Institute of Contemporary History

Employment:

• 2003 to present Head of the Department for History of Ideas and Concepts, Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
• 10/2016 to 10/2022Co-Director, Imre Kertész Kolleg, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany
• 2010 to 06/2016 Assistant Professor of Czech and Central European History, Institute of Czech History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague
• 01/2001 to 12/2002 Junior Research Fellow, Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
• 01/1998 to 12/2000 Freelance journalist – Public Broadcasting – Czech Radio–1 ‘Radiožurnál’ – Foreign Desk Reporter for Regions of Russia, Central and Eastern Europe.

Qualifications:

• 05/2005 Ph.D. degree, Russian and Eastern European Studies, Institute of International Area Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague
• 06/1998 Mgr. (MA) Degree, Department of History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, Seminar of General and Comparative History
• Languages: native: Czech; fluent: English, German, Polish, Russian, Slovak; reading knowledge: Belarusian, Hungarian, Ukrainian

Main areass of research:

• comparative modern intellectual history of Central and Eastern Europe
• history of state socialism and communism in Central and Eastern Europe
• democratization and post-socialism studies
• history and theory of historiography, memory studies

Teaching experience:

• 2010 to 2016 Assistant Professor of Czech and Central European History, Institute of Czech History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague

Courses taught: Legacy of Dissidence; Methodological seminar for historians; Rethinking (post-)socialism in East Central Europe; Apolitical democracy: Czech and Central European intellectual history after 1989; Modern political thought in Bohemia/Czechoslovakia

• 01-03/2015 Visiting Professor, Central European University, Budapest

Course taught: Intellectual Origins of Post-Socialism in East Central Europe: Dissidents, Experts, and Technocrats 1969–2000.

• 2006 to 2010 External lecturer, International Area Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University Prague

Courses taught: Historical reflection of contemporary history; Methodological seminar

• 09/2005-06/2006 Fulbright Scholar-in-residence, Endicott College, Beverly, MA, USA

Courses taught: Contemporary East Central Europe; Honors seminar: Modernity, Irony and National Self: In Quest of Identity in Eastern Europe

Academic awards:

• 08-09/2016 Research Fellowship, German Historical Institute, Warsaw
• 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 the Open Society Archives, Budapest
• 2009 Otto Wichterle Prize, Academy of Science of the Czech Republic
• 2008 International Visegrad Fund Award for junior scholars in history and ethnography
• 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
• 01/2001 – 06/2001 Robert Bosch Junior Visiting Fellowship, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna
• 09–10/2000 DAAD Research Fellowship, Humboldt University, Berlin.

Memberships:

• Member of the Academic Boards of the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague and of the Collegium Carolinum, Munich
• Member of the editorial boards of academic journals Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History; Prague), the English version Czech Journal of Contemporary History (Prague) and Dějiny, teorie, kritika (History, Theory, Criticism; Prague)

List of select publications

Monographs:

• Architekti dlouhé změny. Expertní kořeny postsocialismu v Československu. (Architects of Long Transformation: Expert Roots of Post-Socialism in Czechoslovakia) Prague: Argo 2019, with 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.
  (Divided by the Past. Formation of Political Identities in the Czech Republic after 1989.) With: 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. (Quest for the Revolution’s Lost Meaning. Origins of the Marxist Revisionism in Central Europe 1953-1960), Praha, Argo 2009 [English translation is in preparation for the History of East Central Europe Series at Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden-Boston, MA]

Edited Volumes:

• Čechoslovakismus [Czechoslovakism], Adam Hudek, Michal Kopeček, Jan Mervart (eds.), Prague: 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 [Chapters from the History of Czech Democracy after 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. II. National Romanticism – The Formation of National Movements. Balázs Trencsényi and Michal Kopeček (eds.), Budapest, CEU Press 2007
• Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe 1770-1945. Texts and Commentaries. I. Late Enlightenment – Emergence of the Modern ‘Nation Idea’. Balázs Trencsényi and Michal Kopeček (eds.), Budapest, CEU Press 2006
• Bolševismus, komunismus a radikální socialismus v Československu, I-V (Bolshevism, Communism and Radical Socialism in Czechoslovakia) Zdeněk Kárník – Michal Kopeček (eds.), Praha, ÚSD–Dokořán 2003-2005

