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No. III.-IV.

Hlavní stránka » pages » Journal Soudobé dějiny » Volume XII. (2005) » No. III.-IV. »

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Several Remarks on the ‘The ‘Transfer’ Complex’

Adrian von Arburg

The author provides a concise overview of the main topic of the current double-issue of Soudobé dějiny, a recapitulation of the individual contributions of this set of articles, and suggests further subjects for research. The intentionally ambiguous term ‘the ‘transfer’ complex’ was introduced by Polish historians in the 1990s, in order to describe the vast range of all the developments directly or indirectly connected with the forced wartime and post-war migrations of various population groups of central and Eastern Europe and, on the other hand, to point out the diffi culty that society continues to have in considering these aspects of the past without prejudice. The double-issue of the journal was intended mainly to cast light on some of the broader contexts of the post-war expulsion of the Germans from Czechoslovakia and its consequences in relation to the Bohemian borderlands and the population there in subsequent decades. The various approaches and topics of the articles published here demonstrate well the different aspects of the topic and their interconnections. All the articles tend to discuss the internal context and topics, whereas a large part of related publications on the Czech, German, and Austrian sides have concentrated more or less on the international (diplomatic and legal) contexts.

Ethnic Cleansing, Communism, and Environmental Devastation in Czechoslovakia’s Borderlands, 1945–89:
Creating a New Identity for the North-Bohemian Borderlands

Eagle Glassheim

In this article (originally published as ‘Ethnic Cleansing, Communism, and Environmental Devastation in Czechoslovakia’s Borderlands, 1945–1989,’ Journal of Modern History, vol. 78, [March, 2006], no. 1, pp 65–92) the author considers thecauses of the devastation of the landscape and natural environment of north Bohemia from the end of the Second World War to the collapse of the Communist régime. Unlike some Sudeten-German critics or former Czech dissident intellectuals (like Petr Příhoda), the author does not look for the explanation in the mere fact of the expulsion of the German population, whose place in the borderlands was then taken by new arrivals who lacked both an attachment to place and a sense of belonging with the region. Instead, he aims to demonstrate that in Czechoslovakia immediately after the Second World War three phenomena interacted – namely, ethnic cleansing, Czechoslovak Communist socio-economic policy, late industrial modernity. All, according to him, derived from a complex, for which he uses David Harvey’s terms ‘universal modernism’ and ‘high modernism.’ Its roots go back to the Enlightenment and are usually identifi ed with faith in linear progress and absolute truths, rational planning of the ideal social order, and a desire for reshaping the identity of people and where they live. Immediately after the end of the war in 1945, the institutions of the restored state began to work on the creation of a new regional identity for the borderlands, which was to be based on the pushing through of a Czech version of history, ethnic cleansing, industrialization, and urbanization. The author documents these attempts which were made at a grandiose exhibition called ‘We Are Building Liberated Regions’ (Budujeme osvobozené kraje – BOK) in Liberec in 1947. Since resettlement policy was in the hands of the Communist Party, it could take most of the credit for reshaping this regional identity, and consequently the borderlands without the Germans became a Communist bastion even before the destruction of democracy in Czechoslovakia. After they took power in February 1948 the Communists mobilized society around the strategic aim of building up heavy industry. In accord with this, coal and miners became the icons of north Bohemia. The recently settled and industrialized land was changed into a laboratory of socialism. This trend lasted until the end of the 1980s and as a symbol of this the author points to the north- Bohemian town of Most, whose historic core was destroyed in the name of socialist urban planning based on uniform pre-fab concrete housing. All human needs were subordinated to mining the maximum quantity of coal and producing the most electrical energy. This resulted in a profound environment crisis in the 1980s. On the basis of a sociological study from the period, the author concludes that most inhabitants of north Bohemia developed a strong, production-oriented, materialistic regional identity, which tended to slow down, rather than help to form, environmental awareness. In the relatively liberal 1960s criticism of local conditions tended to come much more from the local Communist functionaries than from the public. The reasons for the disastrous neglect of environment policy in north Bohemia, the author believes, was chiefl y due to the interests of the powerful coal interests and the dismissive attitude of the Communist leadership, which, right up to its demise, never ceased to consider this region its laboratory. Similar cases, not only in other countries of the East bloc, but also in the capitalist world, support, according to the author, the hypothesis that in the broader sense such an attitude was an expression of the mentality of ‘universal modernism.’

Organized Spontaneous ‘Transfers’? The Role of the Central State Organs in ‘Evacuating’ the German Population from May to September 1945
Part 1: Background and developments up to the end of May

