No. I.-II.
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Articles
Tomáš Staněk and Adrian von Arburg
Organized Spontaneous “Transfers”?
The Role of the Central State Organs in “Evacuating” the German Population, May to September 1945
Part 2:
The Army Presents a Fait Accompli; the Government Legitimizes It for Foreign Consumption
Daniela Kolenovská
From an Ideological Template to a Plurality of Historical Interpretations:
Late-twentieth-century Soviet and Russian Reflections on Post-war Czechoslovak History
Milan Hauner
History Experienced and Written
Horizons
Martin H. Geyer
In the Shadow of the Nazi Period:
Contemporary History as a Paradigm of (Federal) Republic Historiography
Reviews
Jiří Křesťan
In the Maze of Mistakes, Errors, Tragedies – and Hope
Zuzana Jürgensová
Talking about Bedřich Fučík
Robert Kvaček
About the Uprising at the End of the War
Martina Miklová
The Settling of Czechoslovak-German of Accounts
Pavel Mücke
The Third Reich, Alluring and Deceiving
Vlastimil Hála
Austrian Identity Changing with Myth
Of Periodicals and Archives
Eva Irmanová
Contemporary History in Hungarian Journals
Documents
Karel Kaplan and Marek Janáč
The Last Words of the Accused in the “Milada Horáková et al” Trial
Discussion
Concerning the Archives of the StB and History Ethics
Opportunist Materialism
(Bořivoj Čelovský)
Counterfeit, or The Dispute over the Letters
(Radek Schovánek)
StB Tales and Memory
(Jan Křen)
The Reviewer as a Captive of His Own Errors
(Jaroslav Bouček)
Chronicle
Miroslav Vaněk
Globalization and the Digital Revolution, the Fourth Phase in the Development of Oral History:
Looking Back at the 14th International Oral History Conference, Sydney
Jana Nosková
Oral History and (Post-) Socialist Societies
Annotations
Summaries
Organized Spontaneous “Transfers”?
Part 2: The Army Presents a Fait Accompli; the Government Legitimizes It for Foreign Consumption
Tomáš Staněk and Adrian von Arburg
This long article is based on a large number of records that were till now either underused by scholars or completely unknown to them. Its aim is to outline the current state of what we know about the role of the top-level Czechoslovak authorities in the first 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 influences 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 classified according to the criterion of “central” versus “decentralized” or “local.” Among the actors in positions of influence 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 clarification 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 post-war “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 second part of the article, the last of which will appear in the next issue of Soudobé dějiny, the authors focus on the role of the Czechoslovak army in carrying out the expulsions and also on the foreign-policy aspects of what was officially described as an “evacuation.” During the first stage of the expulsion of people considered German, it was the army that became the most important actor. From as early as mid-May 1945, the army command issued a number of clear orders to carry out the “evacuation” of Germans, including people who had been settled in the country for years. The army was deployed to carry out this task with the full awareness of the Czechoslovak President and Government, and army commanders also referred to their having been entrusted with the task by the supreme organs of the State. Despite the considerable initiative and participation of other organs and units (including those of some ministries, local and regional authorities, state security organs, and various armed “revolutionary” groups), it would have hardly been possible to send the 700,000 to 820,000 people (the authors’ estimate) out of the country in the course of roughly four months had it not been for the leading role of the army, as well its manpower and equipment.
The Czechoslovak Government took up a consciously dual position towards its allies abroad. On the one hand, the transfer was, from the point of view of domestic policy, tacitly accepted but actively supported, in the knowledge that the attitude of the Soviets was accommodating and benevolent; on the other, it was then presented to the Western Allies as a fait accompli, despite the simultaneous attempt to play down its importance and impact, hushing up any complications connected with it.
From an Ideological Template to a Plurality of Historical Interpretations:
Late-twentieth-century Soviet and Russian Reflections on Post-war Czechoslovak History
Daniela Kolenovská
The author provides an overview of the relevant institutions, authors, and publications, which are concerned with Czechoslovak history after the Second World War. She discusses the sources they use, identifies key research topics, and points to changes in the approach of Soviet and Russian historians regarding this area of research during the last thirty years. The milestones on this road from ideologically pre-fabricated conceptions to a diversity of interpretation were, argues the author, Gorbachev’s perestroika in the mid-1980s and, in particular, the break-up of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s. The focus of Soviet and Russian historians of post-war Czechoslovakia shifted from economic history to political and cultural history. An important role in this change was played by the declassification and use of great numbers of previously unknown documents in Soviet archives.
