Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2016, 4(1)
Studie a eseje
Human Rights between Political Identity and Historical Category. Czechoslovakia and East Central Europe in a Global Context
Michal Kopeček
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2016, 4(1):5-18 
The essay deals with the global historical development of the human rights doctrine and its role in modern politics from a Czech, Czechoslovak and East-Central European point of view. It draws on recent revisionist historiography of human rights the main characteristic of which, described at the beginning of the essay, is the reconstruction of the human rights doctrine as an epiphenomenon of major historical political conflicts. Then, the author turns to the comeback of human rights as a universalistic concept during the Second World War and the Allied struggle against Nazism. He continues with tracing down the general development during the Cold War...
Between Two Suns. Czechoslovakia and the Sino-Soviet Dispute over the International Communist Movement (1953-1962)
Daniela Kolenovská
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2016, 4(1):19-48
In this article, the author traces the changes in the Czechoslovak position in the international Communist movement after the Communist Party took power in Czechoslovakia. She concentrates on the Party's relations with the Soviet and the Chinese Communists, which from the 1950s onwards represented two competing centres of power in world Communism. She argues that in Czechoslovak foreign policy the Communists subordinated the defence of State interests to the international solidarity of the workers, and, in keeping with that ideological guideline, the tasks of Czechoslovak foreign policy were set mainly according to the Soviet agenda and its vaguely...
In between Sympathies and Loyalty. The French Communist Party and the Prague Spring
Michaela Kůželová
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2016, 4(1):49-79
The French Communists' official reactions to the Soviet-led military intervention by five Warsaw Pact countries in Czechoslovakia in August 1968 are generally considered to mark the first time in history that the French Communist Party decided not to show public support for an international operation by the Soviet Union. As the author demonstrates with an analysis of records from the Archive of the French Communist Party and the central Czechoslovak archives, French Communist support for the Czechoslovak reform movement was not exactly straightforward; nor was subsequent French Communist condemnation of the August military intervention consistent....
Occupation, Friendly Assistance, Devastation. The Soviet Army, 1968-1991, in the Memory of the Czech People
Marie Černá
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2016, 4(1):80-101
In this article, the author raises the question of what now, more than twenty years later, the 'stay' (pobyt, as it was officially called), of the Soviet Army in Czechoslovakia means to the inhabitants of the country. How, she asks, is it recalled in the public space and the mass media, and what images are most frequently evoked in this connection? Whereas the Soviet-led intervention by troops of the Warsaw Pact countries in August 1968 holds a lasting place in Czech memory and historiography, the subsequent stay of Soviet troops in the country has far fuzzier contours. Though in this connection the term 'occupation' (okupace) is regularly used today,...
The Strange Unity. Gustáv Husák and Power and Political Fights Inside the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia as Exemplified by the Presidency Issue (1969-1975)
Michal Macháček
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2016, 4(1):102-126
This article presents an analysis of Czechoslovak political history of the fi rst half of the 1970s and the question of who would succeed General Ludvík Svoboda (1895-1979) as Czechoslovak President. The emphasis is on the role of Gustáv Husák (1913-1991), who emerged from the political crisis of 1968-69 as the most powerful actor, and was, at the 14th Congress of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, confirmed as General Secretary of the Party. Using Soviet archives, the author points to differences between the individual members of the Party leadership, and particularly to the lack of unity amongst the so-called 'healthy forces'. According to him, it...
Prague Chronicle
Life's Jubilee of Professor Mečislav Borák
Dušan Janák
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2016, 4(1):127-134
The author looks back at the career of the historian Mečislav Borák (b. 1945) on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, and discusses a large selection of his publications. He emphasizes Borák's well-rooted regional interests in Těšínsko (Cieszyn Silesia, Těšín Silesia, or Teschen Silesia) and Czech Silesia, which, however, Borák has successfully moved beyond to precisely include the Czechoslovak and international context, as well as linking together micro- and macrohistory. He has always been interested in ordinary people, whose life stories he has put into the larger framework of 'big' history in an interesting and original way. He has repeatedly...
Recenze
Germans in Postwar Czechoslovakia. A Unique Edition of Documents from the Czech Archives Is Bringing Down Established Legends
Eva Hahn
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2016, 4(1):135-156
ARBURG, Adrian von - STANĚK, Tomáš (ed.): Vysídlení Němců a proměny českého pohraničí 1945-1951: Dokumenty z českých archivů [Expulsion of the Germans and the Transformation of the Czech Border Regions 1945-1951: Documents from the Czech Archives].Vol. I: Češi a Němci do roku 1945: Úvod k edici [Czechs and Germans until 1945: Introduction to the Edition]. Středokluky, Zdeněk Susa 2010, 373 pages, ISBN 978-80-86057-67-5;Vol. II/1: Duben-srpen/září 1945: "Divoký odsun" a počátky osidlování [April-August/September 1945: The "Wild" Expulsion and the Beginnings of Resettlement]. Středokluky, Zdeněk Susa 2011, 957 pages + CD ROM, ISBN 978-80-86057-71-2;Vol....
History in the Service of a Story. On Igor Lukeš's Book "On the Edge of the Cold War"
Petr Mareš
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2016, 4(1):157-176
Lukeš, Igor. Československo nad propastí: Selhání amerických diplomatů a tajných služeb v Praze 1945-1948. Trans. from the English by Jan Jirák and Ladislav Köppl. Prague: Prostor, 2014, 383 pp., ISBN 978-80-7260-292-6. / IDEM: Československo nad propastí: Selhání amerických diplomatů a tajných služeb v Praze 1945-1948. Praha, Prostor 2014, 383 pages, ISBN 978-80-7260-292-6.The review of Igor Lukeš's book and its recent Czech translation is conceived on the broader plan of an analysis of US-Czechoslovak relations in the years immediately after the Second World War. The book, according to the reviewer, is the result of extensive research in all...
Refugees of the Greek Civil War in Czechoslovakia and the World. Three Books on Similar Themes
Dalibor Vácha
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2016, 4(1):177-186
DANFORTH, Loring M. - BOESCHOTEN, Riki van: Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory. Chicago - London, University of Chicago Press 2012, 329 pages, ISBN 978-0-226-13598-4;KRÁLOVÁ, Kateřina - TSIVOS, Konstantinos et al.: Vyschly nám slzy… Řečtí uprchlíci v Československu [Our Tears Dried Up… Greek Refugees in Czechoslovakia]. Praha, Dokořán 2012, 331 pages, ISBN 978-80-7363-416-2;TSIVOS, Konstantinos: Řecká emigrace v Československu (1948-1968): Od jednoho rozštěpení ke druhému [Greek Emigration in Czechoslovakia (1948-1968): From One Split to Another]. Praha, Fakulta sociálních věd Univerzity Karlovy...
The TV, the Self-Service Store and the Superwoman
Martin Franc
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2016, 4(1):187-193
BREN, Paulina: Zelinář a jeho televize: Kultura komunismu po pražském jaru 1968 [The Greengrocer and His TV: The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring]. (Translated from English by Petruška Šustrová) Praha, Academia 2013, 458 pages, ISBN 978-80-200-2322-3.According to the reviewer, this publication, a Czech translation of The Greengrocer and His TV: The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010) by the American historian Paulina Bren is exactly the kind of contribution to Czech history from abroad that Czechs have to welcome with open arms. It contains extremely interesting observations,...