No. IV.
Hlavní stránka » pages » Journal Soudobé dějiny » Volume III. (1996) » No. IV. »
Csaba Békés, János M. Rainer and Pál
Germuska Hungary 1956
Vitalii Y. Afiani
The Hungarian Revolution and the Suez Crisis:
The Position of the Soviet Leadership
Daniel F. Calhoun
The Suez-Hungary Connection, 1956:
A Macmillan-Molotov Scenario
Jan Wanner
The Egypt Card in Soviet Foreign Policy, 1956
Jiří Bílek and Vladimír Pilát
The Reactions of the Czechoslovak Political Organs and of the Military to the Hungarian Uprising of 1956
Materials
Jiří Pernes
The Czechoslovak Public’s Reaction to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution:
From Internal Reports of the Interior Ministry’s Regional Offices
Memoirs
Jan Nowak
Poles and Hungarians in 1956
Horizon
Jacques Rupnik
A Missed Meeting:
The Year 1956 as Seen From Prague
Reviews
Jiří Vykoukal
1956 in Poland as a Mass Social Phenomenon
Jacques Rupnik
The History of an Illusion
Nina Pavelčíková and Jiří Pavelčík
A Contribution to Gypsy History since 1945
Jan Měchýř
A Problematic History of the ‘Velvet Revolution’
Zdeněk Kárník
Democrats in ‘Authoritarian Democracies’
Jan Němeček
Beneš’s Messages Home, 1939–45
Cahiers du CEFRES:
A Series of Papers on Contemporary History
Chronicle
Gordon Skilling Turns Eighty-Five
Documents
Vilém Prečan
The British Embassy in Prague on Czechoslovakia 1956
Bibliography
Monographs, collections of essays, articles from journals and collections, from home and abroad, for the period 1990–96.
Supplement
Summaries
Csaba Békés, János M. Rainer and Pál Germuska
The authors, all researchers at the Institute for the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, describes the course of events in Hungary in the autumn of 1956, and comment on the internal and international factors.
Developments in Hungary after Stalin’s death in 1953 led to a power struggle between those around Matyás Rákosi and the reformers around Imre Nagy, leader of the Hungary Communist Party. The public became increasingly independent in its political attitudes as became clear in the open demonstration supporting Gomułka’s reforms in Poland, which turned into a national movement for democracy on 23 October.
In their chronology, the authors provide details on the main dates of the revolution and of what followed shortly after. They include the public’s armed opposition to Soviet troops and to Hungarian security forces, the formation of independent popular organs and the Revolutionary Guard, the formation of a National Government led by Nagy (which accepted the insurgents’ demands for the renewal of political pluralism, Hungary’s leaving the Warsaw Pact and the declaration of neutrality), the withdrawal followed by the second intervention of the Soviets on 4 November (which meant the bloody crushing of the revolution), János Kádár’s taking power with the help of the Soviets, and his attempts to gain popular support, and the rising wave of strikes and demonstrations in December 1956 as part of the public’s last attempt to push through some of the democratic aims.
The authors note that after the revolution was put down, there followed a wave of repression which affected more than 100,000 people. Tens of thousands of Hungarians were imprisoned, 229 were executed. The new Party line called events a counter-revolution and held responsible both Nagy (who was consequently executed) and Rákosi (who was thus banished from politics). Kádár gradually replaced state coercion with the offer of a high standard of living, and allowed certain groups a certain autonomy outside of politics (providing, of course, they did not question the leading role of the Party); by the 1960s he managed to gain the consent of the public.
The international aspects, assert the authors, are most visible in the Soviet and American attitudes to Hungarian developments. The Soviets were willing to accept the cosmetic reforms of the Nagy régime; the military intervention came about only when the Soviets were convinced it was the only way to hold Hungary in the bloc. The United States, on the other hand, found itself caught between the ‘rhetoric of liberation’ and the realpolitik of recognizing Europe’s post-war division and striving for détente between Moscow and Washington. The Hungarian revolution, however, brought about an important and long-term change in their policy. The United States made clear that East European opponents to Communism could not count on direct US assistance; at the same time they told the USSR that the internal democratization of its satellites would not be linked automatically with their inclusion in Western political and miliary structures.
