Ongoing projects
Negotiating World Research Data: A science diplomacy study. Horizon 2020 ERC Advanced grant, Doubravka Olšáková, 2022–2026
Research data are vital components of any scientific enterprise and the introduction of more inclusive world data exchange practices is a decisive factor, locally and globally, in strengthening capacity for research and innovation and tackling societal challenges. Yet we now comparatively little about what international negotiations have paved the way to the current global system of research data circulation and exchange. NEWORLD@A aims to provide the first comprehensive survey about the sets of science diplomacy exercises that have contributed to shape the current world data exchange system. This study will pioneer transnational research collaborations in order to successfully reconstruct these key historical transitions, also enmeshing non-Western narratives in the study of research data negotiations. Through an original combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, the study will first map existing networking patterns of data circulation and reveal existing imbalances in the world distribution of research data centres. It will then chart the international legal infrastructure that supports this distribution. It will also identify the historical determinants for the shape of world data exchange networks through an investigation of relevant archival documents across the world discussing the relevant negotiations and decision-making processes. They study will focus in particular on interactions between: non-governmental and governmental transnational organizations such as those under the aegis of ICSU and UNESCO; Western and Eastern blocs in the context of the Cold War science race; and Global North and South nations in the uses of research data for development purposes. Shedding new light on how these interactions have shaped the current research data circulation system will finally provide the analysis needed to inform current policy provisions on how to make these systems more inclusive and responsive to global challenges. More information…
National Communism as intellectual tradition and political program in Czechoslovakia (NATCOM). Horizon 2020 Widening Fellowship, Adam Hudek, 2022–2024
What’s the relationship between communist ideology and nationalism? How did national communism shape the political, intellectual and cultural development in Czechoslovakia from 1918 until the second half of 1990? The EU-funded NATCOM project will answer these questions. Specifically, it will study how the complicated relations between communism and nationalism formed the development of the Czechoslovak socialist dictatorship and how the remodelled national communist agenda after 1989 influenced the post communist transition. NATCOM will analyse the nature of communist appeals to national legitimacy and the continuities between national communism and ‘national populism’. The project will focus on the Slovak part of the Czechoslovak Republic and its interactions with the Czech and Hungarian environment. More information…
Science and Emotions: Rethinking Environmental Movements under Communism in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s. GA ČR 22-01953S, Doubravka Olšáková, 2022–2024
Economic crisis, crisis of ideological legitimacy and/or growing nationalistic views are considered by the historiography of transition as driving forces heading the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. As a follow-up to the growing influence of opposition movement Charter 77, specific social groups became “producers rather than consumers of social situations” in the 1970s and 1980s. Opposition actions turned from declarations and publications of documents to social actions.The suggested project will focus on environmental movements and the conflict potential based on the ´praxeology of truth´, moral authority of scientists and researchers in society as well as on the existence of specific „emotional communities“ which were at the core of both movements. Suggested outcomes include three manuscripts, an analytical one, an edited volume resulting from an international workshop and an edited volume of oral history interviews, and two academic papers. More information…
In search of the Postmodern City. Transformation of Prague and Bratislava between 1970 and 2000 (Ideas-Policies-Construction). GA ČR 22-17295S, Matěj Spurný, 2022–2024
The project aims to clarify the historical roots of the current problems of the post-socialist city, taking as an example the development of Prague and Bratislava in the long process of change from the early 1970s to the end of the 20th century. More general research questions concern not only the issue of the disintegration of state socialism and the arrival of post-socialism in both successor states of the former Czechoslovakia, but also the issue of the retreat of modernist planning and the growing influence of post-modernist approaches. Research will focus on the relation between experts’ knowledge of the urban environment and the practice of transforming it, that is, between negotiation and implementation, mainly with regard to transport infrastructure and housing construction. The research team with its interdisciplinary background will, besides the exchange of knowledge with the international scholarly community, conduct broad-based primary research of professional journals of the researched period and sources stored in the Prague and Bratislava archives. More information…
