From "Scourge of the Countryside" to "Social Parasites" and "Job-Hoppers" / "Gypsies" in Czechoslovak Criminology from the First Republic to Early Normalization

Od „metly venkova“ k „příživníkům“ a „fluktuantům“ / „Cikáni“ v československé kriminologii od první republiky do počátků normalizace

Pavel Baloun

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2023, 30(3):699-732 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2023.015  

This text aims to analyse representations of "Gypsies" (cikáni) in Czechoslovak criminology in the period from 1945 to the onset of normalization. My focus is also on the issue of long-term continuities and discontinuities in the criminological discourse of the first half of the twentieth century. In the period of interwar Czechoslovakia, police expertise played a crucial role in criminalizing and marginalizing Roma and Sinti in Czechoslovak society, when it served to register, control and carry out surveillance of "wandering Gypsies" (potulní cikáni), and also greatly informed public debate on the issue. In the period of Stalinism, with the abolition...

Failed Integration, Failed Emancipation / The Case of Roma Civic Activism in Communist Romania

Neúspěšná integrace, neúspěšná emancipace / Romský občanský aktivismus v komunistickém Rumunsku

Manuela Marin

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2023, 30(3):733-760 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2023.060  

The article delves into the origins of Roma activism during the communist era in Romania. The author focuses on the collaborative endeavours of Ion Cioabă (1935-1997), the leader (bulibasha) of the Kalderash Roma in Sibiu, and the sociologist Nicolae Gheorghe (1946-2013), who worked together to secure official recognition of the Roma as a national minority during the late 1970s and early 1980s. This recognition equalled emancipation, and the two Roma activists considered it the first step in fostering the Romani people's integration and acceptance into Romanian society. The article is divided into three main parts. First, the author analyses the Romanian...

"What the Authorities of the Land Wish Done" / Relief and Rescue by the American Committee for Service in Czechoslovakia, 1938–1939

„Udělat aspoň něco z toho, co si místní úřady přejí“ / Pomocné a záchranné aktivity Amerického výboru pro službu v Československu v letech 1938–1939

Laura E. Brade

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2023, 30(3):761-784 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2023.054  

Humanitarian efforts during the Second World War have traditionally been divided into two categories: relief and rescue. Rather than discussing relief and rescue separately, this article examines the relationship between these two activities and shows that in practice they were inextricably linked. To reveal the complex balancing act that humanitarians faced between relief and rescue operations, the author focuses on the American Unitarian Association's (AUA) early efforts at humanitarian relief in Prague. In February 1939, the AUA sent Waitstill and Martha Sharp to Prague as the representatives of the American Committee for Service in Czechoslovakia....

"Continuity - My Main Impulse for Participating in the Movement" / The Role of Political and Social Ideals in the Life Story of František Kriegel

„Kontinuita, která byla hlavním podnětem k mé účasti v hnutí“ / Role politického a sociálního ideálu v životním příběhu Františka Kriegla

Martin Groman

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2023, 30(3):785-817 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2023.051  

The Czechoslovak politician František Kriegel (1908-1979) came to public attention primarily thanks to his refusal, in August 1968, to sign what came to be known as the "Moscow Protocol". As a volunteer doctor, he had fought in the ranks of the International Brigades at the battlefronts of the Spanish Civil War as well as the Second World War in China and Burma, escaped political trials in the 1950s, served as an advisor in Cuba in the 1960s, and became a member of the top leadership of the Communist Party and chairman of the Central Committee of the National Front (Národní fronta) during the Prague Spring. After speaking out against the Soviet occupation...

The "Bad" Slovak Martin M. Šimečka / The Critical Engagement of a Liberal Writer and Journalist with Slovak Nationalism and the State of Democracy in the 1990s

„Špatný“ Slovák Martin M. Šimečka / Kritika slovenského nacionalismu a stavu demokracie v devadesátých letech z pera liberálního spisovatele a novináře

Dirk Dalberg

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2023, 30(3):818-850 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2023.062  

After Slovakia's independence in 1993 and especially after the parliamentary elections in 1994, which resulted in Vladimír Mečiar's third term as Slovak Prime Minister, the hitherto successful processes of political and democratic transformation in Slovakia came to a halt until the subsequent elections in 1998, which ended Mečiar's rule. Under Mečiar, whose style of government was labelled "Mečiarism", Slovaks who were sceptical about Slovak national independence and of Mečiar himself as Prime Minister, were labelled "bad" Slovaks, while the Prime Minister's supporters, on the other hand, were portrayed as "good" Slovaks. One of the "bad" Slovaks was...

"From Post-War Europe to Post-Wall Europe - and Back"

Daniela Spenser

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2023, 30(3):853-861  

GARTON ASH, Timothy: Homelands: A Personal History of Europe. New Haven – London, Yale University Press 2023, 363 pages, ISBN 978-0-300-25707-6.

The Seeds of Its Own Demise / Understanding the End of the Soviet Union

Petr Luňák

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2023, 30(3):862-872  

ZUBOK, Vladislav M.: Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union. New Haven – London, Yale University Press 2021, xix + 535 pages, ISBN 978-0-300-25730-4; PLOKHY, Serhii: The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union. New York, Basic Books 2014, xxii + 489 pages, ISBN 978-0-465-05696-5.

End of the Cold War and Promises

Luboš Studený

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2023, 30(3):873-880  

BARTEL, Fritz: The Triumph of Broken Promises: The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism. Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press 2022, 440 pages, ISBN 978-0-674-97678-8.

The Complicated Co-existence of Activism and Analysis / Study of Post-socialism and the New Left in Central and Eastern Europe

Vítězslav Sommer

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2023, 30(3):881-885  

GAGYI, Agnes SLAČÁLEK, Ondřej (eds.): The Political Economy of Eastern Europe 30 years into the 'Transition': New Left Perspectives from the Region. Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, 270 pages, ISBN 978-3-030-78914-5.

Missed Opportunities? NATO’s Post-Cold War Enlargement and the Gradual Decline in Relations between Washington and Moscow

Matěj Bílý

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2023, 30(3):886-893  

SAROTTE, Mary Elise: Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate. New Haven – London, Yale University Press 2021, 550 pages, ISBN 978-0-300-25993-3.

Jewish Life in Post-War Czechoslovakia / Unveiling the Aftermath

Hana Kubátová

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2023, 30(3):894-897  

SEDLICKÁ, Magdalena: „Není přítel jako přítel“: Židé v národním státě Čechů a Slováků 1945–1948. Praha, Academia – Masarykův ústava Archiv AV ČR, v. v. i., 2021, 225 pages, ISBN 978-80-200-3307-9 and 978-80-88304-58-6.

Two Decades of Involuntary Druzhba / A Gap-Filling Book on the Soviet Army in Czechoslovakia after 1968

Ivan Beliaev

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2023, 30(3):898-901  

ČERNÁ, Marie: Sovětská armáda a česká společnost 1968–1991. Praha, Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v. v. i. – Univerzita Karlova, Karolinum 2021, 398 pages, ISBN 978-80-7285-263-5 and 978-80-246-5046-3.