O stranické historiografii. Zamyšlení nad jednou knihou a jejím tématem
Party Historiography: Some Thoughts about a Book and Its Topic

Summary/Abstract: The author gives an overview of Vítězslav Sommer’s monograph Angažované dějepisectví: Stranická historiografie mezi stalinismem a reformním komunismem (1950–1970) (Engagé history writing: Party historiography between Stalinism and Reform Communism, 1950–70) (Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny and Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy, 2011) and he emphasizes not only its considerable contribution to our knowledge and its other qualities, but also its sound basis in theory and method, its carefully thought-out structure, apposite periodization, precise definition of terms, polished style, and the author’s superb knowledge of the sources and secondary literature on the topic. Sommer, according to the author, deserves praise for his handling of the question of the different generations which was reflected in numerous disputes at the time, and for his purely matter-of-fact discussion of the Stalinist beginnings of the careers of historians who would later become important. In his book, Sommer has, according to the author, laid the real foundations for research on Czech Party historiography, which can now be built upon in various ways.

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