Tomáš Staněk and Adrian von Arburg

The aim of this long article based on a large number of records that were till now either underused by scholars or completely unknown to them is to outline the current state of what we know about the role of the top-level Czechoslovak authorities in the fi rst phase of the mass deportations of Germans from the Bohemian Lands. The core of the problem, argue the authors, turns out to be how to determine the extent played in initiating and carrying out the expulsions in 1945 by, on the one hand, local ‘spontaneous,’ uncoordinated activity, not directly run by the central authorities, and, on the other, the instructions and orders of the central state organs. Which infl uences were ultimately decisive in each of the particular cases and in the overall process? Each particular act or event, as it appears in the records cannot, however, be clearly classifi ed according to the criterion of ‘central’ versus ‘decentralized’ or ‘local.’ Among the actors in positions of infl uence one can distinguish different degrees and forms of responsibility, which were, among other things, manifested in the binding instructions, verbal incitements, more or less conscious acts rationalized by a whole range of arguments presented at the time, the formulating, pushing through, or at least acceptance or tolerance of the various standpoints and that were measures implemented. Chronologically and concisely, the article attempts to present a basic overview of the important results of debates at the top level and the decisions resulting from them, which then in the form of set regulations also affected various sides of the preparations for, and carrying out, of the ‘evacuation’ of the German population from Czechoslovakia by the autumn of 1945. The authors also pose questions relevant from the point of view of a more detailed, deeper clarifi cation of the subject. Is it possible to trace a certain development of opinion in individuals and bodies which were one way or another involved in the matter? What interactions came about amongst the participants and of what importance were they to the adopted solution to the ‘German Question’? The article seeks to present a well-rounded picture of the whole complex of phenomena connected with the ‘spontaneous (divoký) expulsion’ including its organizational and technical aspects, the local conditions, and its special features. Various acts of discrimination and limitation against those labelled ‘politically unreliable’ (státně nespolehlivý), acts of vengeance and postwar ‘excesses,’ and the conditions in the camps and prisons are not the focus of the article, since the authors consider them in other works. In the fi rst part of the article, the other two of which will appear the next numbers of Soudobé dějiny, the authors first provide a concise overview of the state of research today, explain their approach to terminology, and present eight hypotheses for discussion. This is followed by a concise interpretation of the most important aspects of the genesis of the plan for the expulsion of most of the German Summary   population from Czechoslovakia beginning in 1938 till the end of the German occupation in May 1945. The focus of the fi rst part is the analysis of debates about, and preparations for, the expulsion, which were held in the key organs in April and, especially, May 1945, and preceded the state-run mass deportations. It focuses more closely on the public proclamations of the politicians concerned with the treatment of the Germans, the deployment of armed forces (in particular units of the Army and the Revolutionary Guard) with the aim of ‘purging’ Czech territory of Germans, the establishment of the category of persons to be exempt from expulsion (anti- Fascists), and the work on this by the Provincial National Committees in Brno and Prague during the period. At the end of the article particular attention is paid to ‘leading’ the Germans out of Brno and across the Moravian-Austrian frontier (the ‘Brno march’) in late May 1945.

Forgotten Country:
The Bohemian Borderlands, 1948–60, and the Operation to Increase the Number of Settlers

Jiří Topinka

The article traces the contours of social development in the Bohemian borderlands from the Communist takeover in February 1948 to the end of the 1950s (with a recapitulation of the changes in the 1960s) through the lens of Czechoslovak resettlement policy. By way of introduction he points out that in the course of about two years after the end of the Second World War historically quite exceptional demographic, economic, and social processes were taking place in the Bohemian borderlands, which set about fi ve million people in motion. The transfer of almost three million Germans and the subsequent settlement process changed the appearance of all these areas for decades to come. The two operations overlapped, and had largely been completed by mid-1947. Their having been carried out strengthened the Communist Party, which had invested the operations with its own particular ideas and used them to pursue its own political aims. After the fi rst wave of resettlement the individual parts of the borderlands remained very unevenly populated. In particular, the local agricultural districts there showed low population densities. In consequence of the badly implemented land reform many settlers left the borderlands even before 1948. The rest then sought protection from bankruptcy in the emerging standard farming cooperatives (JZDs) during the fi rst stage of collectivization. The further depopulation of the otherwise sparsely inhabited rural borderlands was also contributed to by the ‘cadre purges’ conducted the Communist régime and in particular by the destruction of the middle classes and of many factories, some of which were confi scated by the Red Army, others were moved to Slovakia as part of the industrialization programme, and others were closed down in the fi rst half of the 1950s. During the fi rst Five-Year Plan, 1948–53, all systemic mistakes stemming from the nature of the Communist régime and the centrally planned economy were hit the borderlands doubly hard. Despite Anotace  Communist expectations, the situation, rather than becoming consolidated, only got worse. The author describes the often unbearable living conditions, which were to a considerable extent caused by the incompetent actions of Party and State organs, and led to the further exodus of old-time settlers and recent arrivals. Many areas of the borderlands became forgotten country in this period, whose inhabitants had mostly low incomes, which were sometimes not even enough for bare subsistence. Areas were often not supplied suffi ciently, had poor public transport connections, poor access to health care, and poor housing as the housing stock deteriorated. In the western borderlands this decline was contributed to also by the creation of a ‘forbidden zone’ and the expulsion of the local population. In autumn 1953 the Communist leaders, in connection with a partial reorientation of the economic course, decided to carry out an operation to increase the number of settlers in the borderlands, intended to make up for the huge decline in the population of these areas. Until 1959, however, it was aimed only at the agricultural sector, where the situation was extremely bad (and remained so till the mid-1960s). Since the departures of the dissatisfi ed continued, the whole operation only slowed down a continuing negative trend, and the anticipated turn for the better never took place. Attempts to rectify the situation also ran up against the lack of coordination of the relevant government offi ces, which defended mainly their own interests, and also ran up against the lack of fi nances, which were insuffi cient, for example, even for the necessary repairs and maintenance of run-down houses. The régime then sought to solve this problem by extensive demolition. Only after the ‘complex addition of settlers in the borderlands’ commenced in the late 1950s did certain positive changes begin to appear in the infrastructure, services, school system, and standard of life of the local population. In view of the seriousness of the post-war decline, however, these improvements were hardly enough to bring the overall level of the borderlands up to that of the interior, despite the régime’s promises. Even in 1967 the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and President of Czechoslovakia, Antonín Novotný, called the state of the borderlands ‘politically untenable.’ The price of the transfer of the Germans, the author concludes, though warning that the causes of the decline cannot be reduced merely to this, was ultimately paid for with huge economic, cultural, and, last but not least, moral losses, which were manifested in the borderlands of Bohemia and Moravia for many years to come.