The History of Charter 77 in Domestic Context and Transnational Perspective. GA ČR 22-05450S, Michal Kopeček, 2022–2024
Charter 77 represents one of the most important democratic chapters in Czech as well as Central European history. It is rightly understood as the direct predecessor of the renewed Czechoslovak and Czech democracy after 1989 and in the global context, as one of the most visible human rights organizations of the late 20th century. Despite the prolific extant literature, we still lack a comprehensive and reliable scientific monograph on the history of Charter 77. The goal of this project is a complex historical reconstruction of the origins of Charter 77, its political and social activity during the late communist dictatorship and the beginnings of the new democracy after 1989, as well as its “second” life as the foundational democratic myth of the post-89 republic. The proposed monograph will be based not only on assessing previous research, international comparison and a transnational perspective, but also on additional research of numerous new archival sources that will allow for a constructive revision of the present perspective on Charter 77 and its reception within society. More information…
Czechoslovakia’s Road to the Cold War and the Soviet Bloc. GA ČR 21-33535S, Vít Smetana, 2021–2023
The project enables the proponent to complete years of his research on Czechoslovakia’s international role in 1938-1948 by further necessary probes into the relevant Russian, British and U.S. (as well as Czech) archival funds and to crown this effort with a monograph on Czechoslovakia’s drift to the Soviet bloc that will be published in The Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series. It should refute numerous myths surrounding the topic and help to correct the older narratives entrenched in the alleged fatality of the “Yalta agreements” and other national grievances. The project examines to what extent the Czechoslovak leaders were the real masters of the country’s postwar destiny, what their political strategies on the international scene were and how these interacted with the policies of the Great Powers towards the Central European region. It assesses the risks of securing the country’s future against any repeated German aggression through the alliance with the U.S.S.R. of 1943 and the impact of subsequent concessions and compromises against the country’s genuine independence. More information…
Towards Illiberal Constitutionalism in East Central Europe: Historical Analysis in Comparative and Transnational Perspectives, VW Stiftung, Michal Kopeček, 2021–2025
In recent years, the rise of authoritarian governments in East Central Europe and far right and populist movements across Europe has sparked concern that the liberal democratic order established after 1989 is falling apart. The project team will attempt to answer the question why illiberal constitutional architects of today were also in the front lines of the democratization movement in the 1980s and of the liberal transformation of the 1990s. They aim to introduce a historical, interdisciplinary, practice-oriented and comparative perspective to academic engagement with illiberal and authoritarian challenges to constitutional democracy. The project stretches from the post-war era with emphasis on the period since 1968, comprising the era of late state socialism, post-communist liberal transformation, into the present day. The project team consists of historians, scholars of law and sociology of law as well as political scientists. While all of the case studies share the same general approach, the theory and methodology employed by each will vary in order to adapt to the specificity of the local conditions. The following case studies are planned: – an investigation of references to the interwar regimes and their institutional setup in the political discourse of Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. – a study on the intellectual sources of the rejection of liberal constitutionalism in Poland. – an examination of post-1989 conflicts over the far-right and the policing of the boundaries of democracy by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Eastern Ger-many. – a study of the normalization of illiberal constitutionalism – a tracing down of the various critiques of „juristocracy“ and „judicialization“ of politics. The project team supports junior researchers to focus on research on this challenge, to form a transnational network and to prepare the ground for their long-term academic engagement in the field. More information…
The Democratic Revolution through the Lens of Dagmar Hochová: Making Accessible the Unique Photocollection from 1989-1992. TA ČR TL03000330, Tomáš Zahradníček, 2020–2023
Dagmar Hochová’s photographic heritage, involving a unique collection documenting the centre of Czechoslovak democratic revolution in 1989-1992, will be organized and made accessible. The main output will be an open-access database of images stemming from the period in which the author was a photoreporter, activist and Member of Czech National Council. The collection is unique both in its size and importance. The database will include app. 10,000 images of public scenes as well as the backstage of home and foreign politics, as seen from a deputy bench. The project will create the ground for organization and identification of the collection. This will enable its further use and also prevent its deterioration: the images are difficult to comprehend and require an immediate description. More information…