The Hungarian Revolution and the Suez Crisis:
The Position of the Soviet Leadership
Vitalii Y. Afiani
After Stalin’s death in 1953 the Soviet leadership began to search for new forms of foreign policy, and even held talks with the United States for a treaty of ‘friendship’. The bloody conflicts of 1956 in the Suez and in Hungary, however, were a setback to these developments. A reconstruction of the process of decision-making at the sessions of the CPSU Presidium has been made possible by the declassification of the so-called ‘Malin Minutes’, from the CPSU’s leading organizational department. Because stenographic notes were rarely taken, these represent a unique source. They make it clear that the Western powers’ attempt to solve the Suez crisis by military means only accelerated the Soviet Union’s decision for armed intervention in Hungary, and at the same time, helped to mitigate the negative consequences which putting down the Hungarian Revolution would have for the Soviet Union.
The weakening of his position in the Central Committee after the crises in Poland and Hungary also played an important role in Khrushchev’s changing his position on Hungary. KGB reports on France and Israel’s joint plans against Egypt, which Khrushchev had received 31 October, confirmed for him the correctness of his decision to take military action against the Hungarian revolution. The military solution henceforth became the preferred means of dealing with crises in the Soviet bloc.
The Suez crisis increased Soviet influence in the Arab countries and firmed up the orientation of Soviet foreign policy in this direction. This example of the interplay between the Hungarian and Suez crises helps to demonstrate the value of researching historic events in their broader international context.
The Suez-Hungary Connection, 1956:
A Macmillan-Molotov Scenario
Daniel F. Calhoun
The author asserts that it was the urging of the British Foreign Minister Macmillan to have Prime Minister Eden intervene together with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov’s indirect pressure on Khrushchev which ultimately convinced the Soviet leader to change his mind and send Soviet tanks back into Budapest on 4 November 1956.
Macmillan was the foremost hawk in the Eden cabinet, insisting on the use of force to punish Nasser for having nationalized the Canal Company, and threatening to resign and thus bring down the British government if he, Macmillan, did not get his way. Eden thus rejected his own preference for a peaceful solution.
Russia and Khrushchev were not interested in saving Nasser, who, they believed, was nearing the end of his political career. Not only did Khrushchev seem ready to surrender the Soviet special position in Egypt, but he also felt the same about Hungary. The CPSU presidium was divided on this: Khrushchev had endeavoured to assure both Hungary and the West that the Soviet Union would not interfere in Hungarian affairs, even claiming a willingness to accept Hungary as ‘a second Finland’. With the Soviet withdrawal of troops and advisors, beginning 29 October, Khrushchev was apparently supporting his words with deeds. By the time of the complete Soviet withdrawal at noon on 31 October, it appeared that the Hungarian revolution was victorious.
As Molotov had been predicting for more than a year, Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe was now clearly under threat. Molotov, who had participated in Soviet foreign policy making for thirty years and had been minister for half of that time, represented continuity in Soviet foreign policy. He was against excessive Soviet support for the non-aligned states, and felt that the priority lay in domination of Eastern Europe, which he saw as threatened by Titoism, of which Nagy was also a practitioner. But he had to give way to Khrushchev who wanted to support Nasser, make amends with Tito, and allow Nagy more room for manoeuvre. The Twentieth Congress of the CPSU signaled Molotov’s defeat, and forced him to surrender his ministry. Khrushchev was then, often alone, making the foreign policy decisions. Calhoun argues that Khrushchev had to change his mind and intervene in Hungary as the easiest way of demonstrating that he personally had no intention of losing both Hungary and Egypt and that the imperialist West (France and Britain) had taken advantage of disruptions in the bloc in order to strike out at Egypt.
