Laudatio k devadesátinám profesora Viléma Prečana
Laudatio on the Ninetieth Birthday of Professor Vilém Prečan

Summary/Abstract: On 9 January 2023, Vilém Prečan, Czechoslovak and Czech historian, founder and first director of the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences (from 1990 to 1998) celebrated his ninetieth birthday. On this day, at a festive gathering at the Institute, historian Jiří Suk delivered a congratulatory speech, which was again heard at a celebration held in Prečan’s honour on 17 January at Villa Lanna in Prague, organized by the Anna and Jaroslav Krejčí Research Foundation together with the Václav Havel Library and the T. G. Masaryk Institute. The speaker stressed that Vilém Prečan was in fact the founder not only of the Institute, but of the field of contemporary history in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, and highlighted three moments in which Prečan’s extraordinary ability to combine his own deep involvement in historical events with their systematic documentation, reflection and interpretation according to the rules of historical scholarship was evident. All three became not only parts of his personal history of civic engagement, but also his main research topics and gave life to the beginnings of contemporary history as an independent discipline. The first was the Prague Spring of 1968, when Prečan, together with colleagues from the Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, recorded the dramatic events in the streets of Prague after the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops in the so-called "Černá kniha" [Black Book]. This resulted in the loss of his profession, criminal prosecution, and finally, in his exile in 1976. The second moment was Prečan’s multifaceted interaction with Czechoslovak dissent after the establishment of Charter 77. He became one of the most active advocates and promoters of the Charter’s activities and significance abroad. As the third pillar, Suk mentions Prečan’s contribution to the emerging preconditions for the democratic revolution, which consisted primarily in the establishment and running of the Czechoslovak Documentation Centre for Independent Literature (Československé dokumentační středisko nezávislé literatury, ČSDS) in Scheinfeld, Bavaria, as well as in his systematic mapping of this phenomenon in the international context. The speaker also mentions the essential and inherent contribution of Prečan’s wife Helena, to his work.

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