Bohemia - Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der böhmischen Länder

Winters, Stanley B.

Chronik 213 unmittelbar nach dem Krieg in Gestalt von Deportationen und Vertreibungen ge­sehen. Waclaw Dlugoborski (Kattowitz) verdeutlichte am Beispiel der zum Teil bereits vor den Kriegshandlungen begonnenen Deportationen durch die deutschen und sowjetischen Okkupanten in den drei Okkupationsgebieten Polens, Karel Som­mer am Beispiel der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus der Tschechoslowakei die schwer­wiegenden langfristigen Folgen dieser Zwangsmaßnahmen. Einige Aspekte wurden in der Diskussion nicht oder zu wenig angesprochen; so die Frage nach den Auswirkungen der Unterdrückung bzw. Zerstörung der nationalen Bildungssysteme, des nationalen Kulturlebens und Kunstschaffens; die Frage nach den Auswirkungen der verschieden intensiven nationalen Selbst- und Rückbesin­nung als Ausdruck von Widerstand und Selbstbehauptungswillen bzw. des unter­schiedlichen Organisationsgrades von Widerstand; schließlich die Frage nach den Auswirkungen des kontroversen Diskurses innnerhalb der ostmitteleuropäischen Exil- und Untergrundgesellschaften im Hinblick auf die Gestaltung der Nachkriegs­zeit. Nicht nur diese Fragen harren der weiteren Erörterung. Marburg E d u a r d M ü h l e T H E 1995 N A T I O N A L C O N V E N T I O N O F T H E A M E R I C A N A S S O C I A T I O N F O R T H E A D V A N C E M E N T O F SLAVIC S T U D I E S The city of Washington, D. O , was the site of the 27th National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS), held on 26-29 October 1995. Over 2,000 persons registered. The AAASS is a multidiseiplinary area studies Organization with members mainly from history, literatuře, languages, econo-mics, and political science. Its annual Convention is the largest gathering in North America of specialists on East Central and Southeastern Europe, Russia, and the for­mer Soviet Union. The banner attendance justified the AAASS's three-year advance reservation of the spacious Sheraton Washington Hotel as the Convention center. The program listed 297 panel sessions and 59 special events, such as business meetings of AAASS affiliates (e.g. the Czechoslovak History Conference, the Slovák Studies Association, the Polish Studies Association), receptions at the Library of Congress and the Polish Embassy, and excursions to the Hillwood Museum and the Holocaust Museum. Obviously no one individual could háve attended more than a small fraction of the panels and special events, while also browsing the book exhibition, mixing socially with colleagues, and seeing Washingtons tourist attractions. The Russianists and ex-Sovietologists, as usual, dominated the program. With two thirds of the 3,600 AAASS members in these fields, not surprisingly two-thirds of the panels (or 197) dealt wholly or in large part with Russia, the Soviet Union, and their successor states. About 5 per cent of AAASS members specialize on the the Habsburg monarchy and the Czechs and Slovaks, and 6 per cent of the panels (or 18) dealt with them. At one panel on „Eduard Beneš: New Perspectives," Piotr S. Wandycz (Yale U.), using Benes's own words, atributed Benes's lifelong anti-Polish Stance to his egalitar-ian reaction to the Polish feudal aristocracy, his disapproval of Poland's hostility 214 Bohemia Band 37 (1996) toward Soviet Russia, and its disputes over Těšín and Javorina. Igor Lukes (Boston U.) saw Benes's role in the Tukhachevsky Affair as that of Stalin's dupe, because Stalin himself had instigated it. Milan Hauner (U. of Wisconsin), discussing Beneš and the German problém, said Benes's deep fear of Pan-Germanism and of a Habsburg resto-ration was pardy responsible for his acceptance of a common border with the Soviet Union for security. A roundtable on „State-Building in a Multinational Setting: the Habsburg Empire and Its Legacy," brought together David Good (U. of Minnesota), István Deák (Columbia U.), Alexander J. Motyl (Columbia U.), and Dennison Rusi-now (U. of Pittsburgh). The annual business meeting of the Czechoslovak History Conference unfortunately was scheduled at the same time, thereby reducing the potential audience at each session. The panel on "The Slovák Nation in the Twentieth Century" began with T. Mills Kelly (George Washington U.) discussing the Slovák national movement and the Czech National Council from 1900 to 1914. He maintained there were common ele-ments in the Czech and Slovák struggles, within Austria-Hungary, and that the Council's activities evidenced a greater Czech interest in the Slovaks than is generally accepted. Ivan Kamenec (Historical Institute, SAV) believed the emphasis on national­ism in the first Slovák State was a means for the Ludaks to rationalize the state's prob-lems arising from its contentious relations with the Third Reich, the Jews, and the Slovák National Uprising. Darina Malová (Comenius U.) used results from parlia-mentary elections and public opinion polls to interpret nationalism as a political strat­égy in Slovakia after 1989. She said nationalism was promoted by political leaders to deflect Opposition toward government