Úvodem k historickým alternativám „osudových osmiček“
Historical Alternatives to the Fateful “Eights,” 1938, 1948, 1968: An Introduction

Summary/Abstract: As an introduction to this thematic issue of Soudobé dějiny devoted to alternative (or counterfactual or virtual) histories of Czechoslovakia, Vít Smetana and Milan Drápala consider the context of this genre of historical writing. Counterfactual history, which has been developing in Western historiography since the 1980s, is only just now slowly making its way into the Czech milieu. The intention here is to examine some unrealized, but real, possibilities of Czechoslovak developments during the fateful “historical junctures” of 1938, 1948, and 1968, and also in the context of the post-war expulsion of the Sudeten Germans, an event of exceptional impact. Smetana and Drápala, provide basic information about all four articles, and emphasize that the authors have proceeded methodically, respecting the rules of rigorous scholarship, critically assessing the probability of alternative scenarios with regard to the surviving sources, while eschewing capricious speculation. Unlike other similar projects this whole thematic block on alternative histories does not therefore stray too far from scholarly historiography, trying instead generally to respect it.

• Details
• Contents