The Second Retribution:
The Work of the Extraordinary People’s Courts in 1948

Kateřina Kočová

This article is concerned with the work of the Extraordinary People’s Courts in Czechoslovakia in what is known as the ‘second period of retribution,’ from the beginning of April 1948 to the end of the year. This period, she argues, has so far re- Summary   ceived scant attention from researchers. Immediately after taking power in February 1948, the Communist leadership decided to pass a law on the restoration of the Extraordinary People’s Courts. The author reports on the debates of this question in the Government and Parliament, clearly demonstrating the political aims behind the law. ‘Class justice,’ run by Minster Alexej Čepička, was intended to deal with the legacy of ‘bourgeois justice,’ which was represented by Prokop Drtina, Čepička’s predecessor in offi ce. Drtina had allegedly prevented the prosecution of Nazi criminals and collaborators in order to use them in the struggle against the Communists. According to the author the régime originally hoped that a new wave of retribution would reconsider tens of thousands of cases. In the next part of the article she discusses some important cases that the courts tried in the ‘second period of retribution.’ She points to attempts at abusing the courts of retribution in order to get rid of troublesome people like the Náchod police commissioner Jan Chudoba and especially the General Secretary of the National Social Party, an important member of resistance to German occupation, Vladimír Krajina, who was sentenced in absentia to 25 years in jail in August 1948. The Nazi functionary Hermann Neuburg, who during the Occupation had been Konrad Henlein’s Deputy Gauleiter in the Sudetenland, received a similar sentence; in the mid-1950s he was sent to West Germany. The author discusses the trials of Anton Burger, Karl Bergel, and Rudolf Haindl, top-ranking commandants of the Theresienstadt ghetto, as examples of true Nazi war criminals’ being given sentences in the second wave of retribution. In the last part of the article, the author attempts to pass judgement on the work of the restored Extraordinary People’s Courts in 1948 as a whole. She argues that the original plan of the initiators of the law, to sentence tens of thousands of alleged culprits, was a failure because only about 3,000 people in total were sentenced in Czechoslovakia (of whom 52 received life sentences and 31 were sentenced to death). She argues that society at that time was not yet prepared for such a mass abuse of justice and that the courts were not yet entirely in the hands of the Communists. Moreover, the régime, buttressing its power, later had other aims, so that the second wave of retribution remained unfi nished. At the end of the article the author provides a statistical assessment of the work of the Extraordinary People’s Courts in 1948 together with tables.

Uranium Mining versus the ‘Purging’ of the Borderlands:
German Labour in the Jáchymov Mines in the Late 1940s and Early 1950s

Tomáš Dvořák

The article is concerned with a rarely researched topic in the history of migration after the Second World War – namely, the development of the uranium industry, the nationalities policy of the Czechoslovak state, and social (particularly ethnic) change in the Jáchymov region. First, the author points to the fact that the uranium deposits in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War became the basis for the Anotace  rapid development of a whole new branch of industry. The strategic importance of this raw material for the Soviet Union, which was trying to build up its own nuclear arsenal, made uranium mining the priority at the start of the Cold War. Of key importance in this were the Jáchymov Mines, an enterprise established at the north-western frontier of Czechoslovakia in early 1946 on the basis of the Czechoslovak- Soviet Agreement of November 1945 and run by a mixed Czechoslovak-Soviet commission. Whereas after the takeover of February 1948 the Communist régime created the prerequisites for the mass deployment of political and other prisoners in the uranium mines, in 1946–48 the growing need for labour in this industry led to the forced deployment of several thousand people of German ethnicity. Previous Czechoslovak nationalities policy, the aim of which had been the greatest possible ‘purging’ of the borderlands of the German inhabitants after the expulsion of the vast majority, was subordinated to this interest. The article is concerned with the political decision-making of the central authorities in this process and also with the development of employment and the position of the German inhabitants in the Jáchymov Mines. It seeks to reconstruct in detail the arrival and organization of the individual transports to the mines, their origin, composition, and number. The author divides the Germans who worked in the Jáchymov Mines into four categories. The fi rst comprises those people recruited from the last few remaining Germans who had long lived in the Jáchymov region. The second comprises German prisoners of war (the smaller part of which were captured on Czechoslovak territory, whereas most were transferred here from POW camps on Soviet territory). The third group comprises prisoners sentenced in the ‘retribution trials.’ It is the fourth category, however, comprising Germans from various parts of the former Sudetenland, who were forced to resettle in the area of uranium mining after the Communist takeover of February 1948 with the assistance of the Czechoslovak government, which was most strikingly involved in the transformation of the settlement of this region. The author argues that the Jáchymov Mines brought about a local revolution in the region in the course of the larger post-war ethnic-demographic revolution, which was determined by the mass expulsion of Germans and the centrally-controlled colonization of the regions using ‘ethnically reliable’ settlers. In this context he discusses the second German settlement of some villages, in which the German inhabitants again came to constitute a large part or even the majority. A consequence of this process was the emergence of a unique community in this small region, comprising various groups of original inhabitants and new arrivals. The article also considers local relations between ethnic Czechs and ethnic Germans, which were sometimes marked by Czech hostility, and points out the contradiction between most Germans’ desire to move to Germany and the declared attempt by the State, beginning in 1949, to force them to assimilate by taking Czechoslovak citizenship. In conclusion, he states that when uranium ceased to be mined in the 1960s most of the remaining Germans left the region, and this contributed to further depopulation and decline.

