Řeč obžaloby namísto nezaujatých argumentů

Author(s): Luboš Veselý / Language(s): Czech Issue: 4/2017

In the beginning of his work, the author presents a brief list of publications on Stepan Bandera (1909–1959), one of the leaders of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, which has hitherto been published in the Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), noting the politicized perception of this historical figure and mutually conflicting national narratives which his life story is set into. While Ukrainian view mostly adores Bandera as the founder of the Ukrainian statehood and national hero, the Polish and Russian (formerly Soviet) ones generally condemn him as a radical nationalist, fascist, and anti-Semite responsible for crimes perpetrated by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizatsiya Ukrains’kykh Natsionalistiv – OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska Povstanska Armiya – UPA) in Western Ukraine in the 1940s. The author then proceeds to the publication of Polish-German historian Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe,Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist. Fascism, Genocide,and Cult (Stuttgart, Ibidem 2014), which is so far the first attempt at a scientific biography of Bandera. The author questions and argues against Rossoliński-Liebe’sapproach to the topic, which he claims to be conforming to many negative patterns in Bandera’s appraisals, failing to describe historical events without an a priori biasor presenting new views, although Rossoliński-Liebe used almost all published works on the topic, as well as a mass of archival sources and memoir testimonies. Rossoliński-Liebe equals Bandera with the Ukrainian nationalism, and regards the latter as a violent movement without setting it in a context. The author argues that ignoring the historical context, one-sided optics, and emotional judgments are significant weaknesses of the work, which thus fails to meet the demands placed upon a balanced scientific biography.

Středoevropský historik Bedřich Loewenstein

Author(s): Tomáš Hermann / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1+2/2018

The author summarizes the life and in particular scientific career of historian Bedřich Loewenstein, describes areas of his professional interest and his intellectual orientation, reminds of his most important works published in Czech and German, and assesses his contribution. Loewenstein was born in 1929 in Prague, in a Czech-German-Jewish family, lived through the German occupation in difficult conditions, and started studying history and philosophy at what was then the Faculty of Arts and History of the Charles University, but was expelled two years later for political reasons. He was allowed to complete his studies later, and in 1957 started working at the Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, where he remained until his dismissal in 1970. He started intensive contacts with West German historians and other intellectuals during the 1960s, and organized an important international symposium, “Europe and Fascism”, in Prague in 1969. Since the early 1970s, he was not allowed to publish and was employed as an interpreter/translator of the trade mission (since 1973 embassy) of the Federal Republic of Germany. Although watched by the State Security, he managed to make use of his position to establish an important connection between domestic dissenters and their supporters abroad, which was used to exchange publications and other documents. In 1979, he accepted an offer of professorship of recent history at the Free University in West Berlin, where he remained until 1994 and where he could develop and expand his research interests and devote himself to intensive publication activities For a long time, Bedřich Loewenstein was focusing on the German history of the 19th and 20th centuries; since the 1960s, he was also studying ideological, psychological, and social prerequisites of Nazism and later also more general issues of crises of the 20th century, modernism and modernity, civic society, European nationalism, and civilization. In this respect, he was able to integrate approaches and knowledge of other social sciences – sociology, social psychology, anthropology, philosophy, political science, and economy – in a prolific manner. He was a long-time and intensive intermediary of views and ideas between the Czech (or Czechoslovak) and German historiographies. His works, written in a concise, scientific-essayist style, earned him respect among colleagues both at home and abroad. His principal works include Plädoyer für die Zivilisation (Hamburg, Hoffmann und Campe 1973), Entwurf der Moderne: Vom Geist der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft und Zivilisation (Essen, Reimar Hobbing 1987; in Czech in 1995), Problemfelder der Moderne: Elemente der politischen Kultur (Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1990), My a ti druzí: Dějiny, psychologie, antropologie (Brno, Doplněk 1997; in German in 2003). A synthesis of Loewenstein’s thinking about a broad spectrum of issues is presented in his book Der Fortschrittsglaube: Geschichte einer europäischen Idee (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2008; in Czech: Víra v pokrok: Dějiny jedné evropské ideje. Prague, OIKOYMENH 2009).

Evropský Středoevropan Bedřich Loewenstein

Author(s): Miloš Havelka / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1+2/2018