policies on the economy and socialization. Among papers given at a panel on "Comparative Approaches to Modern East Cen­tral European History," William L. Blackwood (Yale U.) saw interwar right-wing politics in Poland and Czechoslovakia as barometers for the crisis in post-1918 liberal-ism. Polish National Democracy was essentially a continuation of the program of the pre-war party, whereas Czechoslovak National Democracy, formerly the Young Czech party, became a "lightning rod for fiscal conservatism." John Connelly (U. of California, Berkeley) on the sovietization of Czech, Polish, and East German univer-sities from 1949 to 1954, described individual responses by each country to the Soviet model; therefore, one can speak only of "relatively totalitarian states" when compar-ing the three higher educational Systems. Jeremy King (Columbia U.) dealt with dif-fering perspectives on rising nationalism in the Habsburg monarchy, citing the preser-vation or destruction of statues of heroes as metaphors for local respect toward the national heritage in several towns in Hungary and Bohemia. At the session on "State Building in Central Europe: Czechoslovakia 1918 to the Present," Todd Huebner (Columbia U.) looked closely at Czechoslovakia in its for­mative years 1918-1921. He asserted that the republic was founded on the false or incorrect premise that it was a national State with national minorities, not a multination­al State; however, in the parliamentary debatě over one "Czechoslovak" language, a moderate, rather than a radical, Solution was arrived at because of the influence of T. G. Masaryk and Antonin Svehla. Nancy M. Wingfield (U. of Nevada, Las Vegas) examined the years 1945-1948 as crucial to a struggle for control of „the national memory." In a process of collective forgetting of the German contribution to the Chronik 215 culture and economy of the Bohemian Lands, the communists emerged as victors in enforcing alasting outcome. James W. Peterson (Valdosta State U.) examined various sociological and politological theories of development in the post-1989 Czech and Slo-vák republics that seek to explain the roles of public opinion and government policies in privatization, administrative reform, cultural affairs, and defense conversion. The AAASS banquet featured a talk by the association's president Marianna Tax Choldin (U. of Illinois, Urbana) on archival and library resources in Eastern Europe and Russia. She will be succeeded in office for 1996 by Abbott Gleason (Brown U.). Ralph T.Fisher (U. Illinois, Urbana) received the AAASS Award for Distinguished Contribution to Slavic Studies. The Czechoslovak History Conference, at its business meeting, named Stanley B. Winters (N.J. Institute of Technology) the recipient of its Award for Distinguished Service in Teaching, Scholarship, and Publication. Many papers presented at the Convention were of high quality. There was little rehashing of the familiär, f requent challenging of stereotypes, and adroit use of f indings from Czech, Slovák, and other European archives, particularly by advanced graduate students and recent Ph. D. ' s. Time limits for papers and comments set by the Organiz-ers were generálky observed. These points were seconded by colleagues who at-tended panels not covered here. The Convention also confirmed the presence of a substantial cohort of promising young scholars who will enrich their fields as the senior generation retires. However, the problems of academie underemployment and joblessness are serious. Even the great research universities, some mentioned above, with their huge endowments, high tuitions, and ample government contracts and public funding, are using part-time and adjunct instructors to teach undergraduates. Across the United States, Colleges and universities, faced growing enrolments and public resistance to inereased tuition, are consolidating departments, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. Vacant tenured positions remain unf illed. Many institutions háve turned to at-home Computer hookups to expand off-campus „distance learning" and thus enlarge student-teacher ratios. Educational authorities in the 50 states are pressing institutions to become more market-oriented, efficient, and accountable in their programs and budgets. Alongside these cheerless developments, the good news from the AAASS Conven-tion is that scholarly interest in the Czech, Slovák, and Habsburg fields is undiminish-ed. Port Charlotte, Florida S t a n l e y B . W i n t e r s R E I C H E N B E R G U N D S E I N E A R C H I T E K T U R U M 1900 In Reichenberg (Liberec) wurde am 12. und 13. Oktober 1995 eine neue regionalhi-storische Tagungsreihe initiiert. Die erste Veranstaltung, konzipiert von der Archi-tekturfakultät sowie der Pädagogischen Fakultät der Technischen Universität Liberec in Zusammenarbeit mit den Verwaltungen von Stadt und Kreis Liberec, war der Rei-chenberger Architektur der Jahrhundertwende gewidmet, doch versprach man sich davon offenkundig weitaus mehr, als das Thema annehmen läßt. Nicht nur, daß die Verzahnung der Architektur mit ihrem kulturellen und vor allem politischen Kontext 