Research on International Migration:
Its History and Future Prospects in the West

Zdeněk R. Nešpor

In this article, following on from his ‘České migrace 19. a 20. století a jejich dosavadní studium,’ which was published in Soudobé dějiny, vol. 12 (2005), no. 2, the author focuses on the impulses that Western research into migration has provided to the development of the Czech academic discourse on the subject. He discusses the theoretical and methodological starting points of earlier research, which were based on Neo-Classical economics and the theory of world systems, as well as the critique of them from the standpoint of the new economics of migration and the theory of migration systems. The theoretical points of departure of these viewpoints were also adopted, though often only implicitly, by other areas of the humanities and social sciences, like history or ethnography. Demography, by contrast, wrongly assumes the fairness of its analyses. As part of his survey of developments in Western migration studies, the author also discusses contemporary anthropological theories of transnational social spaces, the debates about multiculturalism, and other more recent attempts at a comprehensive approach to the topic of migration. He emphasizes the importance of the concept of economic sociology as an important paradigm of modern migration studies, but points out that substituting socio-economics for Neo-Classical views is not a cure-all. Towards the end of the article he recommends that his Czech colleagues should make specifi c theoretical and methodological changes connected with approaches of research abroad, and stresses migration studies in practice and their growing importance in the world, including the Czech Republic, today.

‘In the Interest of Protecting the Borders’:
Resettlement of the Inhabitants from the Border Zone and Forbidden Zone, 1951–52

David Kovařík

The article aims to describe the forced resettlement of the inhabitants from the areas at the western frontier of Czechoslovakia in consequence of the aim of the State to increase the ‘security’ of these areas at the height of Stalinism and the Cold War. The border zone was set up in April 1950, and ran in a width of between two and six kilometres from the demarcation line. A year later a ‘forbidden zone’ was drawn over it, which ran a consistent two kilometres in width from the frontier and included 126 villages. Whereas people branded ‘politically unreliable’ (státně nespolehliví) were forced to move out of the border zone, while others were subject to various security measures, everyone was forced to move out of the forbidden zone. More than 5,000 Anotace  people were affected by the operation, which took place from November 1951 to April 1952, overseen by the state security forces. The author notes that often neither the public nor even the local authorities were suffi ciently informed; though rumours spread and people grumbled, few spoke out openly against it, and, from the point of view of the authorities, the operation took place largely without complications. On a smaller scale forced migration continued in consequence of the adjustments to the border zone and the forbidden zone. From 1952 to 1960 more than 100 villages were obliterated in the forbidden zone, and more than 45,000 buildings were demolished in the depopulated villages of the borderlands.

Secret Police Records as a Source of Knowing the Past

Jan Křen

With this article, the author enters the public debate about whether the records of the former secret police of Communist Czechoslovakia (the State Security Forces or Státní bezpečnost – StB) should be made accessible and about how they can be used or misused. First, he brings in arguments to support the claims that these records cannot automatically be considered reliable and truthful. Whoever takes them to be so is ignoring the principles of criticism and interpretation used by historians when judging sources; such principles are especially important in this case. He then outlines the legislative framework for making StB documents accessible, lists the important provisions of the legislation, and points out the pitfalls they contain. On the one hand he appreciates that the Act on Making StB Files Accessible 2002 and the Archives Act 2004 are considerable steps in the right direction and have opened up a wide range of possibilities for research using these records. On the other hand, he notes that they contain serious contradictions. The wording of two subsections of the Archives Act, for example, allow for contradictory interpretations of whether sensitive private information about persons mentioned in the records is freely accessible or whether one needs the consent of the persons involved. If the relevant authorities adhere to the ‘liberal’ interpretation (which is in confl ict with a provision of the Act on the Protection of Personal Data), these people, including those who may have been persecuted by the former régime, could be hurt. The author warns against the danger of discrediting people and manipulating facts owing to the irresponsible handling of sensitive personal information, and he also criticizes the growing practice of mass photocopying of StB records for private purposes, which is creating uncontrollable prerequisites for discrediting and manipulating. In the third part of his article the author compares the Czech case with the declassifi cation of similar records in other countries. The Czech Republic has gone farther than Slovakia and Poland in this respect, coming closer to the procedure in the Federal Summary   Republic of Germany, where, however, the legislation is free of the contradictions that appear in Czech law. Referring to established practice in Germany, which is based on the fact that consent for the study of sensitive personal information is required from the persons involved, and is also usually given since there is a general consensus in Germany on the responsible handling of sensitive information, the author makes an appeal for establishing ethical guidelines for historian’s work with archive records in the Czech Republic. Several documents are appended to the article: a letter signed by seventeen people (mostly historians) addressed to Czech Premier Jiří Paroubek, Interior Minister František Bublan, and Director of the Offi ce for Personal Data Protection Igor Němec, in the matter of the legislative disputes over free access to personal information in the StB fi les, and also correspondence between the author and fellow historian Michal Reiman on the one hand and the relevant authorities on the other.