In his article, the author presents, in a concise and condensed fashion, the foundation, contours, principal features, and themes of the thinking of Bedřich Loewenstein (1929–2017), a modern and contemporary history historian spanning a multitude of disciplines. He finds the deepest layer of Loewenstein’s thinking in historical anthropology, in his interest in specific human beings and their actions, motivations, and orientations, explaining the historian’s “frame of mind” by his personal, lived experience of a Central European intellectual confronted with dramatic turns of history in the twentieth century. This also the reason behind Loewenstein’s understanding for the diversity of identities (in Central Europe mainly ethnic and national) and their coexistence, as well as his sensitivity to historical location and conditionality of individuals. According to Havelka, Loewenstein was representing a viewpoint (fairly rare in the Czech environment) which regarded “spiritual sciences” as sciences on creations of the collective and individual human spirit, focusing also on historical forms and influences of these creations, no matter whether his research topic was Fascism, “Bonapartism”, civic society, development and progress, or, more generally, history of ideas. The author points at Loewenstein’s skepticism toward constructions of great theories and his pronounced terminological nominalism refusing to grant essential validity to collective entities such as nations and cultures. This is related to Loewenstein’s conviction about the openness of history, both to the past and to the future, toward potential alternative interpretations. The historical pessimism is counter balanced by Loewenstein’s complementary perception of historical processes of disciplination and emancipation, or the formation of order and human freedom, although he was also a historian of nationalism, violence, and mass manipulation. The author pays special attention to Loewenstein’s concepts of modernity, civilization, and mainly belief in progress, which is viewed in his works in diverse manifestations of its ambiguity. In the end, Havelka emphasizes Loewenstein’s Europeism as a perspective of his historical view and as an integrating civilization principle which is associated with trust in intellect as a means of understanding, tolerance, and consensus.

Poválečné proměny českého pohraničí z pohledu amerického historika

Author(s): David Kovařík / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1+2/2018

Glassheim, Eagle: Cleansing the Czechoslovak Borderlands: Migration, Environment, and Health in the Former Sudetenland. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016, 288 pp., ISBN 978-80-8229-6426-1. The author focuses on three areas of issues. The first of them is the post-war cleansing of the Czechoslovak borderlands, related to the unfulfilled efforts of Czechoslovak authorities for an ethnic homogenization of the regions. The second one comprises changes of the borderlands and their use as a “laboratory of state socialism” in the process of modernization transformations. The third area concerns memories of home and the formation of a new identity of expelled Germans and new settlers arriving to the border regions. In the reviewer’s opinion, the uniqueness of the book stems from conceptual and methodological approaches by means of which Glassheim describes the development of the Czechoslovak borderlands and living conditions of local people from a viewpoint of an environmental historian rather than in the topic of the publication. He emphasizes the role of economic and social factors related to the economic policy of the state, since the end of the war oriented mainly on the exploitation of mineral resources and heavy industry as tools used to promote the technocratic, production-driven vision of modernity. However, its implementation not only resulted in the devastation of the borderlands and their environment, but also had an adverse effect on the local population, particularly on their social relations and health.

Hozená rukavice

Author(s): Helena Sadílková / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3+4/2018

The authoress comments on the three-volume publication "Czech Gipsy Rhapsody" of Jan Tesař from the perspective of the current state of knowledge of the Romany history in the territory of Czechoslovakia. She states it is an inspiring work, both thematically and factually and in terms of methodology and interpretation. She emphasizes the uniqueness of the narration of Josef Serinek (1900–1974), recorded by historian Jan Tesař in 1963 and 1964, as one of the oldest sources of Romany provenience on the history of the Romany nation in the Czech Lands in the first half of the 20th century, including their wartime genocide. She dwells for some time on several topics closely related to specific moments of Serinek’s narration, namely the involvement of Romanies in fights for the liberation of Czechoslovakia, evidence concerning the so-called gipsy camp in Lety u Písku, consequences of the First Republic’s law on “itinerant gipsies”, and Romani self-organization attempts in inter-war Europe. The strongest aspects of Tesař’s work are, in her opinion, Tesař’s interpretation of the holocaust of Romanies in the Protectorate, which caused significant damage to the whole Czechoslovak society, and the way in which Tesař sets Serinek, a Romany survivor and also a freedom fighter, into the narration about the genocide which the Czech population made a substantial contribution to. The authoress shows how fragile and unobvious is the Tesař’s picture of Serinek as a “Romany hero of the Czechoslovak fight for freedom” in the collective memory of the Czech society, including its Romany segment.

Unikátní český výzkum severoafrické migrace

Author(s): Karel Černý / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3+4/2018

Hyánková, Tereza: Z Alžírska do budoucnosti: Kabylská migrace do České republiky. Pardubice: Univerzita Pardubice, 2015, 257 pp. In her book "From Algeria to Future: Kabyle migration to the Czech Republic", the Czech anthropologist offers an insight into the phenomenon of migration from the region of Kabylia. According to the reviewer, the book is rich in information and succinct, but also remarkably readable. It is based on field research in Algeria, France, and the Czech Republic, high proficiency in languages, and an excellent knowledge of academic literature. Although it is a case study dealing with a specific ethnic group, it represents a relevant contribution to today’s general debate on the migration from the Middle East. The reviewer clarifies, in agreement with the interpretation of the authoress, the historical context, i.e. social, cultural, and political roots of the Kabylian migration to France, at that time a colonial metropolis, its development, characteristic features, and problems it was bringing. He also passes on the authoress’s findings concerning the Kabylian migration to the Czech Republic, the beginnings of which can be traced to the 1990s.

