“Workhouses Are a Relic of the Last Century” / Continuities and Discontinuities of Disciplinary Institutions: The Case of Workhouses in the Czech Lands, 1945–1950

Jiří Smlsal

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):307-342 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.032  

The study examines the final stage of the existence of workhouses in the Czech lands between 1945 and 1950. Workhouses (donucovací pracovny) were disciplinary institutions based on the principle of additional punishment and the declared aim of correction through physical labour. Their modern form emerged in the nineteenth century and survived several political regimes in the Czech lands until the mid-twentieth century. The author explores why an institution that had formed a stable part of the penal system for decades ceased to exist after the Second World War. In 1945 and 1946, workhouse facilities were used for the purposes of the ethnic cleansing...

Company Housing Colonies in Ostrava between Social and Spatial Inclusion and Exclusion / From Model Company Settlements to Socially Excluded Roma Neighbourhoods

Martin Jemelka

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):343-384 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.036  

The study examines the long­‑term historical transformation of company housing colonies, particularly miners' colonies, from originally socially inclusive company settlements into localities threatened by social and spatial exclusion. The analysis focuses on the Ostrava industrial region, where company housing colonies were exceptionally widespread and where their development can be traced from the industrialization of the nineteenth century to the present day. The author points out that company housing colonies emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as a means of stabilizing the workforce in rapidly industrializing regions. Their...

“We Have No Replacement” / Modern Women’s Religious Congregations in Social Care: The Emergence of the Phenomenon and Their New Position in the Czech Lands after 1950

Michal Sklenář – Eva Richtrová

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):385-428 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.035  

The first part of the study, drawing on previous research, examines the origins and the developments of modern women's religious congregations in their historical and theological contexts, with particular attention to healthcare. The authors show that during the last two­‑thirds of the nineteenth century, amid a broader revival of religious life within the Roman Catholic Church, new women's religious congregations were founded. During the first two­‑thirds of the twentieth century, their membership increased enormously. Social and charitable work in its various forms became a central element of their consecrated life. The congregations...

„We Work Not for Human Praise, but for God“ / Religious Sisters in Health and Social Care in Bohemia and Moravia, 1950–1989

Markéta Doležalová

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):429-456 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.034  

The article examines the work of religious sisters in state­‑run health and social care services in Czechoslovakia between 1950 and 1989. It focuses primarily on two of the most prominent women's religious congregations, the School Sisters of Notre Dame (commonly known in Czech as notredamky) and the School Sisters of St Francis (františkánky), with supplementary examples from the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul (vincentky) and the Sisters of Mercy of St Charles Borromeo (boromejky). The author argues that, following the dissolution of their convents and religious houses in the early 1950s, religious sisters in communist Czechoslovakia...

Ray Charles at Prague’s Palace of Culture, 1 November 1989 / Multiple Layers of Interpretation of a Cultural Event

Jiří Andrs

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):457-489 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.033  

The study examines the Prague concert of the renowned African American soul and jazz singer and pianist Ray Charles (1930-2004), held at the Palace of Culture (Palác kultury) on 1 November 1989, just a few days before the beginning of the Velvet Revolution. Drawing on articles from the contemporary press, the author reconstructs the course of the concert and uses it as a point of departure for several further layers of interpretation. Based on the unprocessed archival collection of the Palace of Culture, he explores the broader organizational context of this institution, which served as a venue for prestigious cultural and political events in socialist...

Preconditions for the Genocide of Iraqi Yazidis / A Multiple Crisis (Part Two)

Karel Černý – Karel Bauer

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):490-524 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.016  

This two­‑part study, the first part of which was published in the previous issue of the journal (No. 1/2026, pp. 139-170) examines the preconditions for the genocide of the Yazidi ethnoreligious group perpetrated by the Islamic State in Iraq's Nineveh Governorate in 2014. Thousands of Yazidis were killed or enslaved, while hundreds of thousands were forced to flee their homes. The authors focus on the processes that preceded the genocide, offering an innovative analysis of its preconditions not at the macro level of global or national dynamics, but rather at a lower analytical level - that of the province and district. To this end, they briefly...