A likely scenario, argues Calhoun, is that the Suez operation, forced on Eden by domestic political considerations (namely, Macmillan and the need to preserve the government), forced Khrushchev, under domestic pressure (from the Presidium) to change his mind on Hungary. (As for sources, ‘the Yeltsin dossier’ neither refutes nor supports this thesis.) What is important is that even after the Presidium had learned from Mikoyan and Suslov in Budapest that the Hungarian Communists were no longer in control of the country it nevertheless reaffirmed its decision not to intervene (as reflected in the Declaration on East bloc cooperation). Events in the Middle East, rather than those in Hungary (which had by 31 October somewhat quieted down), seem to have been most important in leading the Soviets to change their minds on 31 October.
The Egypt Card in Soviet Foreign Policy, 1956
Jan Wanner
The author begins with an analysis of early Soviet attempts to formulate a new policy for the developing countries, a process still going on at the time of the Hungarian crisis in 1956. The war in the Sinai, together with the Suez crisis, provided Moscow with an opportunity to divert attention from central Europe and to sow the seeds of dissension in the West. The author then investigates the forms of the Soviet approach in connection with the so-called Czechoslovak-Egyptian agreement on military assistance, and considers the current state of research on the topic as well as the questions which remain. He concludes his article by following the concrete deployment of Soviet military equipment in the course of Egypt’s military operations against Israel and during the British-French invasion, and emphasizes the contradictions between the verbal radicalism of the Soviets’ diplomatic ultimatums and their reluctance to intervene militarily on behalf of Cairo.
The Reactions of the Czechoslovak Political Organs and of the Military to the Hungarian Uprising of 1956
Jiří Bílek and Vladimír Pilát
The first part of this article traces the development of the Czechoslovak Communist Party’s (CzCP) position on the Hungarian Uprising. The Czechoslovaks, not surprisingly, followed the lead of the Soviets, who saw the uprising as the ‘raging of a counterrevolution’ supported from outside without mass support from within. The CzCP called for an ideological campaign in the press to help to mystify the Czechoslovak public. At a meeting in December 1956, the Central Committee adopted measures to buttress the Party’s position and to proceed more decisively against ‘reaction at home’. The CzCP leadership exploited the Hungarian uprising to hasten the end of the reform process initiated by the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU and by the criticism of Stalin which had taken place there. The intensified course manifested itself in, among other things, pressure to complete collectivization of farmland, a ban on releasing political prisoners, and amendments to the criminal code. The CzCP leadership made farfetched promises and the pretense of being magnanimous in social policy, which, however, had no foundation in economic reality; in the short-term it raised the standard of living, but mostly only intensified economic problems and led society deeper into crisis.
The second part of the article focuses on the Czechoslovak military. The authors discuss the measures carried out by the Czechoslovak armed forces and by the secret police to secure the Czechoslovak frontiers at the time of the Hungarian uprising. The internal organization of the armed forces and its state of preparedness are discussed; the authors point out shortcomings in organization, equipment, security and the training of both officers and enlisted men, which became apparent during the actual operations. The military, too, exploited the Hungarian events in order to increase discipline and to persecute undesirables in its ranks. The authors conclude that the uprising’s influence on Czechoslovak domestic politics remained visible for years to come, especially because the CzCP repeatedly used it as an example whenever it felt the need to justify its decisions and policies of repression.
The Czechoslovak Public’s Reaction to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution:
From Internal Reports of the Interior Ministry’s Regional Offices
Jiří Pernes
The author has studied Czechoslovak regional secret police reports sent to Ministry of the Interior headquarters from 5 to 20 November 1956. The reports, based on information from undercover agents, describe the attitudes of the Czechoslovak public after the outbreak of the popular uprising in Hungary and in connection with Polish attempts to reform their own Communist regime. From the reports it is clear that Czechoslovak society was not of one opinion in the autumn of 1956. The relatively high standard of living in Czechoslovakia and a number of social measures accepted by the government in the course of the year had the effect that a significant part of the public was loyal to the régime, supported the Communist Party, and condemned the Hungarians’ fight for independence. Those Czechoslovaks (especially students) who attempted to bring about a change of régime and to renew democracy were but an isolated minority. The secret police managed relatively quickly to find out who the non-conformists were and to immobilize them. The majority of Czechoslovaks, by contrast, were passive and uninterested in political events. Thus the Czechoslovak authorities were able to maintain stability and avert serious disruptions.