„Parliamentary Cultures in Europe“: Toward a Common Project. MSM/LT LTV20005, Adéla Gjuričová, 2020–2022
The project allows the applicant to take a more active part in the technical organization and conceptual management of EuParl.net, a cluster of European research institutions and experts in parliamentary history. The aim is to reach a wider accessibility of the works by the Czech working group on parliaments in transition to the foreign public, a more efficient transfer of scientific information on the research of parliamentary cultures to Czech experts, PhD. candidates and students, and to formulate a new common European research project that would be applicable for EU support and relevant for the current challenges in Europe. More information…
Transformation of the Czech Business: Socialist Enterprises in Market Economy. GA ČR 20-23131S, Michal Kopeček, 2020–2022
The Czech economy in the 1990s was marked by a radical transition from a centrally planned to a market economy. The proposed project looks at changes in the corporate sector with a focus on the privatization process. Research and analysis of that period still suffers from a number of blank spots, some of which often stir emotions, such as the role of privatization funds in the voucher privatization. This project aims to determine the position of companies in that period with an emphasis on these blank spots. Any research into the 1990s generally faces numerous problems, among others imperfections in datasets, which limit the use of standard economic methods. In order to overcome these objective obstacles, we have decided to apply an interdisciplinary approach. It is based on the combination of historiographic research methods (oral history – interviews and archival research) and economic methods (experimental economics and econometrics). More information…
Czechoslovak political and cultural life in exile, 1948-1989. GAČR 20-11867S, Jiří Suk, 2020–2022
The aim is systematically to make available for study primary sources on Czechoslovak political and cultural life in exile in the period 1948 to 1989, as this phenomenon developed in the democratic countries of Europe, South and North America, and Australia, all against the background of the Cold War and in correlation with the development of the Communist system in Czechoslovakia. It also aims to establish multidisciplinary research into the émigré institutions, groups and communities, which changed together with international events and with the political situation in Czechoslovakia. At the forefront of attention will be the activities of the émigrés, regarding both the international public ( including émigré groups from other Communist countries ) and their support for independent political, cultural and religious activity at home as it sought to resist the totalitarian regime in Czechoslovakia; attention will also be paid to the diverse activity of the Communist intelligence agencies. More information…
Genocide, Postwar Migration and Social Mobility: Entangled Experiences of Roma and Jews. GA ČR EXPRO 19-26638X, Kateřina Čapková, 2019–2023
Engaging with debates in Holocaust and genocide studies and social anthropology of marginality, the project approaches the histories of Jewish and Romani communities on the territory of the pre-war Czechoslovakia in comparative perspective. Nazi genocidal policies altered the culture, social makeup, religious outlook, and geography of both victim groups, creating a rupture that fundamentally influenced the subsequent geographic and social mobility of both groups. Only an interdisciplinary approach—bringing together sociology, anthropology and history—can help us create an integrated account of Romani and Jewish experiences in twentieth and twenty-first century Central Europe. A team of multidisciplinary scholars with expertise in Jewish and Romani studies will focus on Jewish and Romani entangled experiences during the war, its aftermath and its current resonances. More information…
Identification and permanent documentation of cultural landscape and settlement memory: case study of abandoned settlements of Moravia and Silesia. MK-NAKI II, DG18P02OVV070, David Kovařík, 2018–2022
The aim of the project is – to build a database of settlements which were abandoned post World War II within Moravia and Silesia, – to recreate visualization of selected settlements on historical and geographical evidences – to create an interactive map of the Czech Republic featuring all settlements along with visual and statistical data, – detail visualization of the settlement and landscape structure changes in selected micro-regions (creation of maps with specialized content), – selection of representative areas for the identification and permanent documentation of the landscape image immediately before, during the demise of the seat and subsequent development of the landscape in the form of the so-called Modern Chronicle of the village, including 3D visualization, – creation of a web-based application (software) Modern chronicle of the municipality with universal use for all municipalities (including instructions), – creation of certified methodology focused on the presentation of extinct settlements in the Czech borderland in exhibition and museum expositions, – presentation/popularization of results and created backgrounds in regions and in teaching, – evaluation of local collections and archive sources stored in regional museums, district archives, etc., and their connection with newly acquired knowledge. More information…