2009

Edited Volumes

• Czechoslovakism, Adam Hudek, Michal Kopeček, Jan Mervart (eds.), London: Routledge 2022; česká a slovenská původní verze: Čechoslovakismus, Adam Hudek, Michal Kopeček, Jan Mervart (eds.), Praha: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR 2019.
• Thinking Through Transition: Liberal Democracy, Authoritarian Pasts, and Intellectual History in East Central Europe After 1989, Michal Kopeček – Piotr Wciślik (eds.), Budapest – New York: CEU Press, 2015.
• Past in the Making. Historical Revisionism in Central Europe after 1989. Michal Kopeček (ed.), Budapest, New York, CEU Press 2008.
• Kapitoly z dějin české demokracie po roce 1989, Adéla Gjuričová and Michal Kopeček (eds.), Praha-Litomyšl, Paseka, 2008.
• Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe 1770-1945. Texts and Commentaries, vol. II. National Romanticism – The Formation of National Movements. Balázs Trencsényi and Michal Kopeček (eds.), Budapest, New York, CEU Press 2007.
• Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe 1770-1945. Texts and Commentaries, vol. I. Late Enlightenment – Emergence of the Modern ‘Nation Idea’. Balázs Trencsényi and Michal Kopeček (eds.), Budapest, New York, CEU Press 2006.
• Bolševismus, komunismus a radikální socialismus v Československu I -IV, Zdeněk Kárník – Michal Kopeček (eds.), Praha, Ústav pro soudobé dějiny, Dokořán 2003–2005.

Journal Articles

• Post-Dissident Politics and the “Liberal Consensus” in East- Central Europe after 1989, East European Politics & Societies, accepted for print, forthcoming in spring 2024.
• H-Diplo Review Roundtable XXIV-12: Review of Robert Brier, Poland’s Solidarity Movement and the Global Politics of Human Rights.[BRIER, R.: Poland’s Solidarity Movement and the Global Politics of Human Rights. Cambridge, 2021.]. H-Diplo. -, 14.11.2022 (2022).
• Was there a socialist Rechtsstaat in late communist East Central Europe? The Czechoslovak case in a regional context, Journal of Modern European History, Vol. 18 (3) 2020; 281–296.
• Introduction: (Re-)constituting the State and Law during the ‘Long Transformation of 1989’ in East Central Europe, co-authored with Ned Richardson-Little, Journal of Modern European History, vol. 18 (3) 2020, 275-280.
• Toward the “History of Meaning” of 1989. Debate on Europe Since 1989 by Philipp Ther, East Central Europe, vol. 47 (2-3/2020), 376-380.
• The Socialist Conception of Human Rights and Its Dissident Critique, East Central Europe, vol. 46 (2-3/2019), 261-289.
• Czechoslovak interwar democracy and its critical introspections, Journal of Modern European History, vol. 17 (2019), no. 1, 7–15.
• Sovereignty, ‚Return to Europe‘ and Democratic Distrust in the East after 1989 in the Light of Brexit, Contemporary European History, 28 (2019), No. 1, 73-76.
• From Scientific Social Management to Neoliberal Governmentality? Czechoslovak Sociology and Social Research on the Way from Authoritarianism to Liberal Democracy, 1969-1989. In: Stan Rzeczy (State of Affairs) vol. 13, no. 2 (2017), s. 171-196.
• Human Rights between Political Identity and Historical Category: Czechoslovakia and East Central Europe in a Global Context, in: Czech Journal of Contemporary History, 4 (2016), s. 5-18.
• Stigma of the Past and the Bond of the Belonging: Czech Communists in the First Decade after 1989, In: Czech Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 1 (2013), pp. 101-130.
• Human Rights facing a National Past. Dissident ‘Civic Patriotism’ and the Return of History in East Central Eu.rope 1968-1989, In: Geschichte und Gesellschaft, vol. 38, 4 (2012),  s. 573-602.
• The Rise and Fall of Czech Post-Dissident Liberalism after 1989. East European Politics & Societies, April 15, 2011, vol. 25, no. 2, s. 244-271.

