The Brno branch of the Institute of Contemporary History
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The Brno branch of the Institute for Contemporary History was established in 2003. The main reason behind its founding was for scholars working on projects for the Institute of Contemporary History to take account of resources outside the environs of Prague and also to facilitate access to documents on Czechoslovak history after 1948 that are based in Moravian archives. Currently, the Brno branch concentrates on research into, among others, the communist period of Czechoslovak history, the exile of Czechoslovak democrats after 1948, and the problems faced by German anti-Fascists.
Dr. Jiří Pernes has been head of the Brno branch since its foundation. Apart from Dr. Pernes, there are at present five permanent staff members: they are Vladimír Březina, David Kovařík, Martina Miklová and Pavel Paleček. Most are post-graduate doctoral candidates of the Arts Faculty of the Masaryk University in Brno. Those interested in issues of contemporary history tend to gravitate towards the Brno branch, particularly students from Brno universities and colleges. Employees at the branch have also taken courses abroad, in Germany, Poland, the USA, Russia, Serbia, and Great Britain.
In addition to their own individual areas of study, staff carry out research within the wider remit of the Institute of Contemporary History or in grant-sponsored collective projects. These would include, for example, “Czechoslovakia at the turn of the 1950s,” “the Czechoslovak democratic exile and the western powers 1948-1963,” and “the fate of active opponents of Nazism.” The Brno branch cooperates with the American Fund for Assistance to Czechoslovakia, which introduced itself at the International Congress of Science and Arts in Olomouc and which has contributed to the staging of certain exhibitions, such as that entitled “For freedom and democracy – the help of American fellow-countrymen of Czechoslovakia in the twentieth century.”
The Brno branch of the Institute of Contemporary History cooperates closely with the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno, the University of Defence in Brno, the Brno branch of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, the Centre for the Study of Democracy and Culture, the Faculty of Social Sciences of Masaryk University in Brno, the International Political Science Institute and other research and academic hubs. Employees of the branch take an active part in international conferences, seminars and the like. Examples would be: the conference on the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia and its victims (2004), that marking the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War (2005), that commemorating the Hungarian anticommunist uprising in 1956 (2006), that held in memory of Johann Wolfgang Brügel (2006), that entitled “Tomáš Baťa – time and society” (2006), and that devoted to the history of the Czechoslovak exile (2007).
Library and archive
The Library of the Brno branch of the Institute of Contemporary History gathers together both Czech and foreign publications on contemporary history. In addition, it houses an extensive collection of Czechoslovak exile literature and editions published by the Institute of Contemporary History. The Brno branch has also managed to obtain a valuable assortment of documents relating to the history of the Czechoslovak democratic exile after 1948. These include bequests and legacies from significant exile figures, émigré periodicals, and the like, and, of particular interest, the archive of the exile publishing house Index from Cologne. These resources have been expertly stocked and collated. The library and archive are accessible by arrangement to both professionals and the lay public.