English

The 1995 National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies

Ullmann, Walter

American and Vatican Reactions to the Tiso Trial

Jelinek, Yeshayahu A.

Neue Literatur 195 Sechs lesenswerte Beiträge bestätigen die Würdigung des Vorsitzenden der Acker­mann-Gemeinde Josef Stingl: Mendel war als Deutscher eine Persönlichkeit Mährens in einer Zeit, da die Nationalität kein Grund für Ablehnung oder Haß war. Sein Leben kann „Vermächtnis und Auftrag" auf dem Weg der Versöhnung zwischen Deutschen und Tschechen sein. München P e t e r L ö b l Johnson, Owen V.: Slovakia 1918-1938. Education and the Making of a Nation. Boulder, New York 1985, XVII u. 516 S. (East European Monographs 180). Johnson's book is a path-breaking work. Human biology has an iron law: the old fall off, the young age, and the still younger take the place of their seniors. Slovák nationalistic historiography and journalism after the Second World War were staffed by men who grew up and were educated in the First Czechoslovak Republic. These men did not remember, or only faintly recal-led, the Hungarian government and the national persecution of pre-Czechoslovak days. What they knew or did remember, was the Czech supremacy in the common Czech-Slovak State - a supremacy which generated, and is still generating - much hatred in the minds of the newly-bred nationalists, mostly the outcrop of Czecho­slovak schools. Nationalistic scholars, so often followers of the ideology of Hlinka's Slovák Peo-ple's Party, created, among other legends, the myth of anti-Slovak discrimination in institutions of learning and in employment in education. They also magnified with great gusto the alleged or real discrimination of Slovák intelligentsia in the Czechoslo­vak administration. Since no exact details were available, and the nationalistic ana-lysts offered seemingly hard-core evidence (in particular Konstantin Čuleň), others, including this writer, have dealt seriously with nationalistic contentions. Johnson has forced us to take a soul-searching second look. In his dissertation, Johnson has doně what a doctoral student should do: he chal-lenged the popularly accepted 'truth', proved its falsity, and set new Standards. It may well be that the next Ph. D. candidate will develop a new methodology, invent diffe-rent data, and undermine Johnson's thesis. But Johnson has set the standard for now and shaken up the existing beliefs. Slovakia 1918-1938. Education and the Making of a Nation is a mixed bag title which foretells a mixed bag narrative. Mixed, because it does not distinguish between the territory and its inhabitants. As background, Johnson reviews Upper Hungary be­fore it became part of Czechoslovakia, and continues with the central part of the Re­public before it became independent Slovakia. The major message, and the alleged in-novation of this chapter, claims that the Slovák national movement before Trianon was much stronger than Czechoslovak propagandists would like us to believe. Yet a close look into the published record of Slovák annals turns the innovation into com­mon knowledge; the nationalists no less than the propagandists were interested in minimizing the past in order to glorify the present. It was somewhat inconvenient to 196 Bohemia Band 28 (1987) relate to the real Situation. Johnson's true contribution is in synthesizing the past, and in publicly exposing the commonly possessed but hitherto hidden information. In the next chapters, the author develops the main body of his study - the discussion of secondary and post-secondary education in Slovakia, and its impact on the creation of a local intelligentsia. One by one, he describes each element in the educational net-work in Slovakia, the various secondary schools and training institutions of all kinds, the Colleges and the universities. Here he proves his worth. In a diligent research for Statistical data, Johnson wandered from town to town, from one archive to another, from one spot of instruction and education to the next. The results are both amazing and enlightening, and carefully interpreted. Johnson points to the scarcity of available data, to the considerable neglect by Czechoslovak authorities in gathering quantitative reports. Therefore, the scholarly efforts are even more praiseworthy, and the results increasingly important. Slovák politicans of whatever affiliation, whether social democrat and agrarian or non-partisan, worked hard to expand and to strengthen the educational network. There were fewer Czechs in the schools than we have so far been given to believe, and institutions of learning craved for additional Slovák teachers. The Czechs were irre-placeable because of the shortage of skilled educators, and because there was no un-employment. Not "unemployment but . . . perception of underemployment" plagued the Slovák intelligentsia, says Johnson (p. 317). It desired better jobs for its education. Johnson repeatedly returns to this thesis of his. If