The history of democratic transformation after 1989 section

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This section deals with historical research after 1989. Unlike previous epochs of Czech, Czechoslovak and Central European history, this particular period is not marked by any significant milestones, as, for example May 1945 or November 1989. Rather, researchers are confronted at one and the same time with both the actual living present, and with continuity in the political, economic, social and cultural spheres. Historiographers make productive use of the rich supply of findings from other specialized social sciences, such as sociology, political science and political economy, by re-locating such data to the field of historiography and then examining them afresh by applying the method of historical analysis. The primary focus of research of this section is towards three linked thematic areas:

The common theme running through each of the discrete research projects of the section is the question of both the possibilities and the constraints intrinsic to the growth of Czechoslovak and Czech democracy in the Central European and European context after 1989. Every democratic community that has originated historically has done so as a result of the interplay of universal aspirations and principles with the cultural-historical determinants inherent in its own particular historical development. Indeed, the only satisfactory way to approach an adequate understanding of any form of democracy is to take into account the historical conditions underpinning it, both those of a general nature and those peculiar to the individual community under study.

Michal Kopeček


 


Demokratická revoluce 1989 Československo 1968.cz Němečtí odpůrci nacismu v Československu výzkumný projekt KSČ a bolševismus Disappeared Science

Current events in picture

Bruce Lockhart Lecture at the Embassy of the United Kingdom on 5 June in the evening: Profesor Richard Overy (University of Exeter) lecturing on British political warfare and occupied Europe.
Photo: British Embassy
The first conference panel called The existence and challenges faced by the exile governments in London (part 1). Anticlockwise: Albert Kersten (University of Leyden), Chantal Kesteloot (Centre for Historical Research, Brussels), Anita J. Prazmowska (The London School of Economics and Political Science), Detlef Brandes (Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf), Mark Cornwall (chair; University of Southampton), Jan Bečka (Charles University – Faculty of Social Sciences)
The second conference panel called The existence and challenges faced by the exile governments in London (part 2). From left to right: Vít Smetana (conference co-ordinator; Institute for Contemporary History, Prague), Jiří Ellinger (chair; Foreign Ministry, Prague), Edita Ivaničková (The Institute of History, Bratislava), Radoslaw Zurawski vel Grajewski (Lodz University), Viktoria Vasilenko (Belgorod State University)

The international conference CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND THE OTHER OCCUPIED NATIONS IN LONDON: The Story of the Exile Revisited after Seventy Years 6-7 June 2013

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