The author considers this change over three periods. For the years from the liberation of Czechoslovakia in May 1945 to Stalin’s death in March 1953, Soviet and Russian historians (women historians, incidentally, held the main positions in this field) paid the most attention to the Czechoslovak road to socialism, the role of internal and external factors in the process, the personality of Edvard Beneš, the Communist takeover of February 1948, and repression the followed the takeover. All current Russian researchers, claims the author, agree that Soviet policy towards central and south-east Europe after the war was governed by the strategy of creating a zone of Soviet-friendly states along the western frontier of the USSR, which would make an attack on the Soviet Union or its isolation impossible. The February 1948 takeover in Czechoslovakia, the key event of this period, is interpreted, in accord with this orientation, as a rightful victory, a political crisis, or a coup. In their view of the subsequent repression the historians apply the theory of totalitarianism in a conceptually striking way.
The topic of Czechoslovak history from 1953 to 1969 was, remarks the author, long considered a taboo in Soviet historiography. Historians based themselves primarily on the official document The Lessons from the Crisis in the Party and Society after the XIVth CPCz Congress. Particularly after the break-up of the Soviet bloc, Soviet historians’ interest was concentrated on the “Prague Spring” and the Soviet-led military intervention by states of the Warsaw Treaty Organization in late August 1968. Apart from the surviving ideological opinion about the rightness of the intervention, two main approaches to assessing the events have formed: the first emphasizes the forfeited opportunity of a renaissance of Socialism while it still had the potential to develop; the second approach argues that the search for a democratic alternative to Socialism was a blind alley. Proponents of each approach agree, however, that intervention meant the end of traditional Czech Russophilia and the popularity of Socialism in the country, and it plunged Czech society into long-term passivity.
The general tone of praise in Soviet scholarly works about the “Normalization” course taken by the Czechoslovak Communist Party after Gorbachev came to power was superseded, according to the author, by criticism of the automatic acceptance of “Soviet experience.” An important place in the view of this period eventually came to be held by the memoirs of Soviet politicians, including Gorbachev. In reaction to the break-up of the Soviet bloc, Soviet and Russian historians mostly tended to see the reasons for the changes as residing in the economic backwardness of the bloc. In Russia there are now also essays on the break-up of Czechoslovakia and the post-November-1989 economic and social transformation, including analyses of social microstructures. The range of Soviet experts’ attitudes to Czechoslovak and Czech developments after November 1989 reveals their attitudes to Václav Havel: some consider him a hypocritical counter-revolutionary; others put him in the ranks of Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn; others have written about him as a humanist thinker “on the throne,” who has great moral authority.
The originally established stereotypes of Soviet historiography about post-war Czechoslovakia – a kindred, traditionally Russophile, Slav state, a culturally and industrially developed society with (bourgeois) democratic traditions, and a country comprising two small nations, which had been restored after the Second World War thanks to liberation by the Soviet army – has, says the author, changed in recent years under the influence of a new stereotype of Czechoslovak society stricken with the “Munich syndrome” and the “syndrome of 1968.” This has led to unwillingness to take risks but a willingness to subordinate its interests to currently stronger powers. This, say the historians, is ultimately a manifestation of the pragmatism peculiar to small nations, whose chief aim is survival.
The author finishes her article by stating that the number of institutions and researchers in Russia who are focused on contemporary Czechoslovak history has become considerably smaller since the 1980s and that the results of recent research have been published in small print-runs. The price for making this material more available to the general Russian public has been a tendency to comparative regional interpretation, which sometimes suffers from over-generalization. She stresses that one should not, however, overlook the fact that this research into the region of “central and southeast Europe” as whole has inspired Russian historians to consider new topics: the formation of Communist élites in the countries of the Socialist bloc and national questions. In the late twentieth century, Russian historiography as a whole thus made considerable progress in the interpretation of post-war Czechoslovak history.