correct, it should revolutionize our understanding of Slovák nationalism, and in particular, the Hlinka Party's impact on academie youth. Consequently, Czech scholars, academics, and artists beat the drum to awaken Slo-vakian intelligentsia while the native sons slept, and left jobs open for strangers, be it at the university, the theatre or with the orchestra. In every place, Slovák skill was needed and welcome, but it was in short supply. On the other hand, positions in edu-cation, especially during the depression, were underpaid and unsatisfying. Johnson is not averse of eriticizm, whether overt or covert. The concept of a single, undivided nation ("Czechoslovakism"), the fear of Prague's pedantic bureauerats, and the display of misleading and harmful nationalistic fanfares, are censured, but the jud-gement is seldom biting, hardly lashing, mostly "constructively critical" intended to uncover the hidden rather than to strip the bashful. Besides the praiseworthy, there are also demands and unfulfilled expectations. As mentioned above, Johnson hints at a territory but presents a nation. After all, between the wars, every fifth inhabitant of the country was not Slovák by nationality. Although we often read about the Magyars, Germans, Jews, and others, the portion of the narra-tive devoted to non-Slovaks covers less than a fifth of the book. While we learn much about background, creation, actívity, and the desires of the Slovák intelligentsia, we know little about the Magyars, Germans, Ruthenes (who come out poorly) and others. While Slovak-Jewish clashes inside the university (but not in the streets) are duly recorded, Magyar-Slovak confrontation is very much neglected. The Germani-zation of the Magyarised youth of Spiš and the thorough Slovakization of Jewish students and pupils are dealt with very limitedly. Neue Literatur 197 True, Johnson often lacks the necessary sources and the linguistic ability - even after Trianon, knowledge of the Magyar language helps in understanding that multi­national and multiethnic country. Unfortunataly, one often feels that even distin-guished scholars fall into the line of Slovák nationalism ofSlovensko Slovákom (Slovakia for the Slovaks), and tend to diminish the role of minorities. One believes that the ap-proach to Slovakia (in contrast to the Slovaks) should be territorial rather than national. Johnson's book should change several accepted assumptions on the modern history of the Slovaks. The projected changes surely trouble those who were accustomed to and pleased that they could say they were being discriminated against, oppressed and downtrodden. Little wonder, then, that Slovák emigrees preferred to ignore uncom-fortable volumes like this. Johnson's book is most welcome. It is an example of a publication in social history which changes the perception in politics. Beer-Sheba/Israel Y e s h a y a h u A . J e l i n e k Lacina, Vlastislav: Velká hospodářská krize v Československu 1929-1934 [Die große Wirtschaftskrise in der Tschechoslowakei 1929-1934]. Academia, Prag 1984,219 S. (Russische und deutsche Zusammenfassung). Das Buch besteht aus der Einleitung, fünf Kapiteln und einer Schlußbetrachtung. Außerdem enthält es eine Zusammenfassung in russischer und deutscher Sprache, 16 statistische Beilagen, ein breites Quellenverzeichnis und ein Namensregister. Im ersten Kapitel gibt der Autor eine Übersicht über den jetzigen Stand der Unter­suchung, die Interpretation und die Hauptprobleme der großen Wirtschaftskrise. Die zusammengefaßte Erläuterung der marxistischen Theorie der Wirtschaftskrisen und die heutige Interpretation der Wirtschaftskrise in den 30er Jahren ist nur als eine me­thodische Einleitung zu beurteilen. Man darf hier keine breite und tiefgreifende theo­retische Untersuchung der Krisentheorie suchen. Das Buch ist leider nur eine wirt­schaftshistorische Arbeit ohne große theoretische Ambition. Das zweite Kapitel ist der Analyse der tschechoslowakischen ökonomischen Ent­wicklung in den 20er Jahren gewidmet, insbesondere ihrer Ausgangsposition nach dem Zusammenbruch der ehemaligen österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie am Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs. In diesem Zeitraum war die Tschechoslowakei ein Industrie-und Agrarland, das nach der Höhe des Volkseinkommens pro Kopf der Bevölkerung den 17. und nach der Höhe der Industrieproduktion den 12. Platz in der Welt ein­nahm. Bis zum Ausbruch der großen Wirtschaftskrise war der Entstehungsprozeß einer einheitlichen Ökonomik der neuen Republik noch nicht abgeschlossen: Slowa­kei und Karpatenrußland blieben rückständige Agrargebiete. Für die Struktur der In­dustrie war der Binnenmarkt zu eng, aber manche Industriezweige waren am Welt­markt wenig konkurrenzfähig. Kapitalmangel behinderte ihren Ausbau. Im Jahre 1929 wurde das Vorkriegsniveau der Industrieproduktion um etwa ein Drittel übertroffen, das der Agrarproduktion um 28 %. Dem Ausbruch der Weltwirt-

