Sociální dějiny a totalitněhistorické vyprávění
Social History and the Totalitarian-History Narrative

Summary/Abstract: The author compares and contrasts the concepts of social history and totalitarianism. In Czechoslovakia after the Changes of late 1989 (and then in the Czech Republic), the ‘totalitarian-regime’ model, according to him, became the dominant interpretation of the history of the Communist dictatorship. Unsolved problems of the model are increasingly becoming evident today. In particular the relative marginality of social-history research, the squeezing out of discussions from outside the country, and the easy political use of Czech contemporary history can reasonably be interpreted as a consequence of pushing for the dichotomy model of interpretation (the regime versus society) on which the totalitarian-history narrative is built. The current article analyzes the causes of the great attraction held by this model, but it also seeks to expose its numerous contradictions, and, using various examples from historiography, offers possible solutions. It concludes with the idea that contemporary research is marked by the gradual disintegration of the totalitarian-regime model, and the space is thus opening up for a more critical assessment of the Communist dictatorship, taking into account not only political linkages but also the pre-political forms integrating people into the structures of power.

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