Léta mých studií historie (1950-1955)
Memoirs: My Years as a Student of History, 1950-55

Summary/Abstract: The author devotes this chapter of his memoirs-in-the-works to the years when he was a student at Charles University in 1950-55. After a description of the atmosphere (including the ideological campaign) at the university following the Communist take¬over in February 1948, he acquaints the reader with lectures in the field of history and the teachers giving them. He names colleagues and describes their future lives. He returns to his academic interests at the time and the literature he read. He then recalls the international situation at the beginning of the 1950s and the internal political events of the days, particularly the trial of Rudolf Slánský and those associated with him. He adds his own present views (also of himself) and sees the years 1953-54 as having been important for his own maturing. In conclusion he describes the last year of his studies, his completing his dissertation (on Czechoslovak recognition of the Soviet Union and the signing of the treaty of alliance in the mid-1930s), and beginning his first job (in the Slavonic Library, Prague).

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