Johnson, Owen V.: Slovakia 1918–1938. Education and the Making of a Nation

Bolton, Jonathan

Mourning Becomes the Nation: The Funeral of Tomáš G. Masaryk in 1937

Agnew, Hugh L.

Neue Literatur 207 Morava, Georg J.: Franz Palacký. Eine frühe Vision von Mitteleuropa. Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Wien 1990, 244 S. In this elegant companion-piece to his earlier study, Der k.k. Dissident Karel Hav­líček, Georg Morava takés up the life and work of arguably the greatest Czech histo­rian of the modern era and a dominant figuře in the nationalist movement of the nine-teenth Century, František Palacký. This "Father of the Nation" could not entirely be ignored by the recently-overthrown totalitarian regime; but, at least officially, Palacky's place in the modern history of the Czech nation was interpreted according to the prevailing winds of Marxist-Leninist ideology. Though scholars in the West were free from these problems, and though much useful work concerning Palacky's career was accomplished under trying conditions inside Czechoslovakia, Morava clearly feels that the time has come to restate the essence of Palacký as historian and nationalist politician. The Palacký who emerges from this biography is a major, positive figuře in both these areas. His historical work, rooted in Hegelian idealism and not untouched by Herder's influences, was nevertheless based on such a wide-ranging knowledge of the sources, and such an effective critical evaluation of them, that even his opponents could not but concede that his Geschichte von Böhmen and its Czech version, Dějiny národu českého v Čechách a na Moravě, were truly great achievements. His interpre-tation of the meaning of Czech history had a great influence on the nationalist ideo­logy, even while provoking critical discussion among generations of Czech historians. But Palacky's influence on the Czech national movement was not limited to his histo­rical work alone, as Morava shows. For an entire generation he was one of the most influential political leaders among the Czechs. His contacts with the nobility of the Kingdom of Bohemia helped influence political discussion during the Vormärz, but it was his letter to the Committee of Fifty at the Frankfurt Vorparlament in April 1848 which catapaulted him, and the Czech question, to prominence. His was one of the decisive voices shaping the Kremsier Constitution, and it sounded again through the 1860s in a futile attempt to ward off the approaching dualism eventually enshrined in the Ausgleich of 1867. These aspects of Palacky's career, supplemented with glimpses of his personal life, his relationship to his wife Therese, his daughter, and his in­fluential son-in-law František L. Rieger, are well presented and illuminated with extracts from his public writings, some personal letters annd reminiscences, and comments by contemporaries. The story is told clearly, and apparently with a generál audience in mind, for the author avoids any ponderous scholarly apparatus, and the note on sources at the end of the book is intended mainly to list sources for Palacky's own published and unpublished works and papers. If this biography is aimed at a generál audience, it also expects that audience to be very well-informed about Central European history. Many events and personalities are mentioned as they touched Palacky's life, but without being more than sketchily placed in a wider context. This is also true of the treatment of Palacký himself. His public persona, his historical and political careers, are well-described; but there is very little attempt to analýze any of them more fully. Palacky's "Vision of Central Europe" is presented from his famous letter to Frankfurt (quoted in füll) and then the Kremsier 208 Bohemia Band 32 (1991) draft and other political essays (not neglecting his "Idea státu rakouského" of 1865, with its warning that "we were here before Austria, and we shall be here when she is gone"); but there is little discussion of the possibilities of realizing such a vision, nor of contemporaries' reactions, nor even of other, competing visions of Central Europe. Even Palacky's bones are simply laid to rest next to his beloved Therese without any final evaluation of his life and career. This biography of Palacky's, then, does not present anything new in information or interpretation - at least to a scholarly audience. What it does do very effectively is to summarize the career and work of a crucially important figuře in nineteenth Century Czech and European history in a form that is accessible, clear, and well-produced. Especially now, when so much of the past of Central Europe has to be reclaimed from more than a generation of political distortion, this is no mean accomplishment. Washington H u g h L. A g n e w Národní divadlo a jeho předchůdci. Slovník umělců divadel Vlastenského, Stavov­ského, Prozatímního a Národního [Das Nationaltheater und seine Vorgänger. Lexi­kon der Künstler des Vaterländischen, des Stände-, des Interims- und des National­theaters]. Academia, Praha 1988, 524 S. + Abb. Das Nachschlagewerk hatte größere Ambitionen. Es entstand, wie die Einleitung berichtet, mit Verzögerungen und Veränderungen der ursprünglichen Konzeption. Dafür, so erfährt man, habe es auch gesellschaftliche Gründe gegeben. Vielleicht wer­den diese „Gründe" für die vorliegende Form aus dem Jahre 1988 noch einmal in einer Neuauflage korrigiert. Für diesmal muß man jedenfalls nicht nur bedauern, daß mangelnde Unterlagen nicht die gehörigen Auskünfte über die Orchestermitglieder ermöglichten. Schwerer wiegt, daß dieser an sich so dankenswerte Beitrag zur Prager Theatergeschichte in einer nur recht unklaren Weise das „Nationaltheater und seine Vorgänger" behandelt, nämlich das Ständetheater und das Neue Deutsche Theater, die die längste Zeit dieser zweihundert Jahre deutsch bespielt waren. Die vorliegende lexikographische Darstellung beschränkt sich aber, von ein paar Grenzfällen abgese­hen, auf tschechische Bühnenkünstler. Das ergibt nicht nur ein irreführendes Bild und erinnert an längst überholtes nationales Konkurrenzdenken; das ist einfach bedauer­lich in dem Anliegen, die Prager Theatergeschichte der letzten zweihundert Jahre in ihrem europäischen Format bekanntzumachen. Bedauern muß man auch, daß auf diese Weise das Prager Theaterleben dieses Jahr­hunderts, soweit es außerhalb der Tradition des Nationaltheaters gepflegt wurde, nicht erfaßt worden ist. Namentlich die avantgardistischen tschechischen Bühnen, aber ebenso das Weinberger oder das Operettentheater verdienten auf mitunter ent­sprechendem Niveau Beachtung. Schließlich gab es auch bedeutende Bühnenkünstler, deren Weg nicht über das Prager Nationaltheater führte, obwohl sie auf ihre Weise für den tschechischen Anteil an der internationalen Theaterkultur repräsentativ sind. Nachdem man einmal das Nationaltheater nicht allein, sondern auch seine, wie sich 