History Experienced and Written
Milan Hauner
The author discusses Edvard Beneš and Winston Churchill – two statesmen who were both also notable writers of memoirs – from the perspective of how they incorporated the history of the Second World War (of which they had personal experience) into their historical autobiographies. Whereas the Czechoslovak president in writing his Paměti relied for the most part only on the help of his archivist and confident, the historian Jan Opočenský, the British Prime Minister (also thanks to his incomparably greater financial situation) used the services of a whole “syndicate” of assistants led by the historian William Deakin. Both memoirs are interesting, however, not only for what they say, but also for what they do not say. In this respect, the author focuses on the massacre of the Polish officers as a moral dilemma of British policy. After the discovery of the mass graves in 1943, both Beneš and Churchill accepted the Soviet version of the event, not because of the persuasiveness of the arguments provided by Moscow but out of political pragmatism, the logic of which few in the British political élite were able privately to deny. In the relevant passage of his multi-volume The Second World War Churchill for years avoided taking an explicit position on the Katyn massacre. In an unpublished part of his memoirs, Beneš makes only brief mention of it, calling it a German provocation.
Horizons
In the Shadow of the Nazi Period:
Contemporary History as a Paradigm of (Federal) Republic Historiography
Martin H. Geyer
The article is a translation of “Im Schatten der NS-Zeit: Zeitgeschichte als Paradigma einer (bundes-)republikanischen Geschichtswissenschaft,” which was published in Alexander Nützenadel and Wolfgang Schieder (eds), Zeitgeschichte als Problem: Nationale Traditionen und Perspektiven der Forschung in Europa, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2004, pp. 25–53. The translation of it opens a Soudobé dějiny series of discussions on the study of contemporary history, its current state, and the changes that the field has undergone in several countries. The author charts out the establishment and development of the field of contemporary history (Zeitgeschichte) in the Federal Republic of Germany as a process that was not only historiographical, but also, indeed mainly, political-historical and cultural-historical. His basic thesis is that the special nature of German contemporary history results from its having developed in the shadow of coming to terms with the legacy of the Nazi period and that with its “lessons from the past” it profoundly influenced the culture of the Federal Republic. Moreover, in this changing milieu a new, republican historiography was established as a whole, which further prepared the change of historical consciousness, the assessments, and the periodization of German history.
Geyer mentions Rothfels’s post-war definition of contemporary history as a history of the generation of contemporaries (Generation der Mitlebenden), which became the initial framework of work done in this field. He argues that is attractive because it both the delimitation of generations and topics, private history and “big history.” It is on the basis of this linking that one can discern three generations researching contemporary West German history: the first is concerned with the Weimar Republic and Nazism, the second with the Federal Republic, and the third, after 1990, with the history of the German Democratic Republic. Three generations of historians dealing with German dictatorships and three similar German statehoods thus correspond to the three political generations after 1945 with different historical experiences.
The paradigm of German contemporary history emerged in the 1950s in an atmosphere of the lasting shock from total defeat and also the attempt to repress the memory of it. The history of Nazism, it was argued, should be considered an anomaly of general German history. The general attempt was to avoid collective guilt. The new (west) German state also tried to put down roots in a new western, transatlantic identity. At the centre of attention, and not just that of the professional historians, were the burning questions about the transformation of memories in history, in which two views clashed: one, that the researcher can better understand the period if he or she has actually experienced it; the other, that personal distance enables a superior understanding. At the same time institutional prerequisites for the critical treatment of the Nazi past were established, which had previously been on the sidelines, in particular in the form of the establishment of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich. The point of reference in research here is not the defeat of 1945 but the year 1933, in other words, the rise of Nazism, its roots in the Weimar Republic, and the causes of the fall of democracy, the operation of the “Third Reich.” In the early 1960s, contemporary history in Germany experienced phenomenal success, which the author attributes not only to the quickly growing number of publications, but also to historians’ having worked with the courts at the trials of Nazi criminals and the use of their knowledge in critical journalism and public discourse. The language of historical description and interpretation also changed, and into them were projected new concepts at the expense of old clichés. In this connection the author recalls the controversy over the arguments of Fritz Fischer, which was about the causes of the First World War and the German role in it, in which German power politics were fundamentally cast into doubt, social prerequisites of political behaviour came to the fore, and systematic questions about the long-term continuities of German history began to be asked.