A Reply to Karel Hrubý

Zdeněk Kárník

The author is responding here to Karel Hrubý’s article ‘Radikální socialismus a jeho návraty’ (Radical Socialism and Its Recurrences) published in the previous issue of Soudobé dějiny, vol. 12, (2005), no. 2, pp. 334–42. That article was a commentary on Kárník’s conceptual study on extreme leftwing and rightwing politics in Czechoslovakia, which was published in the third volume of the series Bolševismus, komunismus a radikální socialismus v Československu (Prague, 2004). First, he describes the fi ve-year grant-funded project on this subject, of which he was the coordinator, and which has been completed and resulted in the publication of fi ve volumes of essays and thirteen grant reports. In the next part of the article, he sums up his arguments from the project on Radical Socialism, which he argues is something fundamentally different from Communism or Bolshevism, though it is often confused with them. Radical Socialism, he maintains, always aims to adjust parliamentary democracy, not destroy it. That was also the case after the Second World War in Czechoslovakia, although in consequence of the external, great-power constellation it was controlled and misused by its rivals. After responding to Hrubý’s particular objections, the author sums up the successes and failures of his project, and expresses the fear that it may not be possible to continue it in a suitable way.

A Lying ‘Insulted’ Reviewer

Ján Mlynárik

The author of Dějiny Židů na Slovensku (A History of the Jews in Slovakia) (Prague, 2005) responds to the review of this work, which was written by Ivan Kamenec and published in the previous issue of Soudobé dějiny, vol. 12 (2005) no. 2, pp. 343–53, Anotace  as ‘Promising Title, Awkward Result: Mlynárik’s History of the Jews in Slovakia.’ He refutes the reviewer’s claim that the book was largely plagiarized, arguing that it was written on the basis of his own series of programmes for broadcast by Radio Free Europe.

What are the Chances of Rational Discussion?
A Reply to Ján Mlynárik

Ivan Kamenec

The reviewer is surprised that Mlynárik has called his claims lies without demonstrating a need to support his own arguments with facts. Referring to similar cases of criticism of plagiarized works in Slovak historiography, the reviewer stands by the claims that he made in the review. Concerning Mlynárik’s claim about the origin of Dějiny Židů na Slovensku, the reviewer adds that Mlynárik’s RFE series on the history of the Jews in Slovakia was broadcast well before the publication of some of the books from which he borrowed whole passages for his Dějiny without citing authorship.

Jean-Paul Sartre as a Mirror of the Century and the Role of the Intellectual

Jiří Křesťan

Lévy, Bernard-Henri. Sartrovo století: Filozofické zkoumání. Brno: Host, 2003, 472 pp.

In his Le siecle de Sartre (Paris, 2000), the author, according to the reviewer of this Czech translation, has succeeded exceptionally well to combine an intellectual biography of Sartre with a diagnosis of the times he lived in. The work compels the reader to contemplate again the life and times of a leading French intellectual of the twentieth century and their contradictions, temptations, confl icts, and goingsastray. It has been meticulously researched on the basis of historical sources and refutes several clichés put forth by Sartre’s critics. The biography avoids cheap moralizing, and attempts to get to the psychological roots of Sartre’s leaning towards Communism. It portrays Sartre as two people in one, a combination of an ‘adventurer of freedom and a totalitarian intellectual.’ The work, according to the reviewer, also raises a number of provocative questions for Czech historians, concerning both the understanding of the intellectual sources of the Communist past and the methods of interpreting history.

Of Reviews and Biographies and the Biography of Jiří Stříbrný

Eva Broklová

Vykoupil, Libor. Jiří Stříbrný: Portrét politika. Brno: Masarykova univerzita and Matice moravská, 2003, 317 pp.

The reviewer believes the clearest contribution of this biography of the politician Jiří Stříbrný (1880–1955) is the attention paid equally to all periods of Stříbrný’s career. Whereas it was the second half of that career, when Stříbrný was on the decline and on the extreme right of Czechoslovak politics, culminating after the Second World War in his being unjustly sentenced to life imprisonment for collaboration (alleged but never demonstrated), that had previously attracted the attention of historians, the fi rst half, when Stříbrný’s star was rising, had hitherto received little attention from historians. The author, according to the reviewer, restores Stříbrný’s reputation as an important politician who helped to achieve Czechoslovak independence and was one of the key ‘men of October 28th,’ who had been a democrat until his political demise in 1926. The reviewer, however, does not accept all the author’s interpretations of sources, and she points out certain weaknesses in his overall approach.

The Biographer as Captive of His Subject:
Bouček’s Account of the Historian Jan Slavík

Jakub Rákosník

Bouček, Jaroslav. Jan Slavík: Příběh zakázaného historika. Prague: H&H, 2002, 190 pp.