Wartime Interpreter Ruth and the Winged Lion Memorial / Constructing History and the Cultural Politics of Memory between Individual Experience and Public Representation of the Past

Daniela Grollová­‑Spenser

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):527-546 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.028  

The essay explores the relationship between history, memory, and the public ­representation of the past through the life story of Ruth Tosková (née Ornsteinová, 1925–2013) and Prague's Winged Lion Memorial. It is based on the premise that, while history seeks to reconstruct the past as accurately as possible through the critical analysis of sources, memory, despite being inherently subjective, selective, and fragmentary, also constitutes an indispensable component of historical knowledge. The author builds on her monograph Rozpolcená doba, rozptýlené životy za druhé světové války a studeného míru [Divided Times, Scattered Lives during the Second...

“Jiří Suchý and Jiří Šlitr Have Rendered Outstanding Service to the State”

Jiří Hoppe

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):549-554 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.024  

Jiří Suchý (born 1931) and Jiří Šlitr (1924-1969), as a songwriting, performing, and acting duo, rank among the most popular figures of postwar Czech and Czechoslovak culture. Although both were essentially amateur artists, they possessed exceptional versatility as playwrights, actors, musicians, composers, and performers. In 1959, they founded Prague's Semafor Theatre, which became a generational symbol of the cultural liberalization and flourishing of the 1960s. Together they created a series of memorable original stage productions and wrote and performed dozens of songs, some of which have since become enduring classics. According to the reviewer,...

Comedowns, Highs, and Delusions / Drugs and Their People in the Worlds of Czechoslovak Totalitarian Regimes

Ondřej Holub

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):555-560 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.019  

The extensive synthetic survey Drogy v dobách totality: Drogový problém v Československu za německé okupace a komunismu [Drugs under Totalitar­ianism: The Drug Problem in Czechoslovakia during the German Occupation and Communist Rule], co-authored by social anthropologist Miroslav Nožina and former police investigator, historian, and journalist Miloš Vaněček, seeks to provide the most comprehensive account to date of the issue for the period from approximately 1938 to 1989. According to the reviewer, this broad chronological and thematic scope enables the authors to place developments in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and post-war Czechoslovakia...

Beyond Conventional Church Histories of Communist Czechoslovakia

Zdeněk R. Nešpor

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):561-566 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.026  

In his monograph Zakázaná víra: Nelegální náboženské menšiny v komunistickém Československu [Forbidden Faith: Illegal Religious Minorities in Communist Czechoslovakia], Martin Pácha moves beyond the established field of research on the churches in communist Czechoslovakia in three important respects. First, he focuses on religious communities that were entirely banned by the communist regime, ­specifically Jehovah's Witnesses and Pentecostal churches; second, rather than portraying these organizations and their members merely as passive victims of repression, he presents them as active agents capable of winning concessions from the state and the Communist...

Working Socialistically, Eating Socialistically / Czech Gastronomy’s Journey to Haute Cuisine… and Back

Jitka Sobotková

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):567-572 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.021  

The monograph Dějiny výživy a stravování v českých zemích 1945-1970 [The History of Nutrition and Eating Habits in the Czech Lands, 1945-1970] by Martin Franc, a leading Czech scholar of the history of gastronomy, is the product of extensive research and the first comprehensive study of Czech cuisine and its broader social, cultural, and political contexts from the end of the Second World War to the early 1970s. Franc offers a thorough analysis of such topics as the influence of socialist ideology, propaganda, and expert discourse; foreign culinary models and inspirations; food distribution and food technology. He also devotes due attention to both...