In West German historiography in the 1960s, writes the author, a new Republican historical realism was established. Among other things, it was marked by an emphasis on an objective, scholarly, unbiased interpretation of events. The focus of research was shifted to social history. “System” and “structure” became the key terms of this history, which called forth a sometimes critical reaction demanding a return of personalities (and with them specific responsibility) to history. The result was nevertheless to go beyond political history in favour of an interdisciplinary approach. This includes the recently revived interest in memory, but this time it consists in the recollections of the victims of dictatorship as the bearers of repressed historical memory. In this connection, disputes arose as to whether the destruction of the Jews of Europe should be considered the central point of German history. At the end of the article, the author points to a conceptualization of German history in the context of the theory of modernization, which, on the one hand, helps to explain the German “special road” (Sonderweg) from a lack of modernity, and, on the other, aids in the self-confirmation of the Federal Republic as a forward-looking modern state.
Reviews
In the Maze of Mistakes, Errors, Tragedies – and Hope
Jiří Křesťan
Císař, Čestmír. Paměti: Nejen o zákulisí Pražského jara. Prague: SinCon, 2005, 1,285 pp.
Using numerous examples, the author in the first part of this long review provides an outline of the typology of memoir literature about Czechoslovakia in 1968. He states that we are still lacking proper memoirs from the ranks of the victors of those times, that is to say, from members of the political élite in the period of “Normalization,” most of whom have instead remained silent about these events. By contrast, the defeated, the “Sixty-eighters,” have presented their experiences in numerous essays, both in this country and abroad. A third line comprises memoirs of political prisoners, longstanding democrats, and others who did not identify with Communism in any shape or form, and whose view typically involves detachment and scepticism about the reform-possibilities of the “Prague Spring.”
The second part of the review is devoted to the memoirs of Čestmír Císař, a Communist politician who was Minister of Education in the 1960s, and who, after twenty years of imposed silence, tried to make a comeback by seeking election to the office of Czechoslovak President in 1990. The reviewer finds in the memoirs the idea of a distinctly Czechoslovak road to Socialism to be the philosophical and political keystone of Císař’s life. He considers the most interesting part of the memoirs to the one that deals with the “Prague Spring,” the high point of Císař’s carrier. In many ways the memoirs remain typical of those of a Communist intellectual. Yet, according to the reviewer, they are still considerably more than merely an historical source.
Zuzana Jürgensová
Sak, Robert. “Život na vidrholci”: Příběh Bedřicha Fučíka. Prague and Litomyšl: Paseka, 2004, 424 pp.
Sak’s work, which borrows its title from an essay about the same man by Václav Havel, is the first biography in book form about Bedřich Fučík (1900–1984), a Roman Catholic intellectual, and a leading literary historian and critic. In the 1930s, Fučík was the successful director of the Melantrich publishing house. In the 1950s, he spent many years in prison. During the 1970s and 1980s he was driven into the underground culture of samizdat. The reviewer praises the biographer’s insight into the history of publishing in interwar Czechoslovakia and his description of Fučík’s trial and imprisonment. On the whole, however, he reproaches Sak for a simplistic orientation to literary history, a failure to provide a more profound judgement of his own, and a frequently insensitive paraphrasing of Fučík’s writing.
About the Uprising at the End of the War
Robert Kvaček
Kokoška, Stanislav. Praha v květnu 1945: Historie jednoho povstání, Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2005, 277 pp.
According to the reviewer, Kokoška excels with his comprehensive knowledge of the diverse range of sources on the Prague Uprising at the end of the war and with his endeavour to provide a fair analysis of events, factors, and motives. His book is the first monograph to deal with the topic, and fully meets the requirements of critical writing today.
The Settling of Czechoslovak-German of Accounts
Martina Miklová
Kučera, Jaroslav. “Žralok nebude nikdy tak silný”: Československá zahraniční politika vůči Německu 1945–1948. Prague: Argo, 2005, 200 pp.