Jan Nowak
The author was director of Radio Free Europe’s (RFE) Polish Service from its creation in 1952 until 1976. As part of his job, he followed the interplay of events in Poland and Hungary during the year of revolutions, 1956. He focuses here on the differences between RFE broadcasting policy towards the two countries, and briefly discusses day-to-day policy making, the extent of his own autonomy within RFE, and his difficulties in trying to clarify to listeners the Eisenhower-Dulles policy of ‘liberation’. This is followed by his summary of the events leading to the Polish October, including the revelations by the high-ranking secret policeman, Joseph Światło, Khrushchev’s secret speech, the death of Bolesław Beirut, and the Poznań riots. He then summarizes RFE’s role as the sole reliable source of information for Poles on developments in their country, and praises the historical role played by the correspondent Phillip Ben, whom he credits with having promptly informed Poles about the Soviet leadership’s surprise arrival in Warsaw. Nowak also attributes the Chinese with being an important factor in Soviet decision-making.
He describes how the Polish example of changing leadership ignited the Hungarian revolution, and how in turn the Hungarians’ success would further encourage the Poles, and discusses Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński’s release from prison and his message to his countrymen.
In five main points, Nowak outlines the differences between the Polish and Hungarian revolutions, which he follows up with his views on the impact which the crushing of the Hungarian revolution had on Poland, and, more generally, on Communist Europe.
A Missed Meeting:
The Year 1956 as Seen from Prague
Jacques Rupnik
This is a Czech translation of ‘Un rendez-vous manqué: L’année 1956 vue de Prague’ L’autre Europe Nos 11–12 (1986), pp. 12–16.
The author argues that it is extremely difficult to find an answer to György Konrád’s question, which he raised on the thirtieth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, ‘How can one explain that the Czechs did not budge?’ Czechoslovakia’s orthodox position in 1956 was the result of its historical experiences and, in particular, of the economic and social stability of the Communist régime. The ideas of reform which were well received, especially by the intelligentsia and eventually the student movement, were not met with much enthusiasm from the rest of the population. Unlike in Hungary and Poland the activity of intellectuals and students in Czechoslovakia remained almost entirely isolated. This situation stemmed from the Czechoslovak régime’s ability to gain at least the acceptance, if not the support, of a much larger proportion of the population than was the case in Hungary and in Poland. The strongest resistance to all attempts at destalinization came from the Czechoslovak Communist Party leadership. Prague may have preceded Moscow in carrying out a post-Stalinist change of leadership. (After Gottwald’s death Novotný became head of the Party, but he was an apparatchik who himself actively contributed to many of his comrades being sent to prison and even to the gallows.)
Events in Poland and Hungary helped Novotný and the rest of the leadership to prevent the rejection of destalinization and the intervention against the ‘revisionist tendencies’ in the Party. ‘Revisionism’, suppressed in Prague in 1956, re-emerged with even greater force in the 1960s, when, during the Prague Spring, it achieved an ephemeral victory over Novotný and satisfaction for the thwarted opportunity of 1956.
1956 in Poland as a Mass Social Phenomenon
Jiří Vykoukal
This review examines the thematic framework of Pawel Machcewicz’s Polski rok 1956 (Warsaw, 1993) and attempts to describe new approaches to the topic Poland in 1956. It praises the book for its focus on the connection between ‘high-level politics’ and spontaneous social mobility, which in Poland led to an internalization of Communism, something which had previously been considered a Soviet export.
