České poúnorové dějiny bez slovenského kontextu? Nad Pernesovým svazkem "Velkých dějin zemí Koruny české"
Czech post-1948 History without a Slovak Context? On the New Volume of the "Great History of the Czech Crown Lands" by Jiří Pernes

Summary/Abstract: In the seventeenth volume of the "Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české" [Great History of the Czech Crown Lands] series published by Paseka, the renowned historian Jiří Pernes elaborates on the period from 1948 to 1956, framed by the communist takeover in Czechoslovakia and Khrushchev’s secret speech on the “cult of personality” at the Twentieth Congress of Soviet Communists. According to the reviewer, the work displays thorough research in Czech and foreign archives, knowledge of the literature and great authorial experience. The reviewer respects the author’s periodization of the examined era, which differs from the established periodization of Karel Kaplan, although he disagrees with Pernes’ interpretation that the crisis of the Czechoslovak communist regime began in 1951, and not two years later. More importantly, however, he asks a fundamental conceptual question about the volume: to what extent is it possible and meaningful to separate the history of Czechoslovakia from the history of the Czech lands and to omit the Slovak context, as Pernes does in line with the whole editorial project? The reviewer also points out minor factual problems, which, however, do not diminish the great value of Pernes’ monographic synthesis.

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