Journal Soudobé dějiny
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Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History) is the quarterly of the Institute of Contemporary History at the Academy of Sciences in Prague. Published since 1993, it usually comes out as two single issues plus one double issue per year, each issue being between 200 and 300 pages in length. Its first Editor-in-Chief, till 1999, was the Institute’s director Vilém Prečan; the job was taken over in 2000 by Oldřich Tůma (the current director) and Milan Drápala. Soudobé dějiny aims primarily to contribute to the development and formation of the field of contemporary history in the Czech Republic and to the renewal and spread of historical memory of the recent past. It endeavours to be open to a wide range of topics, methods, and styles, and to go beyond narrow definitions of the discipline of historiography, to include other social sciences.
Soudobé dějiny mainly publishes original research on the history of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic in the twentieth century in the broader international context. Its articles, however, also consider the history and historiography of other countries, particularly those of central Europe, as well as questions of theory and method in the writing of history.
The individual numbers of the journal are usually focused on a central theme. Recent numbers, for instance, have included a double-issue concerned with the period around the Munich Agreement of 1938 and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; other numbers have been on the themes of Church history, current discussion forums of Czech historians, the process of coming to terms with the Communist past in Central Europe, culture in Czechoslovakia in the political context of the twentieth century, the Cold War, international relations of Communist Czechoslovakia, the Communist movement as reflected in biographies, theoretical aspects of contemporary history, and the interplay of ideology, the arts, and science after the Communist takeover of February 1948.
The introductory section of each number comprises original articles. A regular feature of the journal is reviews and annotations. Other contributions appear in the occasional sections “Documents,” “Materials,” “Memoirs,” “Chronicle,” and “About the Archives.” A special section called “Horizons” is reserved for translations of important articles originally published abroad. Now and then a number of the journal includes a supplement of documents, which is called “The Archive of Contemporary History.” Each issue of Soudobé dějiny includes English-language summaries of the articles. The tables of contents and the summaries are accessible on the links below.
Soudobé dějiny is intended not only for professional scholars, but also for teachers and students of history, and it seeks to attract readers also from the general public who are curious about the recent past.
Soudobé dějiny is intended not only for professional scholars but also for teachers and students of history, and it seeks to attract readers also from the general public, who are curious about the recent past.