Romové v poválečném Československu a meze konceptu občanství

Author(s): Kateřina Čapková / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2020

The review was initially published in "The American Historical Review", Vol. 125, No. 1 (February 2020), p. 332 n. According to the reviewer’s opinion, the book "The Rights of the Roma: The Struggle for Citizenship in Postwar Czechoslovakia" (NY: CUP, 2017) written by the British historian Celia Donert should be read by all who are interested in policies implemented toward the Roma in Europe in the 20th century and in the complex issue of the approach of Communists to social and ethnic questions. The authoress shows an excellent grasp of continuous efforts to improve the situation of the Roma on the one hand, and to control them on the other hand, in various political situations, before and after the war, at the time of and after the Communist rule, both in Czechoslovakia and in a broader European context. In doing so, she offers evidence of failures of the human rights agenda in different political contexts, including that of the European Union’s Roma policy, until the present day, and clearly shows that policies and measures implemented vis-à-vis the Roma are not a marginal topic, but an area which demonstrates essential limits of the concept of citizenship in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Poslankyně neruského původu v sovětském parlamentu, 1989–1991

Author(s): Ivan Sablin / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2021

The study focuses on the position of female deputies of non-Russian descent in parliamentary debates on the perestroika in the last years of the existence of Soviet Union. The key issues the author examines concern the hardships – as defined by the English term “grievances”, which denotes a variety of sources of political deprivation resulting in collective acts – these female deputies were pointing out, and what potential solutions they were proposing to mitigate or eliminate them. The most important forum where these debates were taking place was the Congress of People’s Deputies (S’ezd narodnykh deputatov), which arose from partly pluralistic elections, was the highest body of state authority of the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1991, and meant a significant progress in Gorbachev’s reform Communist leadership’s efforts to democratize the political system. Gender-wise, the body was very unbalanced as women accounted for just 352 out of its 2,250 elected members. The author work with stenographic records of speeches of the female deputies of non-Russian descent delivered during five sessions of the Congress of People’s Deputies, viewing them through a prism of concepts of “intersectionality” and “imperial situation”, which permit capturing the diversity of its composition and acts in the form of relations between various social categories (nationality/ethnicity, gender, region, profession etc.), their overlapping and self-categorization of players. The speeches of the female deputies often accentuated national grievances and hardships, which fact is indicative of a considerable importance of nationalism in Soviet discussions about the perestroika and in the systemic crisis of the USSR at the turn of the 1980 sand 1990s. However, they also show that viewing problems in a nationalism-tinged perspectives did not necessarily mean seeking a nationalist solution, as many of the female deputies preferred looking for a solution within the Soviet Union to that consisting in sovereignty or even independence of its republics. The female deputies also insistently reflected urgent social, economic, professional, environmental, and local problems. The final part of the article describes political careers of the female deputies after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Rok 1989 jako zažátek konce Jugoslávie – slovinská perspektiva

Author(s): Jure Gašparič / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2021

The author examines the attitude of Slovenians to the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia since the late 1960s until the declaration of the independent Republic of Slovenia in 1991. He asks himself a question whether socialist Yugoslavia was indeed a state which Slovenians perceived as theirs, just like they had done in the case of the pre-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and he observes how their identification with that state was changing over time, the reasons of the changes, and whether the loss of their loyalty caused the disintegration of the Yugoslav federation. He is looking for answers in public opinion polls which had been continually taking place in Slovenia since 1968 and conducted in a relatively fair manner, without political interventions, which is indeed a rarity in the context of socialist countries. Using their results, the author concludes that Slovenians viewed themselves as a natural part of the Yugoslav community until the late 1980s. This opinion was shared by a majority of Slovenia’s population, although many of them were not satisfied with Slovenia’s position in Yugoslavia, or their living standard at times of economic crises. It was only in 1989 that the opinion that Yugoslavia as a “country of many advantages” had run out of its potential and no longer offered good prospects for future prevailed among Slovenians. However, their attitudes reacting to accelerating changes both at home and abroad did not cause the disintegration of the common state. After 1991, Slovenians completely (and sometimes uncritically) identified themselves with independent Slovenia, and mostly (although rather declaratively) also with values of parliamentary democracy. The author’s exposition is preceded by an analysis of published sources on the disintegration of Yugoslavia and based on an extensive set of empirical data from public opinion polls in the form of tables.

Рупите – село на истината, магията и чудесата

Author(s): Venislav Vasilev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2022

Храм „Свети пророк Илия“, с. Беласица

Author(s): Viktoria Luchkova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2022

Араповски манастир „Света Неделя“

Author(s): Denica Meshova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2022

Бистрешки манастир „Свети Иван Касинец“

Author(s): Desislava Dunchovska / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2022

Манастир „Св. Илия” с. Чинтулово, Сливенско

Author(s): Kamelia Vasileva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2022

Лопушански манастир „Св. Йоан Предтеча“

Author(s): Kristina Ivanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2022

Бегликташ

Author(s): Marina Marinova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2022

Аладжа манастир „Света Троица“ и тайните, криещи се в него

Author(s): Mihaela Peevska / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2022

Култове и култови места в Забранения град

Author(s): Dzuendzuen Sie / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2022

Църногорски манастир „Св. Св. Козма и Дамян”

Author(s): Stefka Stefanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2022

Местността Селището - град Елин Пелин, Цръквето

Author(s): Preslava Peneva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2022