Guidelines for Contributors

General Information

Manuscripts in Czech, Slovak and English are accepted throughout the year. The standard length of a submitted article is 8,500 words, while it should not be shorter than 5,000 words and longer than 13,000 words. Articles exceeding 15,000 words will be rejected. The reviews should be 1,500 to 3,000 words long. Short reviews (annotations) are max. 1,000 words long. The Czech Journal of Contemporary History follows the Oxford handbook in terms of spelling: uses -ize, -yse , -ization (rather than -isation) and standard British spelling for everything else. The authors are welcome to use first person pronouns (I, me, we, my, etc.) in their articles. For all transliterations, we use the "ALA-LC" (Library of Congresss) transliteration scheme (see https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html). Following established conventions, in the case of names and words that are well known and frequently used in English-speaking media and academic discourse, we depart from the ALA transliterations using, for example, Yeltsin rather than Eltsin, Yurchak rather than Iurchak, Leon Trotsky rather than Lev Trotskii. Use footnotes rather than endnotes and include a list of references at the end of the text. List references in alphabetical order according to the author’s surname. Enclose an abstract of 15–30 lines together with your article. In the author bio, please include the following information about yourself: institutional affiliation, research focus, your key publications with the place and year of publication (if applicable). For reviews, please include additional information about the author(s) of the publication under review: translator(s), editor(s), author(s) of preface and afterword, illustrator(s). Please include also additional publication data: publisher, edition/series, indexes, bibliographies etc. The authors of texts published in the CJCH are entitled to receive a complimentary copy (two copies if they have published an article) of the relevant issue of the journal. The complimentary copy will either be sent by mail or can be picked up in the editorial office of the journal. The authors of reviews, annotations, conference reports and similar texts are remunerated. Please submit your manuscript through the online submission system of our journal, following your registration.

Citation Style

Please use the following form of reference:

1. Archives: The name of the archive, location [if quoting from the same source repeatedly, the abbreviation commonly used for the archive is sufficient], name of the fond [collection], box number, document number, name (both in original and in English) or description (in English) of the document, date:

The National Archives, London (hereafter TNA), coll. Foreign Office (hereafter FO) 371/20375, R 5216/32/12, Addison to Foreign Office, 25 August 1936.

Národní archiv [The National Archives of the Czech Republic], Prague (hereafter NA), fond [collection] (hereafter coll.) František Kriegel, karton [box] (hereafter box) 2, Úvahy o životě 1970–1979 [Reflections on Life 1970–1979].

Arhiva Consiliului Național pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securității [Archive of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives], Bucharest (hereafter ACNSAS), fond (hereafter f.) Fond Documentar [Documentary Fond], dosar [file] (hereafter file) 8685, Raport cu propunere de deschidere a dosarului de subproblemă „naționaliști țigani” [Report with Proposals for Opening the File on the Subproblem of “Gypsy nationalists”], 12. 10. 1988.

2. Monographs: SURNAME of the author [in capital letters], first name of the author / initial(s) if quoted more than once / for co-authors follow the same pattern: Title: Subtitle [in italics]. Place of publication, publisher year of publication, page(s) quoted [if applicable]:

MEAD, Margaret: Coming of age in Samoa: A psychological study of primitive study of primitive youth for western civilisation. New York, William Morrow & Company 1928.

Subsequent references: SURNAME [in capital letters], initials for the first and middle names: Short title [in italics], page quoted.

MEAD, M.: Coming of age in Samoa, p. 21.

You can also use Ibidem to refer to the work cited in the note immediately preceding.

You can also use IDEM, EADEM, IDEM, EAEDEM in place of the author’s surname (authors’ surnames) when his/her/their works are cited successively in the same note.

3. Book chapters: Author(s) of the chapter [written as above]: Title: Subtitle. In: Editor(s) of the volume [same as for the author of a monograph] (ed.): Title: Subtitle of the volume [in italics]. Place of publication, publisher year of publication, pagination, page quoted.

GOLDSTEIN, Erik: Neville Chamberlain, the British Official Mind and the Munich Crisis. In: LUKEŠ, Igor – GOLDSTEIN, Erik (eds.): The Munich Crisis 1938: Prelude to World War Two. London, Frank Cass 1999, pp. 276–292.

4. Journal articles: Author of the article [written as above]: Title: Subtitle. In: Name of the journal, volume, number (year), pagination, page(s) quoted.

WHEELER, Kathryn: The Moral Economy of Ready-Made Food. In: The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 69, No. 4 (2018), pp. 1271–1292.

5. Newspaper articles: Author of the article [written as above]: Title: Subtitle. In: Name of the newspaper/magazine, date of issue, pagination, page quoted:

SVOBODA, Jiří: Co bylo, co bude? In: Rudé právo (15. 5. 1969), p. 3.

6. Web references: Author of the article [written as above]: Title: Subtitle. In: Name of the online journal/newspaper/magazine [in italics], platform etc. [online], date. [Accessed 0000-00-00.] Available at: URL address.

KYOSEV, Hristo: Putevoditel na nay-dobrata shkembe chorba v Bulgaria. Vuzhvala na ambroziata [Guide to the best tripe soup in Bulgaria. A song to the ambrosia]. In: Frog News [online], 29. 07. 2011. [Accessed 2021-11-15.] Available at: https://frognews.bg/kultura/art-jungla/patevoditel-nai-dobrata-shkembe-chorba-balgariia.html.

TONN, Jenna: Gender. In: Encyclopedia of the History of Science [online]. Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University 2021. [Accessed 2021-11-15.] Available at: https://lps.library.cmu.edu/ETHOS/article/id/42/

7. Bachelors, masters dissertations, PhD theses:

VERNER, Jiří: Fenomén chmelových brigád v socialistickém Československu [online]. Praha, Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy 2014. Masters dissertation. [Accessed 2022-11-06.] Available at: https://dspace.cuni.cz/handle/20.500.11956/67930

8. Interviews:

Interview with [XY], conducted by [XY], [date of interview]. Name of collection and/or location where the audio recording is stored.

Interview with Z. N., conducted by Kateřina Niekurzáková, 4 January 2020. Digitální sbírky Centra orální historie Ústavu pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR [Digital Collections of the Oral History Centre at the Institute of Contemporary History of the CAS], (hereafter DS COH ÚSD) – Rozhovory [Interviews], sbírka [collection] „Armáda jako nástroj socializace“

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

When citing content generated by artificial intelligence, we distinguish between three situations:
1) AI as an “author”. The Editorial Board does not accept manuscripts in which artificial intelligence tools are listed as co-authors. Large language models cannot assume responsibility for the accuracy, reliability, or originality of published content.
2) AI as a source of information. Chatbots must not be cited as sources of information because their outputs cannot be reliably reproduced or verified. They may also contain third-party material whose copyright status is unclear.
3) AI as a supporting tool. Artificial intelligence may be used to assist with language editing, stylistic revision, translation, the formatting of references, or the analysis and visualization of data. If AI has been used for language support, including stylistic revision, proofreading, or translation, the tool used must be identified at the end of the manuscript. If AI has been used for data analysis, the methodology section must specify the model used and provide a link to the relevant dataset. The authors bear full responsibility for all content produced with the assistance of AI.
At the end of the manuscript authors must list the tool/tools used, along with the purpose of their use, in the Statement on the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence and AI-Supported Technologies in the Article Writing Process.
Example: The authors used [TOOL/TOOLS] as a language support tool to improve spelling and clarity and to revise the style of references. They verified all suggestions generated by the AI and take full responsibility for the content of the article.