Possibilities of Research into the Catholic Church in the Czech Lands in the Early Stage of the Communist Dictatorship
Possibilities of Research into the Catholic Church in the Czech Lands in the Early Stage of the Communist Dictatorship

Summary/Abstract: In the author´s opinion, research projects dealing with the Catholic Church in the Czech Lands since the installment of the Communist regime in 1948 are somewhat closed in that there is very little communication between “ecclesiastic” and “non-ecclesiastic” historians. The article aims to describe causes of the situation and propose a way in which research into the history of the Catholic Church in the period referred to above could be included in broader discussions about the nature of the Communist dictatorship. The author opines that one of the reasons of the introversion is an intensive overreliance on works of the historian Karel Kaplan, which turns the attention of researchers away from topics not directly related to the repression of the Catholic Church and its representatives. In addition, the author questions the stereotypical presentation of the Communist Party and the Catholic Church in post-war Czechoslovakia as two irreconcilable opponents, mentioning their overall consensus and important contact points during the so-called Third Republic (1945–1948), using the example of the Communist historian and politician Zdeněk Nejedlý (1878–1962) and the Catholic author Adolf Kajpr (1902–1959), and also certain intersections of the Communist and the Catholic identities since 1948. The study outlines a possibility to capture the issue using a prism of concepts of legitimacy and hegemony based on the situation prevailing during the existence of the Third Republic, and thus open the research to new questions.

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