Book Chapters

• Dissident Legalism. Human Rights, Socialist Legality, and the Birth of Legal Resistance in the 1970s Democratic Opposition in Czechoslovakia and Poland, in Making Sense of Dictatorship. Domination and Everyday Life in East Central Europe after 1945. – C. Donert, A. Kladnik, M. Sabrow, eds., Budapest: CEU Press, 2022,  241–269.
• Czechoslovakism: the concept’s blurry history, In: Czechoslovakism, Hudek, A.; Kopeček, M.; Mervart, J. eds. London: Routledge, 2022 1-34.
• From Narrating Dissidence to Post-Dissident Narratives of Democracy. Anti-totalitarianism, Politics of Memory and Culture Wars in East-Central Europe 1970s-2000s, in: Central European Culture Wars. Beyond Post-Communism and Populism, Pavel Barša, Zora Hesová, Ondřej Slačálek, (edd.), Praha 2021, 28-83.
• Czech Communist Intellectuals and the ‚National Road to Socialism‘: Zdeněk Nejedlý and Karel Kosík, 1945-1968, in: Vladimir Tismaneanu, Bogdan C. Iacob (eds.), Ideological Storms: Intellectuals, Dictators and the Totalitarian Temptation, Budapest: CEU Press 2019, s. 345-389.
• Introduction: Towards and Intellectual History of Post-socialism. With P. Wciślik, In: Thinking Through Transition: Liberal Democracy, Authoritarian Pasts, and Intellectual History in East Central Europe After 1989, M. Kopeček – P. Wciślik (eds.) Budapest – New York: CEU Press, 2015, s. 1-35.
• En busca de una memoria nacional. La política de la historia, la nostalgia y la historiografía del comunismo en la Républica Checa y en la Europa central y oriental, In: El pasado en construcción: Revisionismos históricos en la historiografía contemporánea, Carlos Forcadell, Ignacion Peiró, Mercedes Yusta, eds., Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico 2015, s. 155-180.
• Von der Geschichtspolitik zur Erinnerung als politischer Sprache: Der tschechische Umgang mit der kommunistischen Vergangenheit nach 1989, in: François, Etienne; Kończal, Kornelia; Traba, Robert; Troebst, Stefan (Hg.): Geschichtspolitik in Europa seit 1989. Deutschland, Frankreich und Polen im internationalen Vergleich. Göttingen: Wallstein 2013, s. 356-395.
• Kommunismus zwischen Geschichtspolitik und Historiographie in Ostmitteleuropa, in: Volkhard Knigge (Hg.): Kommunismusforschung- und Erinnerungskulturen in Ostmittel- und Westeuropa (=Europäische Diktaturen und ihre Überwindung. Schriften der Stiftung Ettersberg, Bd. 19), Köln/Weimar/Wien 2013, pp. 17–38.
• Historical Studies of Nation-Building and the Concept of Socialist Patriotism in East Central Europe 1956-1970. In: Pavel Kolář – Miloš Řezník (eds.), Historische Nationsforschung im geteilten Europa 1945-1989, Köln: shverlag 2012, pp. 121–136.
• Entwicklung des Reform- und Kritikpotentials. Bilanz der Kommunismus- und Regimekritik in der Tschechoslowakei. In: Der Prager Frühling: das Ende einer Illusion? Jiří Gruša, Jan Pauer, Wolfgang Lederhaas (eds.), Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, DA Favorita Paper 01/2008, pp. 10–19.
• In Search for „National Memory“. The Politics of History, Nostalgia and the Historiography of Communistm in the Czech Republic and East Central Europe In: Past in the Making. Historical Revisionism in Central Europe after 1989. Michal Kopeček (ed.), Budapest, New York, CEU Press 2008, s. 75-96.
• A Difficult Quest for New Paradigms. Czech Historiography After 1989. Spoluautor Pavel Kolář, In: Narratives Unbound. Historical Studies in Post-Communist Eastern Europe. Sorin Antohi, Balázs Trencsényi, Peter Ápor, (eds.), Budapest, New York CEU Press, 2007, s. 173-248.
• Die so gennante sudetendeutsche Frage im tschechischen akademischen Diskurs nach 1989, with Miroslav Kunštát, In: Elizabeth Reif, Ingrid Schwarz (eds.): Zwischen Konflikt und Annäherung. Wien, Mandelbaum 2005, s. 84–114.