At the End of the End of History: Czech Historiography and the Ukrainian-Russian War
At the End of the End of History: Czech Historiography and the Ukrainian-Russian War

Summary/Abstract: Historiography has been defined by war essentially since its beginnings. As far back as Thucydides, war has traditionally been ascribed a major history-making role by historians, and classical historiography had war as one of its central points of interest until the twentieth century. However, the pluralization of historiography that began with the period of prolonged peace of arms in Europe after World War II led to the retreat of classical military history, which consisted in analyzing specific war operations. The proclaimed end of history after 1990 seemed to almost completely erase war as a relevant object of historical analysis. The various strands of historical research, even in the post-communist part of Europe, have focused on different topics in political, cultural or social history, but when local historiography has investigated the periods of modern military conflicts, it has mainly focused on the political history of national resistance or the history of occupation, where the war as such constitutes general context rather than the object of historical analysis.1 It is only in the last decade that Czech historical research has seen a surge of interest in the history of both World War I and World War II, spurred in particular by their respective round anniversaries and the relatively generous government spending intended to commemorate them.

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