In his book, Kučera provides an interpretation of Czechoslovak foreign policy in the period between the liberation in May 1945 and the Communist takeover of February 1948, concentrating on Czechoslovak-German relations in the period and describing the development of the “German Question” in Czechoslovak politics after 1948. The work, according to the reviewer, is important because it fills in a gap in the historical treatment of the history of Czechoslovak diplomacy and presents a detailed analysis of post-war reparations.
The Third Reich, Alluring and Deceiving
Pavel Mücke
Reichel, Peter. Svůdný klam Třetí říše: Fascinující a násilná tvář fašismu. Trans. from the German by Josef Boček. Prague: Argo, 2004, 388 pp.
The reviewer first points to the rarity of historical research into the phenomon of everyday life and culture in Germany under the Nazi régime. Reichel’s work in this respect is among the best, and, according to the reviewer, should inspire similar research into Czechoslovak everyday life and culture under the Communist régime. In this translation his Der schöne Schein des Dritten Reiches. Faszination und Gewalt des Faschismus (Munich, 1991), Reichel, however, does not deal merely with traditionally conceived relationship between culture and politics under the Nazis, but focuses instead on the omnipresent aestheticization of the régime as an instrument to bolster the sense of community, and he examines topics such as urban studies, leisure, and the consumption of goods in the Third Reich. His interpretation is based on the idea of the crisis of modernity, something widely discussed in Germany today.
Austrian Identity Changing with Time
Vlastimil Hála
Stachel, Peter. Mythos Heldenplatz. Vienna: Pichler Verlag, 2002, 119 pp.
The book under review considers the symbolic meaning of the Heldenplatz, Vienna, in its various contexts, particularly in the complicated formation of Austrian identity. He traces not only historical events and collective symbolic acts connected with this square, but also its depiction in art and the historical development of its architecture. The reviewer also praises Stachel’s “Austrian self-irony” and problematization of the Habsburg myth.
Of Periodicals and Archives
Contemporary History in Hungarian Journals
Eva Irmanová
The author provides a brief report on institutions in Hungary that are currently conducting research on contemporary history, describes Hungarian periodicals devoted to this subject, and names specific topics and contributions of interest to the Czech reader, dividing them into three groups. Among the journals that existed before the régime changed in Hungary in 1990 and continue to come out in more or less unchanged form today, Irmanová considers Századok (Centuries), Hadtörténelmi Közlemenyek (Military History Review), and the monthly História, Történelmi Szemle (History Review), and Valóság (Reality). An exceptional position among the “successor” journals is occupied by the culture and politics monthly Beszélő (Commentator). Started up in 1981 as a samizdat tribune for the views of critical intellectuals, it evolved into the centre of the political opposition, and has since 1990 been an influential forum for liberal views. In addition to proving a thorough description of this particular periodical, Irmanová presents Múltunk (Our Past), another of the “successor” journals. The most numerous are the journals concerned with contemporary history, which were started up in Hungary after 1989, and belong in the third group. Here she places Rubicon, Eszmélet (Consciousness), Évkönyv (Yearbook), Külügyi Szemle (Foreign Policy Review), Klió, Debreceni Szemle (Debrecen Review), Egyenlítő (Equality), Korall, Politikatudományi Szemle (Science, Scholarship, and Politics Review), Info-Társadalaom-Tudományi (Information, Society, Science and Scholarship), Kisebbségi Kutatás (Minorities Research), Regio, and Pro Minoritate. The author states that the great diversity of these periodicals, both in terms of general outlook and political orientation, accentuated by the topics and kinds of writing they contain, as well as their great number, testifies to the highly developed treatment of contemporary history in Hungary.
