Životopisec v zajetí svého historika. Boučkův příběh Jana Slavíka
The Biographer as Captive of His Subject: Bouček’s Account of the Historian Jan Slavík

Summary/Abstract: review of: ------------------------- BOUČEK, Jaroslav: Jan Slavík: Příběh zakázaného historika. Praha, H&H 2002, 190 pp. The work under review is the fi rst biography of the outstanding Czech historian Jan Slavík (1885-1978). Slavík acquired a reputation as a writer of critical articles on the Russian revolution and Soviet Russia and of refl ections on Czech history, and for his involvement in the debates about the ‘meaning’ of Czech history. The biography provides a reliable overview of Slavík’s life and works, and for that reason alone is noteworthy. It fails, however, to use the opportunity to elucidate Slavík’s contribution to methodology in the social sciences in Czechoslovakia, particularly in connection with Max Weber. The reviewer sees the greatest problem in the author’s excessive dependence on Slavík’s interpretations and his attempt to defend them rather than subject them to critical analysis.

• Details
• Contents