Morava, Georg J.: Franz Palacký. Eine frühe Vision von Mitteleuropa

Cooke, Michael

Neue Literatur 233 jenigen Fachmannes, der nicht von den gedanklichen Konventionen der slowakischen nationalen Gesellschaft belastet ist, ist besser geeignet, um bedeutungslose natio­nale Mythen und stereotype Bilder zu enthüllen, zu denen auch Jarošs zentrales Sym­bol der „tausendjährigen Biene" gehört. Eine ähnliche Neigung zur Mythologisierung wie bei Jaroš konstatiert Pynsent - in Übereinstimmung mit K. Brušák - auch bei Ivan Habaj, einem Autor, der mit seinem Kult der Heimat und des Bodens dem einstigen tschechischen Ruralismus nahesteht. Es ist aufschlußreich, daß in den Beiträgen der slowakischen Konferenzteilnehmer häufig einige Namen genannt werden, die in den Studien angesehener Forscher überhaupt nicht oder nur marginal vorkommen: Zu diesen Namen gehören vor allem Ján Lenčo und Anton Hykisch (deren in der Slowa­kei hochgeschätzte historische Romane im Vergleich zum tschechischen Kontext, wo sich der historische Roman in den letzten Jahrzehnten wesentlich dynamischer ent­wickelte, eher als wenig erfindungsreich und als traditionell erscheinen), erstaunlich­erweise aber auch Rudolf Sloboda. Der Sammelband „Modern Slovák Prose" enthält eine Reihe wertvoller Analysen einzelner Autoren und Prosastücke sowie eine Fülle instruktiver Versuche, Verknüp­fungen und Entwicklungstendenzen nachzuweisen. Seine Hauptbedeutung liegt jedoch darin, daß er Auffassungen nebeneinander- und gegeneinanderstellt, die auf unterschiedlichen Forschungsmethoden beruhen (besonders markant ist der Unter­schied zwischen der analytischen Detailanalyse der englischen Konferenzteilnehmer und der Neigung der slowakischen Literaturwissenschaftler zu synthetisieren und gelegentlich auch aprioristischen Betrachtungsweisen), und damit eingelebte, heute jedoch oft nicht mehr haltbare Behauptungen und Wertungen problematisiert. Brunn B l a h o s l a v D o k o u p i l Hruby, Peter: Daydreams and Nightmares. Czech Comunist and Ex-Communist Literatuře 1917-1987. East European Monographs, Boulder 1990, 362 S. Hruby begins his book with the premise that "politics and poetry do not mix well" (p. 22), which is an arguable point in itself: one only has to think of the nineteenth Cen­tury Russian novel, or those of Dickens, Thackeray or Cervantes, the poetry of Shel­ley or Auden; or indeed of a substantial body of Czech literatuře from the fourteenth Century onwards. Moreover, it is a Statement which immediately begs a question why, given this premise, did the author devote so much of his time to the study of literary politics and political literatuře? There is little doubt that such a theme has potential. Czech literatuře, no less than any other, has raised important questions as to the rela­tionship between literatuře and (for want of a better word) society. In Daydreams and Nightmares, these questions are largely avoided. In the preface, we are warned that the author's point of view is "not (that) of a liter­ary historian, but of a political scientist". Nevertheless, what follows purports to be literary history, for the most part dealing with the lives and works of various writers in independent Czechoslovakia, paying particular attention to their "enchantment 234 Bohemia Band 33 (1992) and disenchantment with Communism" (p. 40). In blending critical analysis with bio-graphy/history, Hruby falls into the trap of doing justice to neither. The biography is anecdotal while the literary evaluation is often little more than a string of emotional adjectives. Seiferťs work, for instance, is "warm and charming" (p.127); Hasek's Švejk is "hilarious and rightly famous" (p. 141); and Kundera is "charming, witty and very entertaining" (p. 249). Furthermore, literary merit for Hruby is too often related solely to the political Stance of a given author at the time he or she was writing. In short, the truer the blue, the better. Hruby is even suspicious of Olbrachťs naming his own daughter Lenka, "as close as you can get in a Czech girl's name to Lenin" (p. 169). Needless to say, the samé author's "best creative period" (p. 172) was when he was not a member of the Communist Party. As a "personal review", Daydreams and Nightmares is frustatingly subjective and unscholarly. Hruby is liberal with his "clever" comments and tiresome in his fondness for exclamation marks; his sarcasm is intrusive, rarely funny, and less than helpful. The book is useful for information on the political fortunes of Seifert and others, while the chapter on Kundera treats early works which will be unfamiliar to readers who are not students of Czech literatuře, devoting space to his verse, drama and jour-nalism, as well as his novels. However, to write on Czech Communist and Ex-Com­munist literatuře without mentioning Jaromíra Kolářová, Ladislav Fuks or Jiří Fried is feckless to say the least. Hruby's explicit theory that poetry, for the good of us all, ought to avoid politics altogether, is not only an over-simplification, but also a missed opportunity. What is potentially the most interesting question of his chosen field of study, that of writers' self-ordained function in social affairs, is dismissed as mere weakness or naivety. To be fair, Hruby admires writers such as Ludvík Vaculík or Ivan Klíma for their out-spoken criticism of Communism, or "dissidence". But even in this there seems to be something of a contadiction. Hruby wants, so to speak, to eat his cake and háve it. Perhaps he is suggesting that while poetry should stay out of politics, prose need not - so long as the politics are of the right hue. Either way, his arguments are rather banal, and put across in such a way as to annoy, if not alienate, the reader. By the end of the book, your reviewer's tolerance of Hruby's superficial psychologising and pocket-book philosophing was strained. London M i c h a e l C o o k e 

Hruby, Peter: Daydreams and Nightmares. Czech Communist and Ex-Communist Literature 1917–1987

Múdry-Šebík, Michal

Milan Hodža's efforts to federalize central Europe

Howe, Philip J.