Documents
The Last Words of the Accused in the “Milada Horáková et al” Trial
Karel Kaplan and Marek Janáč
In this section of the journal the last words of all the accused in the trial of Milada Horáková “et al.” are being published for the first time in full, based on a recently discovered audio recording of what was said during the last session of the trial on 8 June 1950. The introduction to the documents clarifies how this show trial, the first in Czechoslovakia, was prepared. It discusses the role of Soviet advisers and describes the development of the construction of the conspiracy, which was originally aimed against representatives of the pre-February-1948 National Social Party, but gradually went after the whole spectrum of the former democratic opposition to Communism. The introduction also describes the circle of people singled out for persecution. It describes the practices and methods of interrogation used back then, discusses psychological aspects of the interrogated, the attempt to break them psychologically at any price and to force them to sign confessions. It points out characteristic elements in the statements of the accused in the police reports and their statements before the judge – the accused do not deny their political activity before the 1948 Communist takeover, insisting on its legality; they thank their interrogators for having made clear to them the “criminal nature” of their actions; and they warn their fellow citizens to forego similar political activity. The introduction also compares the audio recording of the accused with the extant stenographic and film records, both of which are incomplete, and show the manipulation of the wording of these speeches in the contemporaneous propaganda publication about the trial of the “leaders of the conspiracy of sabotage against the Republic.” It ends with a summary of the court’s verdicts: four death sentences, for Milada Horáková, Jan Buchal, Oldřich Pecl, and Záviš Kalandra, four sentences of life imprisonment, for Josef Nestával, Jiří Hejda, František Přeučil, and Antonie Kleinerová, and five prison terms of between fifteen and twenty eight years, for Vojtěch Dundr, Františka Zemínová, Jiří Křížek, Zdeněk Peška, and Bedřich Hostička.
Discussion
Concerning the Archives of the StB and History Ethics
This contribution comprises responses by Bořivoj Čelovský and by Radek Schovánek, to the article by Jan Křen “Archivy StB jako pramen poznání minulosti” (Secret Police Records as a Source of Knowing the Past), which was published in the last number of Soudobé dějiny, and Křen’s long statement. Among the document supplements to the contribution is a long letter from Křen and his fellow historian Václav Kural, which they sent in May 1985 to the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, in which, after a year as visiting professors at the University of Bremen, they comment on the state of Czech studies in West Germany and make an appeal to expand relations with historians in the Federal Republic of Germany.
The Reviewer as a Captive of His Own Errors
Jaroslav Bouček
The author takes issues with Jakub Rákosník’s review of his book about the historian Jan Slavík, which was published in the last number of Soudobé dějiny, and points to what, he argues, are the reviewer’s erroneous conclusions.
Chronicle
Globalization and the Digital Revolution, the Fourth Phase in the Development of Oral History:
Looking Back at the 14th International Oral History Conference, Sydney
Miroslav Vaněk
The author reports on the conference “Dancing with Memory: Oral History and its Audiences,” organized by the International Oral History Association (IOHA) in Sydney, Australia, 12–16 July 2006. In discussing the papers given there the author familiarizes us with the development of the field of oral history and its connection with the establishment of the IOHA and the organization of international conferences. He then reports on some of the papers and topics discussed in Sydney, such as the relationship between oral history and other kinds of sources, the tension between individual and collective memory, the comparison of oral-history research and its results, and the globalization and digitalization of the field. In conclusion he raises the question of the possible founding of a Czech (or even Czech-Slovak) Oral History Association with links to the IOHA, which could in certain circumstances contribute to the development of the field in the Czech Republic, as would the holding of an international oral history conference in Prague in 2010, which was also discussed in Sydney.
Oral History and (Post-) Socialist Societies
Jana Nosková
An international conference of this name took place in Freiburg on 3–5 November 2005. It was organized by the History Seminar of the Department of East and South-east Europe at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, together with the History Seminar of the Department of Recent and East European History, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg. The author reports on the remarkable papers given at the conference, which she considers to have been a highly successful contribution to our knowledge of the present and past of societies east of the former “Iron Curtain,” using the methods of oral history.
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”. 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.
Martin H. Geyer is a Professor of Modern History at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich. His research is on topics in the history of the German Federal Republic and the Weimar Republic and the globalization of standards (time, space, and currency) in the nineteenth century. His publications include Verkehrte Welt: Revolution, Inflation und Moderne. München 1914–1924 (Göttingen, 1998).
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.