Jacques Rupnik
In his Le Passé d’une Illusion (1995) Franois Furet inquires into the roots of the Communist ‘illusion’ and into the misunderstanding between intellectuals from the East and those from the West. The first explanation sees the source in the attempt to find a replacement for the chiliasm of Stalinist Communism. The Communists’ monopolization of anti-fascism is the second explanation. Lastly, Furet points to the specific nature of French political culture, and to the idea that democracy cannot be divided from revolution. The difference between the idea and the actual experience of totalitarianism was manifested in the time lag between the recognition of this phenomenon by intellectuals in the West and by those in the East, and in their anti-totalitarian volte-face.
A Contribution to Gypsy History since 1945
Nina Pavelčíková and Jiří Pavelčík
Eva Davidová’s work Cesty Romů 1945–1990 [The peregrinations of the Roma] (Olomouc, 1995) is an important contribution to the study of the Roma (gypsies) in Czechoslovakia after 1945, but it also goes back to the earlier roots of the subject. Davidová bases her work on her years of research in Slovakia, Ostrava and southern Bohemia, and provides the ethnographic, demographic, social, cultural and historical context. The broad range almost inevitably leads to certain shortcomings: some imprecision, a somewhat static conception of historical development, but the reviewers still highly recommend this work.
A Problematic History of the ‘Velvet Revolution’
Jan Měchýř
Jiří Honajzer’s Vznik, vývoj a rozpad Občanského fóra [The emergence, development and break up of Civic Forum] (Prague, 1996) is more memoir than either history or political science, though it was written and accepted as the author’s PhD thesis. Honajzer, still active in Czech politics, was directly involved in the Civic Forum movement; his opinions here, however, are usually not argued from the facts, while the picture he presents is mostly superficial and at times imprecise.
Democrats in ‘Authoritarian Democracies’
Zdeněk Kárník
This is a review of Jan Kuklík’s Sociální demokraté ve Druhé republice [Social Democrats in the Second Republic] (Prague, 1992). His work is a welcome contribution to the history of a neglected period, brief but important, of Czechoslovak history, August 1938 to March 1939. The reviewer praises the work’s lively style and its being based on primary sources, as well as its avoidance of bias. Kuklík analyzes the Czech Social Democrat Party’s rebirth into the National Labour Party and follows its ups and downs in the democratic developments of a country condemned to being swallowed up by Nazi Germany. He does not neglect the darker sides of the party’s activity, including its accommodating (though understandable) attitude after March 1939 to the establishment of the new political structure, that is, the National Partnership (Národní souručenství). He rightly assesses its unique effort to preserve democratic principles and institutions under pressure from an aggressive, expansionist neighbour which was establishing totalitarian methods of government. He follows the decision-making process of the party leadership, the activity of the intellectuals around the Worker’s Academy, and the creation of a National Movement of Young Workers. A detailed analysis of the complex of movements and their organizations in the individual centres remains, however, a task for the future.
Beneš’s Messages Home, 1939–45
Jan Němeček
President Edvard Beneš’s messages from exile to home during World War II are among the more important documents of the Czechoslovak resistance abroad. This edition, edited by Jiří Šolc, makes available an apparently complete collection of them, but upon closer examination serious shortcomings become evident. These concern both their completeness and their editing (including the inadequate description of documents and the lack of references to other messages published elsewhere). The problem is not only in the selection of the documents (apart from Beneš’s messages, there is also a message from General Sergei Ingr, and it must be pointed out that Beneš’s message of 28 October 1939 got only as far as Paris, where its content was radically changed). Concerning the enumeration of the many other shortcomings (there is also no index of names or list of documents in a major language) suffice it to say that documents as important as these (not only for scholars at home but also for those abroad) deserve more serious editing than they have received here.
Cahiers du CEFRES:
A Series of Papers on Contemporary History
This is a report on the work published so far by the French Institute for Social Science Research, Prague, in their series Cahiers du CEFRES. These publications are available at their library, Vyšehradská ulice 49, Praha 2.
Gordon Skilling Turns Eighty-Five
On 28 February 1997 the Canadian historian and political scientist H. Gordon Skilling, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, will celebrate his eighty-fifth birthday. A great part of his extensive work, beginning with his doctoral thesis in London in 1940 (under the supervision of R. W. Seton-Watson), is connected with the history of central Europe and particularly with that of Czechoslovakia from its founding onwards.