Journal Articles

• The Socialist Conception of Human Rights and Its Dissident Critique, East Central Europe, vol. 46 (2-3/2019), 261-289. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/18763308-04602006
• Czechoslovak interwar democracy and its critical introspections, Journal of Modern European History, vol. 17 (2019), no. 1, 7–15. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1611894418820217
• 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 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777318000851
• 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), pp. 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), pp 5-18, http://www.usd.cas.cz/casopis/czech-journal-of-contemporary-history-4-2016/.
• Čeští komunističtí intelektuálové a “národní cesta k socialismu”: Zdeněk Nejedlý a Karel Kosík, 1945-1968. In: Soudobé dějiny XXIII (2016), pp. 77-117.
• Stigma of the Past and the Bond of the Belonging: Czech Communists in the First Decade after 1989, In: Czech Journal of Contemporary History, 1 (2013), pp. 101-130. http://www.usd.cas.cz/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Czech_Journal_1-2013_pro_web.pdf
• Human Rights facing a National Past. Dissident ‘Civic Patriotism’ and the Return of History in East Central Europe 1968-1989, In: Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 38, 4 (2012), pp. 573 – 602
• Historický výskum národných hnutí a koncept socialistického patriotizmu v Československu, Maďarsku a stredo-východnej Európe v rokoch 1956 – 1970. In Forum Historiae, 2013, roč. 1, č. 1. ISSN 1337-6861.
• 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.
• Mezi politickým mýtem a historickou rekonstrukcí. Marxismus a demokratická opozice ve středovýchodní Evropě (In between political mythos and historical reconstruction: Marxism and the democratic opposition in East Central Europe) Dějiny a současnost 9/2010, pp. 33-36.
• The Czech Republic: From Democracy Legitimization to the Politics of Memory, in: Forum: Politics of History in East Europe, Journal of Modern European History, 8, 2/2010, pp. 145-148.
• Stigma minulosti, pouto sounáležitosti. První desetiletí českého polistopadového komunismu. (Stigma of the Past and the Bond of the Belonging. First Decade of Czech Communism after 1989), In: Soudobé dějiny, 2-3/2009, pp. 386-418.
• Citizen and Patriot in the Post-Totalitarian Era: Czech Dissidence in Search of the Nation and its Democratic Future. In: Tr@nsit online. The ‘‘Brave New World’’ after Communism.
  1989: Expectations in Comparison. Put online in December, 2009 http://www.iwm.at/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=168&Itemid=231I In Hungarian language: Állampolgár és patrióta a totalitarizmus utáni korszakban: a cseh ellenzék, a nemzet és a demokratikus jövő. In: 2000, január 2010, pp. 3-16.
• Hledání „paměti národa“. Politika dějin, nostalgie a české dějepisectví komunismu. In: Dějiny, teorie, kritika, 2007, s. 7-26.
• Charta 77 očima Západu: Co přinesl disent politice a politickému myšlení. (Charter 77 viewed from the West: Dissent’s contribution to politics and political thought) in: Dějiny a současnost, 2/2007, pp. 30-34.
• L’année 1956 et le revisionnisme marxiste en Tchécoslovaquie dans la seconde moitié des années 1950, In: Communisme 88/89 2006/2007, La revolution hongroise de 1956. Nouvelles Approches, s. 159-184.
• L’historiographie tchèque du communisme depuis 1989. With Jaroslav Cuhra, In: La Nouvelle Alternative, 60/61 (2004), pp. 199-211.
• Közép-Európa és a visegrádi együttműködés a cseh politikai gondolkodásban. (Central Europe and Visegrad cooperation in Czech political thought). In: Limes 2/2005, pp. 103-120.
• Sudetoněmecká otázka’ v české akademické debatě po r. 1989 (‘Sudeten-German question’ in Czech academic debate after 1989), with Miroslav Kunštát, In: Soudobé dějiny 3/2003, pp. 293-318.