Loman, Thomas A.

Miller, Daniel E.

The Creation of the Conditions for Consociational Democracy and Its Development in Interwar Czechoslovakia

Henschel, Frank

Rezensionen 235Shmidt, Victoria: Child Welfare Discourses and Practices in the Czech Lands: TheSegregation of Roma and Disabled Children During the Nineteenth and TwentiethCenturies.Masarykova univerzita, Brno 2015, 127 S., ISBN 978-80-210-7834-5 (URL: https://muni-space.muni.cz/index.php/munispace/catalog/download/537/1679/288-1).Currently, “childhood” is gaining increased attention from academia, and historicalperspectives have become an integral part of research. For a long time, neitherchildren as subjects of past events nor childhood as a social category shaped bycollective perceptions, scientific discourses, and state institutions played a major rolein historiography. Instead, the rich investigations conducted by other disciplines,mainly pedagogy and sociology, which in many cases included historical perspect-ives, aroused new interest in the topic.1 Thus, the variety of implications connectedto “childhood” have recently been rediscovered by historical research: discourses on“appropriate” care and education as well as public associations, social movements, orstate institutions that, in different ways, claimed to do something for children whenthey were actually pursuing their own specific goals. The focus on childhood turnsout to reveal more than just insights concerning the specific group of children. It tellsus about the modern state, the role of science, the history of modern societies andtheir institutions, and power relations in general.2The book at hand derived from a pedagogical background but nevertheless integ-rates historical concepts such as “longue durée” or “path dependency”. VictoriaShmidt, senior researcher at the Institute for Research in Inclusive Education at theMasaryk University in Brno, traces forms and implications of child welfare in theCzech lands over 150 years, with a special focus on Roma and disabled children. Hermotivation is rooted mainly in the contemporary state of special care and the dis-courses and practices between segregation and integration regarding the two spe-cific social groups: “The interpretation of the past directly affects contemporarydiscourses and provides the grounds for accepting the responsibility towards thesustainable practice of integration of Roma and disabled children” (p. 6). In short,Shmidt aims to reveal the failures of the past in order to avoid them today and in thefuture. For historians, this in itself may not be a proper justification for research; italso questions the objectivity of the investigator. Nevertheless, Shmidt conducts asource-based, clearly structured, and systematic analysis of the subject. In a veryimpressive way, she analytically connects the discourses of different actors, politics,science, and public associations.In the beginning, the author introduces “eugenics” as a central category for thediscourses and practices of child-welfare. According to her, limiting eugenics to theNazi occupation would be a misleading option. Rather, eugenics as the idea of a bio-logically healthy national population was an inherent aspect of the Czech national1 Baader, Meike S./Eßer, Florian/Schröer, Wolfgang (eds.): Kindheiten in der Moderne. EineGeschichte der Sorge. Frankfurt am Main 2014.2 Zahra, Tara: The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II.Cambridge/Mass. 2011.Bohemia Band 56 (2016)236movement. In addition, concepts of eugenics from the late nineteenth century oninfluenced ideas and institutions of childcare and education. Regarding the First Republic, Shmidt recognizes a radicalization of the discoursethat, in particular, referred to disabled, “abnormal” children, focusing on the “no-madic” Roma: “In the late 1930s, the previously two separate eugenic views, that is the assimilation of the Roma people and the special education for delinquent children, were brought together into a new approach towards treating the Romachildren” (p. 41). The postwar years, especially after 1948, witnessed a more sophisticated classi-fication of disabilities. Medicine and biology in socialism introduced the typology ofdisabled children who were nevertheless considered able to be educated and “cultiv-ated”. These children were separated from the rest and kept aside in special institu-tions. At the same time, the socialist state began to launch a huge settlement programtargeting the Roma population in order to assimilate and integrate them. This in-cluded the large-scale separation of children from their “asocial” parents. Integrationof these children into the majority failed and was actually not even attempted sincethey were sent to special educational institutions, often combined with long-termaccommodation in boarding schools or joint children’s homes.Shmidt interprets these practices of increasing segregation accompanied by racistdegradation of the whole Roma population as a revocation of the eugenics dis-course of the First Republic:In line with the interwar triangle of principles regarding the Roma children “backward family– socialized institution – negative effect of social and hereditary factors”, the socialist expertsconstrued their arguments in favor of special education which had evolved towards the mostextreme degree of segregation – marking all Roma children as “mentally retarded”. (p. 87)In the last chapter, the author compares contemporary forms of “special educa-tion” and the new goal of “inclusion” of disabled children in different member states of the European Union. In the final summary, she returns to her starting point,presenting the outcome of the historical analysis for the contemporary discussionunderlining the particular relevance of history for a critical self-image of social sci-ences such as (special) pedagogy, which, in the case of the post-socialist Czech Republic, would be widely missing. All in all, Shmidt offers a concise and mostly readable overview of 150 years ofchild welfare in the Czech lands including Slovakia in the socialist period. The bookindeed responds to an argument within the field of education about the need to con-front the contemporary discourse and practices with history. Apart from that,Shmidt carefully reveals similarities of discourses and institutions considering “dis-abled children” in different political and social contexts of the Czech lands. She thusinvites readers to further investigate forms and implications of childcare and educa-tion in (socialist) postwar Europe that will definitely lead to highly innovativeinsights, especially in a comparative perspective.Leipzig Frank Henschel