Among the earlier of Skilling’s publications concerned with Czechoslovakia are the monumental Czechoslovakia’s Interrupted Revolution (Princeton, 1976), the most systematic and the largest monograph written on Czechoslovak reform in the 1960s and its subsequent crisis, and Charter 77 and Human Rights in Czechoslovakia (London, 1981), the first scholarly account of what was then a new political phenomenon in the country.
It was only with the return of freedom to Czechoslovakia after November 1989 that Skilling could finally receive official acknowledgment from the country whose historical scholarship and freedom he had done so much to help. In addition to the honours conferred upon him by Charles University and by the Academy of Sciences in 1990, Czechoslovak President Václav Havel awarded him the Order of the White Lion on his birthday five years ago.
Since 1992 Skilling has finished two works. One, T. G. Masaryk: Against the Current (London, 1994), became his first scholarly work to be published in Czech translation (1995), and it met with great success. (In a readers poll in the journal Dějiny a současnost it was hailed as the year’s most successful work by a non-Czech historian.) The second work, his memoirs, was finished in early 1996 and is still in manuscript form. An excerpt was recently published in Czech translation as ‘Tři roky putování za Chartou a s Chartou’ [Three years of wandering for the Charter and with the Charter] in a collection of essays Charta 77 očima současniků po dvaceti letech [Charter 77, twenty years later, through the eyes of those who lived it] (Prague, 1997).
An honorary member of the Czech Historical Society and the holder of an honorary doctorate from Charles University, Skilling remains in close touch with Czech history, and carefully keeps up with the latest Czech and Slovak historical writing. He provides consultancy and regularly visits the Czech Republic and Slovakia to take part in conferences and to continue with his research in the archives. At his own university he continues to hold a Czech seminar, which in January 1997 was concerned with the twentieth anniversary of Charter 77.
It is with a sense of gratitude that we wish this great scholar, our colleague and friend Gordon Skilling, all the very best on his birthday.
The British Embassy in Prague on Czechoslovakia 1956
(with a prefatory remark by Vilém Prečan)
The British Ambassador in Prague’s ‘Annual Review of Events in Czechoslovakia for 1956’, a document originally intended for circulation within the Foreign Office, is published here in both the original and in Czech translation. The Review’s enclosure, a list of principal events, is published here only in Czech translation.
This report evaluates Czechoslovakia’s standing internationally and also as an instrument of Soviet policy. It sees Czechoslovakia as ‘the spearhead in the drive for economic penetration of underdeveloped countries in Africa and Asia, and as the most advanced member of the Soviet bloc’. The focus is an analysis of the way the Communist leadership ‘successfully weathered both an incipient intellectual revolt in the Spring and the incitement to rebel provided by the Polish and Hungarian example in the Autumn’.
The editors have decided to publish this particular document from the extensive archives of the British Foreign Office mainly in an attempt to draw attention to an important sort of record which Czech and Slovak historians can no longer afford to ignore. Though records from Soviet and Czech archives may present a more detailed picture of actual events, documents from more disinterested observers are equally important; their perception of events is a valuable corrective for Czech and Slovak historians engrossed in records of local provenance where the reality of the day is seen through the prism of ideology and the interests of the Communist regime, and, moreover, is expressed in a language which requires a good deal of deciphering. The report of the British ambassador, then, is far closer to the way Czech and Slovak historians see those events today, and is also much easier to interpret.
Position of the Joint Czech-German Commission of Historians on the Losses in Human Life Suffered by the Sudeten Germans during the Expulsion
In December 1996, the Joint Czech-German Commission of Historians published its position after the discussion on the number of lives lost during the expulsion and forced resettlement of the German population from Czechoslovakia after World War II. The Commission argues at length why the current statistical calculations are unusable for scholars; it also states that the maximum number of victims did not exceed 30,000. It is of the opinion, therefore, that the number of 220,000 ‘victims of the transfer’ (or more) should not be used in either scholarly or in political debate.