Book Chapters

• 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, pp. 345-389.
• Disidentský legalismus. Socialistická zákonnost, lidská práva a zrod právního odporu v demokratické opozici v Československu a Polsku v 70. letech. [Dissident Legalism: Socialist Legality, Human Rights and the Origins of Legal Resistance in Democratic Opposition in the 1970s Czechoslovakia and Poland] Jiří Suk et. al. Šest kapitol o disentu [Six Chapters in Dissidence] Praha: Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, 2017, pp. 10-48
• Dějiny 20. století. České, československé nebo böhmisch? [20th-Century History. Czech, Czechoslovak or Böhmisch?.] sjezd českých historiků : Ostrava, 14.-16.9.2011. Vol. 6. Ostrava: Filozofická fakulta Ostravské univerzity v Ostravě, 2017 (Zářický, A.; Kadlec, P.; Závodná, M. eds.), pp. 10-18.
• Lidská práva mezi politickou identitou a historickou kategorií. in: Jiří Přibáň, Václav Bělohradský (eds.), Lidská práva. (Ne)smysl české politiky?. Praha: Sociologické nakladatelství (SLON), 2015, pp. 167-182.
• 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, Kopeček – P. Wciślik (eds.) Budapest – New York: CEU Press, 2015, pp. 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, pp. 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, pp. 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.
• Polemika Milan Kundera – Václav Havel. Spory o českou otázku v letech 1967-1969 a jejich historický obraz, (Milan Kundera – Václav Havel Polemics. Discussions about the Czech Question in 1967-1969) in: Pražské jaro 1968. Literatura – film – média. (Prague Spring 1968. Literature, Film, Media) Praha, Literární akademie, 2009, s. 129-138
• 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 Communism 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, pp. 75-96.
• Historická paměť a liberální nacionalismus v Česku a střední Evropě po roce 1989 (Historical Memory and Liberal Nationalism in Czechia and East Central Europe) In: Kapitoly z dějin české demokracie po roce 1989 (Chapters from the History of Czech Democracy after 1989), Adéla Gjuričová and Michal Kopeček (eds.), Praha-Litomyšl, Paseka, 2008, pp. 227-259.
• A Difficult Quest for New Paradigms. Czech Historiography after 1989. With Pavel Kolář, In: Narratives Unbound. Historical Studies in Post-Communist Eastern Europe. Sorin Antohi, Peter Ápor and Balázs Trencsényi (eds.), Budapest, New York, CEU Press, 2007, pp. 173-248.
• Die so gennante sudetendeutsche Frage im tschechischen akademischen Diskurs nach 1989, In: Elizabeth Reif, Ingrid Schwarz (eds.): Zwischen Konflikt und Annäherung. Wien, Mandelbaum 2005, s. 84-114.
• The Ups and Downs of Central Europe. Chapters from Czech Symbolic Geography. In: Zora Hlavičková, Nikolas Maslowski (eds.): The Weight of History in Central European Societies of the 20th Century. Prague, CES 2005, s. 41-59.
• „Za čistotu marxisticko-leninského myšlení.“ K problematice tzv. revizionismu v české marxistické filozofii druhé poloviny 50.let. (‘For the Purity of Marxist-Leninist Thinking’. Contribution to the Question of ‘Revisionsism’ in Czech Marxist Philosophy in the 1950s.). In: Bolševismus, komunismus, radikální socialismus v Československu, vol. II, Zdeněk Kárník – Michal Kopeček (eds.), Praha, ÚSD- Dokořán 2004, pp. 172-212.