Jiří Štaif a sociální dějiny 19. století
Jiří Štaif ’s Social History of the 19th Century

Summary/Abstract: The article presents social historian Jiří Štaif ’s significance in the Czech academy, with particular reference to the concepts of modernization, revolution and the formation and transformation of the national elite. Štaif ’s social history of modernization em phasizes both individual and collective historical agents and their imaginations, es pecially their values and goals. Conceiving trends in modernization in the Habsburg empire during the long 19th century as occurring within a triangle of human goals, so cial practices, and intended as well as unintended consequences, he examines the he gemonic struggles of modern elites and the ways in which elites, whether established or otherwise, acquired clients for their goals. He also examines revolutions as a com petitive field in which the specific goals, ideals, and strategies of various groups tend to become redefined. In particular, his reading of the 1848 revolution in the Habsburg empire emphasizes the strategies imagined by Czech national elites in relation to their clientele and their competitors. From that vantage, he explains the specific program matic moderation of Czech national elites in the 19th century, as detailed in his thesis on a circumspect elite, and the success of established elites in the Habsburg empire in suppressing the revolution in 1849. Altogether, Štaif ’s approach to conceiving the history of society, not only Czech national society, has significantly influenced Czech historical scholarship as a whole by casting social history in a key role.

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