Čeští katoličtí intelektuálové a Druhá republika
Czech Catholic Intellectuals and the Second Republic

Summary/Abstract: The study deals with the malaise threatening democracy in Europe and its projection into the Czech intellectual milieu. It focuses on the First Republic, its ideas based mainly on Masaryk’s and Čapek’s pragmatism and humanism in contrast to the rejected Catholicism represented by Jaroslav Durych, Jan Zahradníček, Josef Florian, Jakub Deml and others. The Munich dictate meant a tragic change in the situation and different interpretations of this historical event occurred. The Catholics interpreted that as a “God’s Punishment”. This may be the reason why Catholic authors were blamed for their sympathies for Fascism due to their attitude to Antisemitism. This study stresses the ambivalent attitude of Catholic authors to Antisemitism which is usually misunderstood. Just one of them, Jakub Deml, showed the primitive Antisemitism based on racial intolerance. These attitudes were used later on by Communist propaganda to condemn Catholic authors.

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