Hitler’s Priests in Slovakia? On the Convergence of Catholicism and Fascism in Nazi “New Europe”

Miloslav Szabó

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):691-723 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2022.020  

This paper deals with the fascistization of Catholic clergy on the eastern periphery of the Nazi “New Europe”, specifically within the Slovak State (1939–1945), a Nazi satellite in East Central Europe. In reference to recent historiographical debates, “clerico-fascism” serves here as a tool for an analysis of the ideology of the most prominent Slovak “clerico-fascist”, the president and Catholic priest Jozef Tiso (1887–1947). Specifically, it examines the transformation of social Catholicism into an instrument of fascist discipline. In addition, the article examines the fascistization of three other Slovak...

The Eternal Legacy of the Great Patriotic War? The Political Instrumentalization of the Soviet Victory over Fascism and Its Utilization in Czechoslovakia after 1968 and in the Czech Republic Today

Marie Černá

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):724-771 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2022.037  

Theoretically grounded in memory studies, this article reconstructs how the official Soviet-Russian myth of the Great Patriotic War has been politically instrumentalized and abused to promote and legitimize the Kremlin’s power intentions. It examines the forms, mechanisms and actors of this systematically applied politics of history and memory. First in the context of the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in August 1968 and the justification of the subsequent Soviet Army’s stay in the country, then in the context of the propaganda activities of pro-Russian activists in the Czech Republic and the current Russian aggression against Ukraine....

Interpreting the Creation of Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1989 / Shifts and Changes in the Politics of History and Memory

Jan Hálek – Jakub Štofaník

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):772-800 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2022.044  

The article focuses on the construction of historical narratives and the construction of memory regarding the emergence of Czechoslovakia (28 October 1918) in the second half of the twentieth century. It analyses Czech and Slovak historiography and the significance of direct and indirect political and ideological influences. It explores shifts in the official narrative from the establishment of the communist regime to its collapse through an analysis of party texts, scholarly publications and conferences. The authors pay equal attention to the Czech lands and Slovakia. They focus on the role of historians as a professional community and the importance...

The Iron or Rustproof Felix? Felix Dzerzhinsky as a Symbol of Revolutionary Fanaticism, Trivialization of Injustice and Dubious Democracy in Soviet and Post-Soviet Era Russia

Tomas Sniegon

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):801-824 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2022.036  

The article discusses the cult associated with the personality of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (1877–1926), a revolutionary and the founder of the political police in the Soviet Union, and the changing meanings of this cult in various stages of the history of the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. Thanks to Dzerzhinsky, as the head of the most significant repressive component, Soviet state terror acquired a very specific institutionalized form. The image of Dzerzhinsky as the basis for the mythologizing of the Soviet political police became very useful in all stages of the development of the Soviet system, most significantly for the development...

The Museal Production of Hungary’s Inorganic Past and Poland’s Postponed Victory / The Case of the House of Terror and the Warsaw Rising Museum

Rose Smith

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):825-851 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2022.042  

More than thirty years after the fall of communism, both Hungary and Poland are still trying to reinvent their national identity by understanding their pasts. As flagship museums of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary Civic Alliance (Fidesz) in Hungary and Jarosław Kaczyński’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) in Poland, the House of Terror (Terror Háza) in Budapest and the Warsaw Rising Museum (Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego) have been used as epistemological tools in advancing the governing party’s respective memory politics. Within their portrayal of the nation’s contemporary past, these museums also endorse a particular...

Socialism as Ideology, Socialism as Legacy / Attitudes of the (Socialist) Republic of Slovenia Towards Its Socialist Past (1980–2004)

Tjaša Konovšek

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):852-873 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2022.043  

Focusing on key political actors and state institutions, this article aims to map the changing and often ambivalent political attitudes of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia (Socialistična republika Slovenija) within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the later the Republic of Slovenia (Republika Slovenija) towards its socialist legacy. By institutionalizing remembrance and promoting specific historical narratives, the state not only articulated its views on the past, but also expressed its understanding of the present moment and its hopes for the future. The main channels of communication between the state and the public,...

The Munich Agreement and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a Tool of Russian Revisionist Propaganda

Ivan Beliaev

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):877-885 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2022.041  

Under Vladimir Putin’s regime Russia seeks to whitewash Soviet history and promote an anti-Western narrative in order to legitimize its territorial claims and political demands in Eastern Europe. Drawing on electronic sources such as social media posts, articles from the Russian media, newspaper comments and media statements, the author demonstrates that one of its tools is the exaggerated condemnation of the Munich Agreement of September 1938 and the emphasis on the historical guilt of the Western powers in the Nazi expansion, made to avoid discussion of the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact, signed less than a year later.

The Struggle for Legitimacy / A Contribution to the Scholarship on Domination and Participation in the Socialist Dictatorships of East-Central Europe

Václav Sixta

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):889-896  

"Made in Czechoslovakia" Socialism as a Failed Social Experiment / Searching for the Causes of Failure

Denisa Nečasová

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):897-900  

Recalling the Story of a Forgotten University

Michaela Budiman

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):901-905  

Czechoslovak Women in British Uniforms during the Second World War

Daniela Spenser

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):906-910  

On the Most Diligent Chronicler of the Eastern Bloc

Tomáš Zahradníček

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):911-919  

On Todor Zhivkov's Tastes, Shkembe Chorba and Food for Astronauts

Martin Franc

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):920-927  

First Steps Towards a Fruitful Analysis of the Causes and the Outcome of the Kosovo Crisis / Reflections on the Book by the Serbian Historian Petar Ristanović

Jan Pelikán

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):928-938  

An Active Participant and Witness to a Century / Karel Hrubý (9. 12. 1923 – 6. 6. 2021)

Petr Zídek

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):941-943  

Historians of the Czech Lands Met in Ústí nad Labem

Veronika Pehe

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2022, 29(3):944-946