Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2017, 5(1)
Studie a eseje
American Policy, Korean War, and the Lessons of Munich
Petr Mareš
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2017, 5(1):5-62 
In this article, the author traces how the lessons of the Munich Agreement of September 1938 (on the basis of which Czechoslovakia was forced to cede the predominantly ethnic-German Sudetenland to Nazi Germany) were projected into US foreign policy. In Part One of the essay, based on published sources and unpublished documents from American archives, the topic is covered from the late 1930s to the outbreak of the Korean War (which is discussed in Part Two, to be published in the next issue of Soudobé dějiny).The author looks at immediate American reaction to the North Korean attack on South Korea in June 1950, and then returns to autumn 1938 to...
Terror, Failure, Resistance: Conflicting Memory of Armed Acts of Anti-Communist Resistance in Czechoslovakia
Markéta Devátá
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2017, 5(1):63-100
This article is concerned with the memory and commemoration of acts of armed force which were committed as part of the civilian resistance to the Communist régime in its 'founding period' after February 1948. It focuses on how memory is constituted around this minority form of anti-Communist resistance, particularly by means of memorial sites in the process of their formation in the period before the Changes that began in mid-November 1989 and also afterwards. In the first part of the article, the author looks at armed conflicts at the edge of the Iron Curtain, that is, on the western borders of Communist Czechoslovakia. She seeks to demonstrate that...
How Much Totalitarianism Remained in the "Normalization" Era?
Karel Hrubý
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2017, 5(1):101-138
This article considers the nature of Communist régimes, particularly in Czechoslovakia. The author searches for an answer to the question of whether the political and social system launched in Czechoslovakia in late February 1948 maintained its totalitarian nature throughout its existence, or whether, in its later phases, it had already become another type of totalitarianism, or had even developed into a quite different kind of undemocratic or authoritarian régime. The author develops the topic, which is still a matter of dispute, against the background of changing theoretical reflections on Communist régimes. He first recapitulates the main criticism...
Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf
Milan Hauner
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2017, 5(1):139-165
Christian Hartmann, Thomas Vordermeyer, Othmar Plöckinger, and Roman Töppel (eds.). Hitler, Mein Kampf: Eine kritische Edition. Munich and Berlin: Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 2016, vols 1-2, 947 + 1019 pp., ISBN 978-3-9814052-3-1. With Edith Raim, Pascal Trees, Angelika Reizle, and Martina Seewald-Mooser. Includes illustrations, maps, a list of all known translations of Mein Kampf before 1945, a list of abbreviations, a detailed bibliography in three parts (before 1932, 1933-45, after 1945), and four indexes (a biographical index and indexes of persons, places, and subjects).In the form of an essay, the author comments here on the 2016 critical...
Recenze
On the Waves of RFE: The First Historical Synthesis of the Czechoslovak Service of Radio Free Europe
Petr Orság
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2017, 5(1):166-174
Tomek, Prokop. Československá redakce Radio Free Europe: Historie a vliv na československé dějiny. [The Czechoslovak service of Radio Free Europe: Its development and impact on Czechoslovak history]. Prague: Academia, 2015, 422 pp. + 32 pp. of illus., ISBN 978-80-200-2490-9.The book under review is considered here in the context of current research on the history of Radio Free Europe and Tomek's own work in which he presents a synthesis of his long-standing interest in the topic. The reviewer sees the contribution of the book chiefly in its bringing together and clearly sorting out a wide range of facts, and, to a lesser extent, its preliminary...
Southern Hospitality? Czechoslovak Relations with Africa until 1989
Rosamund Johnston
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2017, 5(1):175-181
Dvořáček, Jan - Piknerová, Linda - Záhořík, Jan. A History of Czechoslovak Involvement in Africa: Studies from the Colonial through the Soviet Eras. Lewiston, NY & Lampeter, The Edwin Mellen Press, 2014, 208 pp.Muehlenbeck, Philip: Czechoslovakia in Africa, 1945 - 1968. London, Palgrave MacMillan, 2016, 271 pp.Two recent volumes on Cold War Czechoslovak involvement in Africa challenge the notion of Czechoslovak powerlessness during the socialist period. On the scale of Czechoslovak autonomy from Moscow, however, the works in question diverge. Philip Muehlenbeck goes furthest in emphasizing the self-interest underpinning Prague's Africa...
An Arduous Road of the Exile toward the Fall of the Iron Curtain
Martin Nekola
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2017, 5(1):182-187
Raška, Francis D. Dlouhá cesta k vítězství: Československá exilová hnutí po roce 1968. Trans. from the English by Vojtěch Pacner. Prague: Academia, 2015, 272 pp., ISBN 978-80-200-2472-5.The book under review is a Czech translation of The Long Road to Victory: A History of Czechoslovak Exile Organizations after 1968 (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia UP, 2012). Raška's work is, according to the reviewer, the result of careful research using personal papers and other archival documents in the Czech Republic, Great Britain, the United States, and Italy. It is a unique comprehensive work that offers much that is new and...
On Science in the Service of People
Jan Randák, Marek Fapšo
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2017, 5(1):188-197
Olšáková, Doubravka. Věda jde k lidu! Československá společnost pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí a popularizace věd v Československu ve 20. století. [Science meets the people! The Czechoslovak society for the dissemination of political and scientific knowledge and popularization of science in Czechoslovakia in the 20th century]. (Šťastné zítřky, vol. 10.) Prague: Academia, 2014, 678 pp., ISBN 978-80-200-2318-6.The two reviewers praise this volume, "Science meets the people! The Czechoslovak society for the dissemination of political and scientific knowledge and popularization of science in Czechoslovakia in the 20th century" as a work...
Supervision against Artistic Freedom: The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra after February 1948
Václav Nájemník
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2017, 5(1):198-206
Iblová, Michaela. Česká filharmonie pod tlakem stalinské kulturní politiky v padesátých letech. [The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under the pressure of Stalinist cultural policy in the 1950s]. Prague: Karolinum, 2014, 247 pp., ISBN 978-80-246-2332-0.The reviewer first offers an overview of scholarly research on music (primarily classical music) and music culture in relation to politics and institutions in Czechoslovakia under the Communist régime. The author of the book under review, he claims, is one of the first Czechs to ask how and why a leading music ensemble could operate in totalitarianism and even in opposition to it. The core of book comprises...
All the Things Film History Is
Alena Šlingerová
Czech Journal of Contemporary History 2017, 5(1):207-209
Skopal, Pavel. Filmová kultura severního trojúhelníku: Filmy, kina a diváci českých zemí, NDR a Polska 1945-1970. [Film culture of the Northern Triangle: Films, cinemas and audiences of the Czech Lands, the GDR and Poland 1945-1970] (Filmová knihovna, vol. 3.). Brno: Host, 2014, 308 pp., ISBN 978-80-7294-971-7.The author of the book under review uses the approaches of the 'new film history', which frees him from writing about film using traditional categories and periodizations, and allows him to turn his attention to economic aspects of the film industry or to distribution mechanisms and audiences. That approach entails overlaps with other disciplines...