Contributors
Vitalii Y. Afiani (1946) is Deputy Director of the Centre for Contemporary Documentation, Moscow (formerly the archives of the CPSU Central Committee for records no older than 1952). He is Deputy Editor of Istoricheskii Arkhiv, and has also published widely on Soviet history.
Csaba Békés (1957) is Coordinator of the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Budapest, where he is also a senior researcher. He is mostly concerned with dipolmatic history after 1945, and has recently published on the Hungarian Revolution in international politics.
Jiří Bílek (1948) is a senior researcher at the Historical Institute of the Czechoslovak Armed Forces, Prague. His research interests are Czechoslovak and Czech military history, particularly the build-up of the forces in between 1945 and 1955.
Daniel F. Calhoun is a former professor of history at the College of Wooster, Ohio. Among his recently publications is Hungary and Suez 1956: An Exploration of Who Makes History.
Pál Germuska is a researcher at the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Budapest. His main area of interest is the history of industrialization in Hungary, 1945–89.
Zdeněk Kárník (1931) is Professor of History, the Institute of Economic and Social History, Charles University. He is concerned with Czech and German social history since the nineteenth century. His most recent work is Habsburk, Masaryk či Šmeral: Socialisté na rozcestí [H., M., or Š.: Socialists at the crossroads] (1996).
Jan Měchýř (1930) is Docent of History at the Institute of Economic and Social History, Charles University. His main area is the history of Czechoslovakia since World War II.
Jan Němeček (1963) is a researcher at the Historical Institute, Academy of Sciences, Prague. The Czechoslovak resistance abroad during World War II is his main interest. With the Institute of International Relations he is preparing an edition of documents on Czechoslovak diplomacy.
Jan Nowak is an expert on Polish affairs. He was a member of the underground in World War II, and later Director of the Polish Service of Radio Free Europe from 1952 to 1976. He has served as National Director of the Polish American Congress, Washington D.C., and as a consultant to the National Security Council. His publications include Courier from Warsaw.
Jiří Pavelčík (1934) is Head of the Department of Archeology, at the Slovácko Museum, Uherské Hradiště. His speciality is the Eneolithic age, but he also collaborates with the Museum of Roma Culture, Brno, on the history and ethnography of the gypsies in southern Moravia.
Nina Pavelčíková (1939) is Senior Lecturer of History, the University of Ostrava. She is concerned with developments in Czechoslovakia after 1945, and at present is concentrating on historical aspects of immigration from Slovakia and the gypsy question in selected regions of Moravia and Silesia.
Jiří Pernes (1948) is a researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, focusing on the crisis in the Communist system, 1953–57. He has published on turn-of-the century Bohemia, including Spiknutí proti Jeho Veličenstvu [A plot against His Majesty] (1988), Svět Lidových novin [The world of Lidové noviny] (1993), Habsburkové bez trůnu [Habsburgs without a throne] (1995).
Vladimír Pilát (1957) is a researcher at the Historical Institute of the Armed Forces, Prague. He is concerned with the history of World War II and developments in the Czechoslovak armed forces after 1945.
Vilém Prečan (1933) is Director of the Institute of Contemporary History. He has edited and published a number of books and articles on Czechoslovak history in the European context from the Munich crisis to the present.
János M. Rainer (1957) is Deputy Director of the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Budapest. He has published widely on the revolution, including a pioneering samizdat study concerning statistics on repression following the quashing of the revolution.
Jacques Rupnik (1950) is Professor of Political Science in the Institute d’Etudes politiques, Paris. He has published a great deal on contemporary central European history.
Jiří Vykoukal (1961) is a researcher in the Institute of International Relations, Charles University. Modern East European history, particularly Polish, is his principal field.
Jan Wanner (1940) is Docent of History at Charles University and a senior researcher in the Historical Institute of the Armed Forces, Prague. His spicialization is modern-day international relations.