The work under review is the fi rst biography of the outstanding Czech historian Jan Slavík (1885–1978). Slavík acquired a reputation as a writer of critical articles on the Russian revolution and Soviet Russia and of refl ections on Czech history, and for his involvement in the debates about the ‘meaning’ of Czech history. The biography provides a reliable overview of Slavík’s life and works, and for that reason alone is noteworthy. It fails, however, to use the opportunity to elucidate Slavík’s contribution to methodology in the social sciences in Czechoslovakia, particularly in connection with Max Weber. The reviewer sees the greatest problem in the author’s excessive dependence on Slavík’s interpretations and his attempt to defend them rather than subject them to critical analysis.

The Fates of Josef Macek and Viktor Knapp:
The Possibilities of Interpretation in Historical Biography and Autobiography

Pavla Horská

Jiroušek, Bohumil. Josef Macek: Mezi historií a politikou. Prague: Výzkumné centrum pro dějiny vědy, 2004, 239 pp;

Knapp, Viktor. Proměny času: Vzpomínky nestora české právní vědy. Prague: Prospektrum, 1998, 255 pp.

The reviewer places side by side the biographies of the historian-medieval scholar Josef Macek (1922–1991) and the autobiography of the legal scholar Viktor Knapp (1914–1996), to compare their careers and to point out the different approaches to interpretation. After the war, the leftwing convictions of both men led them to the Czechoslovak Communist Party and, together with their professional activities, led them also to senior academic positions. Whereas Macek’s biography focuses on his scholarly work, more or less ignoring his political career (although it analyzes his collaboration with the secret police after the crushing of the ‘Prague Spring’), Knapp’s reveals his having come to terms with his own political past with ironic detachment.

Introductory Remarks Concerning a Biography of František Graus

Pavla Horská

Beneš, Zdeněk, Bohumil Jiroušek, and Antonín Kostlán (ed.). František Graus – člověk a historik: Sborník z pracovního semináře Výzkumného centra pro dějiny vědy konaného 10. prosince 2002. Prague: Výzkumné centrum pro dějiny vědy 2004, 228 pp.

The reviewer approaches this volume of essays in honour of František Graus (1921–1989) by asking what relevance it will have for a future biographer of this important scholar of the Middle Ages, who in the 1960s moved away from Marxism, was among the fi rst to introduce the ideas of the Annales School to the Czech milieu, and emigrated to West Germany after the Soviet-led invasion of August 1968. Also on the basis of her own recollections, she considers Graus and his place in Czech historiography.

A Substantial Torso:
Concerning the Unfi nished Memoirs of Jiří Loewy

Karel Hrubý

Úseky polojasna: Vzpomínky Jiřího Loewyho. Written with Tomáš Zahradníček on the basis of an e-mail interview with Jiří Loewy. With an Introduction by Tomáš Zahradníček and Afterword by Dana Loewyová. Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2005, 260 pp + 11 photographs.

 The reviewer discusses in vivid detail the life of the Czech journalist Jiří Loewy (1930–2004). Loewy came from a Czech-Jewish and German family, escaped deportation to a concentration camp, later became involved with the Social Democratic youth movement, worked as political prisoner in the uranium mines after the Communist takeover of February 1948, and after the Soviet-led occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 emigrated to West Germany, where he was involved in the leadership of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party in exile and published the Party newspaper Právo lidu. Loewy’s memoirs are, according to the reviewer, valuable for the facts they contain, and are distinguished by liveliness, modesty, and a touch of self-irony.

Students as the Driving Force of the Changes in Czechoslovakia

Radek Slabotínský

Otáhal, Milan. Studenti a komunistická moc v českých zemích 1968–1989. Prague: Dokořán, 2003, 230 pp.

This work is the fi rst, according to the reviewer, to try and present a coherent picture of the role of students in Czechoslovak political life from the ‘Prague Spring’ of 1968 to the collapse of the Communist régime in the autumn of 1989. The reviewer notes, however, that it naturally pays far more attention to the beginning and end of this twenty-year period when political changes were clearly underway and there was a student movement. In those passages the argument is more thorough and more convincing. The volume is noteworthy also because it provides an account of events connected with the topic, and reactions to them, from the perspectives both of the students and of the politicians and secret police of the Communist régime.

Who Won the Spanish Civil War?

Vlastimil Hála

Beevor, Antony. Španělská občanská válka 1936–1939. Prague and Pilsen: Pavel Dobrovský – BETA and Jiří Ševčík 2004, 319 pp.

Antony Beevor, according to the reviewer of the Czech translation of his Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 (London, 1999), is not without bias: he has an evident dislike of the Franco camp and also of Communists. He does, however, have sympathy for the anarchists. None the less, he does not suppress historical facts that do not fi t comfortably into his interpretation of events. The work is devoted mainly to the events of the war, but at the same time manages in a fruitful way to debunk Republican myths connected chiefl y with the role of the CommuAnotace  nists. Although the Republicans were defeated militarily, the propaganda, according to Beevor, claims that they won the civil war.

Perpetrators or Victims?A Comparative Study of Ambivalent Memory in the Former Axis Countries

Lukáš Novotný

Cornelißen, Christoph, Lutz Klinkhammer, and Wolfgang Schwentker (ed.). Nationale Erinnerungskulturen seit 1945 im Vergleich: Deutschland, Italien und Japan seit 1945. Frankfurt on Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 2004, 368 pp.

This essay volume, according to the reviewer, is an important source of information on collective memory and the culture of remembrance in Germany, Italy, and Japan, three countries that had experienced a dictatorship. It also constitutes a worthy attempt at a comparison of the individual positions and special features of public remembrance.

