Nad osudy Josefa Macka a Viktora Knapa. Interpretační možnosti historické biografie a autobiografie
The Fates of Josef Macek and Viktor Knapp: The Possibilities of Interpretation in Historical Biography and Autobiography

Summary/Abstract: review of: ------------------------ JIROUŠEK, Bohumil: Josef Macek: Mezi historií a politikou. Praha, Výzkumné centrum pro dějiny vědy 2004, 239 pp; KNAPP, Viktor: Proměny času: Vzpomínky nestora české právní vědy. Praha, Prospektrum 1998, 255 pp. The reviewer places side by side the biographies of the historian-medieval scholar Josef Macek (1922-1991) and the autobiography of the legal scholar Viktor Knapp (1914-1996), to compare their careers and to point out the different approaches to interpretation. After the war, the leftwing convictions of both men led them to the Czechoslovak Communist Party and, together with their professional activities, led them also to senior academic positions. Whereas Macek’s biography focuses on his scholarly work, more or less ignoring his political career (although it analyzes his collaboration with the secret police after the crushing of the ‘Prague Spring’), Knapp’s reveals his having come to terms with his own political past with ironic detachment.

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