A Laboratory of Power in the Rakovník Refractory Works / Transformations of Governance in a Late Socialist Enterprise

Martin Jemelka

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):573-577 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.023  

The monograph Perestrojka v šamotce: Proměny vedoucí úlohy KSČ z perspektivy jednoho podniku [Perestroika in a Refractory Plant: Transformations of the Communist Party's Leading Role through the Lens of One Enterprise], by political scientist and historian Martin Štefek, is, according to the reviewer, a remarkably successful microhistorical analysis of the changing mechanisms of governance in late socialist Czechoslovakia during the second half of the 1980s. Using the Rakovník Ceramic Works (Rakovnické keramické závody, RKZ) as a case study and situating it within the context of the contemporary economic reform, Štefek examines the enterprise as a...

Horizons for Further Research / A Long-Awaited Overview of the History of Czech Postwar Ethnography and Folklore Studies

Oto Polouček

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):578-584 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.027  

The book Horizonty bádání: Etnografie a folkloristika v českých zemích v letech 1945-1989 [Horizons of Research: Ethnography and Folklore Studies in the Czech Lands, 1945-1989] is the work of a nine­‑member team of authors from three Czech academic institutes, led by Marie Bahenská and Lydia Petráňová. Since its account of the post-war period is preceded by an overview of developments since the emergence of ethnography as a scholarly discipline in the late nineteenth century, the book may be regarded as a comprehensive history of the field in the Czech lands, whose designation and scope of inquiry evolved over time. The authors focus primarily...

The Holocaust, Confiscation, and Corruption / The Fate of the Roma in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia from an Actor-Centred Perspective

Anna Míšková

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):585-590 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.025  

The monograph by Czech historian Jiří Smlsal Holokaust a majetková perzekuce Romů v Protektorátu Čechy a Morava [The Holocaust and the Property Persecution of Roma in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia] represents, in the reviewer's assessment, a significant contribution to research on the Holocaust of Roma and Sinti. It systematically examines the hitherto neglected issue of their property persecution, revealing the interconnections between racial persecution, economic interests, corruption, and the everyday functioning of the occupation apparatus. The reviewer particularly commends the book's rich source base, its consistent application of an...

Nazi Plans for Reshaping the Czech Lands

Michal Němeček

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):591-596 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.029  

Miloš Hořejš's monograph Nacistická germanizační a osídlovací politika v Protektorátu Čechy a Morava [Nazi Germanization and Settlement Policy in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia] examines a hitherto under­‑researched aspect of the German occupation administration's activities in the Protectorate. Drawing on extensive archival research, the author analyses how Nazi ideological concepts for the Germanization of occupied territories were translated into everyday administrative practice. The reviewer highlights the author's detailed examination of the institutional framework, particularly the relationships, jurisdictional disputes, and rivalries...

The Gestapo in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia as an Object of Neuere Täterforschung / A Major Czech Contribution to Research on Nazi Perpetrators

Monika Václavíková

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):597-603 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.022  

The review examines the extensive monograph by Czech historians Jan Vajskebr and Jan Zumr, Gestapo: Velitelský sbor tajné státní policie v Protektorátu Čechy a Morava [The Gestapo: The Command Staff of the Secret State Police in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia]. The publication is the result of seven years of archival research and offers a collective biography of more than two hundred senior Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) officers who served in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Methodologically, the authors align themselves with the so­‑called new perpetrator research (Neuere Täterforschung), combining a detailed reconstruction...

The Dove of Peace, Cubism, and the Limits of Socialist Realism / Picasso in Czechoslovakia between Art and Politics

Hana Bortlová­‑Vondráková

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):604-608 | DOI: 10.51134/sod.2026.037  

The review discusses Karel Srp's Dialektika revolty [Dialectics of Revolt], a book devoted to the reception of Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) and his work in Czechoslovakia. The art historian Srp traces Czech and Czechoslovak writing and scholarship on Picasso from the postwar period to the early 1980s, focusing on the interpretations of leading art historians and theorists, critics, and artists. Particular attention is paid to Picasso's ambivalent position within the cultural politics of state socialism: while his communist commitments and famous dove made him an internationally recognizable symbol of the peace movement, his cubist and other works...

Anotace

Jiří Křesťan; Petr Ubrankowicz; Filip Vlček

Soudobé dějiny / CJCH 2026, 33(2):611-618