France and the World after 1945

Lucie Soldátová

Dalloz, Jacques. La France et le monde depuis 1945. Paris: Armand Colin, 2002. This work, says the reviewer, merits the attention mainly of people interested in French foreign relations after the Second World War. In this respect it offers a very dense, fact-fi lled interpretation, particularly concerning French relations with the USA and the USSR and the position of France in the European Union and La Francophonie.

A Summit of Historians in the Antipodes:
The 20th International Congress of Historical Sciences, Sydney, 3–9 July 2005

This contribution is a series of related reports on the historians’ congress in Sydney presenting various points of view by the Czech participants Jaroslav Pánek from the Council for Foreign Relations of the Academy of Sciences, Prague, Oldřich Tůma and Jiří Kocian from the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, Miloslav Polívka from the Institute of History, Prague, Petr Vorel, from the University of Summary   Pardubice, and Jiří Lach and Radmila Slabáková from the University of Olomouc. Three ‘big’ subject-areas dominated the Congress: ‘Humankind and Nature in History,’ ‘Myth and History,’ and ‘War, Peace, Society, and International Order in History.’ The Czech participants reporting here all observe that non-European historiography gained ground at the Congress, both in terms of choice of topics, which covered more or less the whole world, and in terms of the scholars who gave papers.

A Conference on Czechoslovak Currency Reforms

Martin Krčál

This is a report on the conference ‘Currency Reforms and Upheavals in the Bohemian Lands since 1918,’ which was organized by the Institute of History and Museum Studies at the Faculty of Arts and Science, Silesian University, Opava, in November 2005, and attended by historians and experts on fi nance.

An Autumn Seminar on Conscientious Objection in Czechoslovakia

Martina Miklová

A report on a seminar called ‘Conscientious Objection in Czechoslovakia, 1948– 89,’ organized by Petr Blažek and other young historians from the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, in September 2005, for historians and conscientious objectors from the former Soviet-bloc states.

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Contributors

Adrian von Arburg (1974) read history at Berne, Vienna, and Prague. He is currently one of the chief researchers on the international publishing project “Migration and Transformation: Documents on the Implementation and Impact of the Expulsion, Forced Resettlement, and Internal Settlement Policy in the Bohemian Lands, 1945–50,” which is based in the Institute of History at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno. In addition, he is conducting research into migration and population policy in east-central Europe in the twentieth century as well as modern nationalism and national identities.

Eva Broklová (1939) is a Docent of History and Senior Researcher at the Masaryk Institute, Prague, concerned with the political system of the First Republic in comparison with those of other central European states, as well as the Czechoslovak electoral system and general elections in 1945–48, and the political culture of the German-speaking countries and pro-Czechoslovak German parties in the First Republic. Her publications include Československá demokracie: Politický systém ČSR 1918–1938 (Prague, 1992), Politická kultura německých aktivistických stran v Československu 1918–1938 (Prague, 1999), and Prezident Republiky československé: Instituce a osobnost T. G. Masaryka (Prague, 2001).

Tomáš Dvořák (1973) is a lecturer in the Institute of History at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno. His chief research interest is forced migration in Czechoslovakia after 1945. He is the author of “Vnitřní odsun”: Průběh, motivy a paralely přesídlování německého obyvatelstva do vnitrozemí v českých zemích v letech 1947– 1949 (Brno, 2005).

Eagle Glassheim (1970) is a graduate of Princeton University. He is currently Assistant Professor of History at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, teaching East European history and the history of ethnic cleaning and genocide. Apart from these topics, his research has focused on the Bohemian nobility from the declaration of the Czechoslovak Republic to the Communist takeover and the post-war settlement and formation of new social ties in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and East Germany. He is the author of Noble Nationalists: The Transformation of the Bohemian Aristocracy (Harvard, 2005).  

Vlastimil Hála (1951) is a Senior Researcher in the Institute of Philosophy, the Academy of Sciences, Prague. His chief research interest is ethics in the history of philosophy. Among his publications is Impulsy Kantovy etiky (Prague, 1994) as well as a number of articles on the history of philosophy and contemporary philosophy, including the ideas of Bolzano, Brentano, Hösle, and Habermas.

Pavla Horská (1927), now retired, was for many years a researcher in the Institute of History, Prague. Her main research interests are historical demography, social and economic history of the Bohemian Lands in the nineteenth century, Czech- French relations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the history of women and the women’s movement. Among her publications are Dětství, rodina a stáří v dějinách Evropy (Prague, 1990), Sladká Francie (Prague, 1996), Naše prababičky feministky (Prague, 1999), and, with Eduard Maur and Jiří Musil, Zrod velkoměsta: Urbanizace českých zemí a Evropa (Prague, 2002).

Karel Hrubý (1923) is a sociologist. Since 1968 he has lived in Basle. In 1983–91 he was Editor-in-Chief of Proměny, the cultural and political quarterly of the Czechoslovak Society for Arts and Science, published in New York. His chief area of academic interest is the sociology of systemic political change in the Hussite period and in recent years. With Milíč Čapek he co-authored T. G. Masaryk in Perspective: Comments and Criticism (Ann Arbor, 1981).

