„Je třeba vyrovnat se s řáděním pravicových živlů“ Úvahy Václava Krále nad stavem československé historiografi e z léta 1969
“The Rampaging of Right-wing Individuals Must Be Dealt With”: Václav Král’s Thoughts on the State of Czechoslovak Historiography in 1969

Summary/Abstract: In this edition, Jitka Vondrová presents a hitherto unknown report by the historian Václav Král (1926–1983). Entitled “Informace o stavu československé historiografi e” (Information on the State of Czechoslovak Historiography), the report was presented at the Soviet Embassy, Prague, on 21 August 1969 (on the fi rst anniversary of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia), and was intended primarily for Piotr N. Demichev, Secretary for Ideology at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Vondrová discovered the document amongst material of the Propaganda Department of the CPSU in the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History, Moscow. The document is an assessment of the state of Czechoslovak contemporary history from extremely dogmatic positions. Král “exposes” a powerful interest group, which he portrays as a “terrorist gang,” amongst the historians. With the help of “reactionary elements” in the central organs of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (that is, the reform Communists) the group was trying to gain the upper hand in historiography and return the interpretation of Czechoslovak history in the twentieth century from the Marxist conception to the bourgeois in the sense of Masarykian ideology. He calls Milan Hübl (1927–1989) and Jan Křen (b. 1930) the leaders of the group, which included Vilém Prečan (b. 1933), Milan Otáhal (b. 1928), Karel Bartošek (1930–2004), and Václav Kural (b. 1928). He also identifies the centre of “counter-revolution in historiography,” particularly the Institute of History of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the Party University, the Department of Contemporary History in the Institute of History at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, and the Czech Historical Society. He concludes with some concrete proposals for the reorganization of the individual institutions of historical research, and recommends dismissing about 140 historians and banning them from the fi eld altogether.

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