Milan Hauner (1940) read history at Prague and Cambridge, and is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wisconsin. Since 1968, he has lived abroad. His chief research interests are the Second World War, German history and Czech-German relations, Russian and Soviet international politics, and the development of Asia and India. An expert on modern Middle Eastern history as well as aspects of World War II, he is author of eight books, including What is Asia to Us? Russia’s Asian Heartland Yesterday and Today (Boston, 1990, and New York, 1992) and Czechs and Germans: Yesterday and Today (Washington, 1991). He is editor of the volume Formování československého zahraničního odboje v letech 1938–1939 ve světle svědectví Jana Opočenského (Prague, 2000).
Eva Irmanová (1943) is a Senior Researcher in the Institute of History at the Academy of Sciences, Prague. Her chief scholarly interest is nineteenth and twentieth-century Hungarian and Slovak history in the context of central Europe. She is author of Kádárismus: Vznik a pád jedné iluze (Prague, 1998).
Marek Janáč (1971) is a journalist at Czech Radio. His field is documentaries that seek to present modern history in a historically accurate, yet interesting manner. His work includes a programme about Milada Horáková (2006) and the award-winning radio documentaries Mámo, já fetuju (1996), Komunismus (2005), and the ten-part Válečný dekameron (2005), for which he received the Prix Bohemia, for Report and Documentary of the Year.
Zuzana Jürgensová (1975) is a doctoral student at the Institute of Czech Literature and Literary Studies, Charles University, Prague. Her area of interest is twentieth-century Czech literature and literary criticism.
Karel Kaplan (1928) was an émigré in West Germany from 1976 till the Changes of 1989. He was then a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, with which he now works externally. A leading expert on post-war Czechoslovak history, he has published a number of books in this country and abroad, including Největší politický proces: “M. Horáková a spol.” (Prague and Brno, 1995), Pět kapitol o Únoru (Brno, 1997), and the two-volume Kořeny československé reformy 1968 (Brno, 2000 and 2002).
Daniela Kolenovská (1976) is doctoral student of modern history at the Institute of International Studies, Charles University, Prague. Her area of specialization is Soviet foreign policy in the 1930s.
Jan Křen (1930) is Professor of History at Charles University, Prague, and lectures 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 Konfliktní 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 Department VI of 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).
Robert Kvaček (1932) is Professor of Nineteenth and Twentieth-century History at the Institute of Czech History, Charles University, Prague. He has published widely, particularly on Czechoslovakia in the international context, 1918–39, including, with Dušan Tomášek, Causa Emil Hácha (Prague, 1995), Generál Alois Eliáš: Jeden český osud (Prague, 1996, and Třebíč, 2001), and První světová válka a česká otázka (Prague, 2003).
Martina Miklová (1979) is an historian. She is involved in the international research project “Migration and Transformation” while studying political science at Masaryk University, Brno. Her chief research interest is Czechoslovak history in the period of Communist rule (in particular the student movement, opposition to the “Normalization” régime and its policies), Czech-German relations after the Second World War, the expulsion of the Germans, and Czechoslovak re-settlement policy in 1945–50.
Pavel Mücke (1978) is a researcher at the Centre for Oral History in the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, and a doctoral student of Czech history at Charles University, Prague. The principal area of his interest is modern and contemporary history, history and memory, methods of oral history, and Czechoslovak resistance to German occupation.
Jana Nosková (1975) is a researcher both in the Brno branch of the Institute of Ethnography and in the Centre for Oral History at the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague. She is concerned with urban ethnology, oral history, and the biographic method in the second half of the twentieth century.
Tomáš Staněk (1952) is a senior researcher at 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. Among his many publications are 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).
Miroslav Vaněk (1961) is a senior researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, and runs its Centre for Oral History. His research focuses on the period known as “Normalization,” in particular the natural environment, élites from the régime and the opposition, youth, and independent culture, for which he uses the methods of oral history. His publications include Nedalo se tady dýchat: Ekologie v českých zemích v letech 1968–1989 (Prague, 1996) and, with Milan Otáhal, Sto studentských revolucí: Studenti v období pádu komunismu (Prague, 1999). He is currently preparing a two-volume publication of interviews conducted both with former members of the Communist régime and with dissidents from 1969 to 1989, called Vítězové? Poražení?: Politické elity a disent v období tzv. normalizace. Životopisná interview (Prague, 2005).