Ivan Kamenec (1938) is a senior researcher in the Institute of History at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava. His area of specialization is the history of Slovakia after 1918, particularly the period of the Second World War, Slovak Jews, and the Shoah, about which he has written the book Po stopách tragédie (Bratislava, 1991). Among his other many publications are Slovenský stát (1939–1945) (Prague, 1992), Tragédia politika, kňaza a človeka: Dr. Jozef Tiso 1887–1947 (Bratislava, 1998), and Hľadanie a blúdenie v dejinách: Úvahy, štúdie a polemiky (Bratislava, 2000).

Zdeněk Kárník (1931) is Professor of History in the Institute of Economic and Social History at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague. The focus of his research is Czech and German social history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is author of Habsburk, Masaryk či Šmeral: Socialisté na rozcestí (Prague, 1996) and the three-volume České země v éře První republiky: 1918–1938 (Prague, 2000–03).

Kateřina Kočová (1976) is a lecturer in history in the Faculty of Education, the University of Technology, Liberec. The focus of her research is Extraordinary People’s Courts in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War, the expulsion of the Germans, and political persecution and show trials in the 1950s. With Zdeněk Radvanovský and Jitka Suchá she is co-author of Mimořádný lidový soud v Liberci a Litoměřicích v letech 1945–1948 (Ústí nad Labem, 2001). Anotace

David Kovařík (1972) is a researcher in the Brno branch of the Institute of Contemporary History and a graduate student of Czech history at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno. His chief academic interests are Czech and Czechoslovak history after 1945, with a focus on developments in the borderlands and the history of Brno.

Jan Křen (1930) is Professor of History at Charles University, Prague, lecturing at Prague and universities in Austria and Germany. His area of specialization is the modern history of central Europe and Czech-German relations. Among his many publications are Konfl iktní společenství: Češi a Němci 1780–1918 (Prague, 1991, and Munich, 1996) and, most recently, Dvě století střední Evropy (Prague, 2005).

Jiří Křesťan (1957), an archivist and historian, is in charge of a department in the National Archives, Prague. His chief research interest is the history of Communism and Socialism in the Bohemian Lands, particularly the life and work of Zdeněk Nejedlý, about whom he wrote Pojetí české otázky v díle Zdeňka Nejedlého (Prague, 1996).

Ján Mlynárik (1933) is a Slovak historian. After signing the human-rights document “Charter 77” he spent several years as an émigré in West Germany. After returning to Czechoslovakia he lectured on Slovak history at Charles University, Prague. He is currently Chairman of the Union of Slovaks in the Czech Republic. His chief research interest is the persecution and expulsion of the Germans of Czechoslovakia and the history of Czech-Slovak relations. His publications include the biography of Milan R. Štefánik called Cesta ke hvězdám a svobodě (1991), as well as Slovenskí študenti: Na českých vysokých školách v rokoch 1918–1929, vol. 1 (Prague, 2005) and Tragédie Vitorazska 1945–1953: Poprava v Tušti (Třeboň, 2005).

Zdeněk R. Nešpor (1976) is a senior researcher in the Institute of Sociology at the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, and a lecturer at the Faculty of the Humanities, Charles University, Prague. His chief fi elds of research are the history and sociology of religion, the sociology of culture, with a focus on values and institutions, and social anthropology in the Bohemian Lands and the Balkans. His publications include Reemigranti a sociálně sdílené hodnoty (Prague, 2002) and Víra bez církve? Východočeské toleranční sektářství 18. a 19. století (Ústí nad Labem, 2004).

Lukáš Novotný (1979) is a researcher in the Bohemian Borderlands Department of the Institute of Sociology, Ústí nad Labem. He is concerned with Czech-German relations and the nationalities question in the Czech Republic and central Europe, and has published on the topic in this country and abroad.

Jakub Rákosník (1977) is a lecturer in the Institute of Economic and Social History at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague. His area of specialization is the history of welfare states and the labour movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Contributors

Radek Slabotínský (1975) is doing a doctoral programme in Czech History at Masaryk University, Brno, with a focus on the mechanisms of the show trials in Communist Czechoslovakia, some leading politicians of the Czechoslovak Communist Party after the Second World War, and relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Communist régime.

Lucie Soldátová (1982) read history at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno, and is now reading media studies and journalism at the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, and West European Studies in the Institute of International Studies, Charles University, Prague.

Tomáš Staněk (1952) is a Senior Researcher in the Silesian Institute of the Silesian Museum, Opava, and Docent at the Institute of Public Administration and Regional Policy, Silesian University, Opava. His research has long focused on the position of the Germans in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War and their expulsion from the country, the development of Czech-German relations in the broader central-European context, and aspects of public violence in post-war Czech society. He has published a number of articles and books, for example Odsun Němců z Československa 1945–1947 (Prague, 1991), Německá menšina v českých zemích 1948–1989 (Prague, 1993), Tábory v českých zemích 1945–1948 (Šenov u Ostravy, 1996), and Poválečné “excesy” v českých zemích v roce 1945 a jejich vyšetřování (Prague, 2005).

Jiří Topinka (1970) read history at Prague, and is now an archivist at the District State Archive, Beroun, as well as being a part-time doctoral student in the Institute of Economic History at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague. His research is concerned with the economic and social history of Czechoslovakia after the Second World War, particularly the collectivization of agriculture. He has published several books on regional history and is Editor-in-Chief of the archival yearbook Minulostí Berounska.

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