Shmidt, Victoria: Child Welfare Discourses and Practices in the Czech Lands: The Segregation of Roma and Disabled Children During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Hajtó, Vera

Bohemia Band 53 (2013)244seitdem „im Belagerungszustand“ befand, wie auch US-Botschafter Steinhardt nachWashington kabelte (S. 205).Wie schon Lundestad in seinem Band von 1978 lässt auch Lukes an seiner har-schen Kritik an der amerikanischen wie allgemein der westlichen Position in dieserfrühen Phase des Kalten Krieges keinen Zweifel, wobei sich seine Wortwahl sogarhäufig nahe der Rhetorik der innenpolitischen Debatte der späten vierziger undfünfziger Jahre bewegt, als insbesondere in den amerikanischen Wahlkämpfen überdie Schuldigen am „Verlust“ von Gebieten an „den Kommunismus“ gestritten wurde.China war nach Meinung der Republikaner von den Demokraten „verloren“ wor-den, Ostmitteleuropa war ebenso „verloren“ gegangen. „Der Westen akzeptierte inRuhe“, schreibt Lukes, „den Verlust der Tschechoslowakei an den totalitären Behe-moth“ (S. 203). In diesem Zusammenhang zeichnet er dann auch ausführlich nach,auf welchen Gebieten die USA seiner Meinung nach „Rückzugsbewegungen“ inOstmitteleuropa vollzogen, wo eigentlich eine Offensive nötig gewesen wäre. Dieswar prinzipiell auch die Meinung von Botschafter Steinhardt und nicht zuletzt vonCIA-Chef Allen Dulles, die Lukes zitiert (S. 229). Die Antwort auf die Frage aller-dings, was die Sowjetisierung Ostmitteleuropas hätte aufhalten können, musstenauch diese schuldig bleiben, wohl wissend, dass eine offensive Befreiung von kom-munistischer Herrschaft nach 1945 immer mit einem Krieg mit ungewissem Aus-gang verbunden gewesen wäre. Zusammenfassend ist Lukes’ Arbeit über die US-Politik in der Tschechoslowakeiin der unmittelbaren Nachkriegszeit eine meinungsstarke, aber auch detaillierte undquellengesättigte Untersuchung zur zurückhaltenden Position Washingtons, die erstnach langem Suchen zu einer kohärenten Linie in Ostmitteleuropa fand. Dies warallerdings auch in anderen Teilen der Welt, so in Ostasien, nicht anders.Potsdam Bernd StöverZahra, Tara: The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families After World War II.Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2011, 308 S., ISBN 978 - 0 - 674 - 04824 - 9.“Whereas interwar humanitarian efforts had focused primarily on meeting chil-dren’s material needs, Europeans were particularly obsessed with restoring thepsychological stability of youth after World War II.” The above quotation from theintroduction of Tara Zahra’s book “The Lost Children” adequately presents themain message of the monograph. This sharp-eyed observation of the author is arecurrent scheme of the book. While after World War I national and internationalsocial workers, politicians, diplomats and other agents involved in child welfare weremainly concerned with the physical and moral well-being of children in crises situa-tions, they have added an extra-angle to their work after World War II. The newparadigm of relief became the focus on the psyche.Based on the intensive use of archives in several countries, such as Germany, theCzech Republic, France, Poland or the United States, of postwar displaced personsand relief organizations, Zahra presents an impressive study on the entanglement ofRezensionen 245the concept of childhood with ideas about nation and national interests as well as onthe development of national and international institutions and policies of child well-fare during wartime and the post-war era of the 1940s and 1950s. Millions ofchildren were left homeless and abandoned by the Second World War. Their pre-carious situation needed urgent attention. Zahra demonstrates how the differentagents envisaged diversely the rehabilitation and future of Europe’s youth togetherwith Europe’s political and social rehabilitation and future development. Childrenbecame symbols of the reconstruction of new European democracies and the cre-ation of sovereign nation states. They became national property.The book more or less follows a chronological order, starting with child well-fareand humanitarian relief for children during the interwar era. It continues through thewartime period up until the Cold War era of the 1950s. It closely focuses on thedevelopment of the varying views of agents and their policies on the “best interest”of children. As Zahra clearly illustrates throughout the book, defining the “best interest” of the child was a changing variable in time and in the work of agents.The first four chapters of “The Lost Children” present the evolution of the pro-fessionalization and institutionalization of social work with children. Internationalorganizations were set up and their co-operation with each other as well as withnational agents became more and more harmonized by the middle of the 20th cen-tury. In these chapters, Zahra introduces the reader to the gradual shift of focus ofthe social agents from the material needs of children to the importance of theirpsychological development. While during the interwar period social workers, poli-ticians or government officials paid little attention to the importance of family unityin children’s healthy development, after World War II the role of the family en-vironment (especially the mother-child relationship) became primordial. Childrenand childhood together with the family were more and more politicized in nationaland international discourses. The recovery of the psychological well-being of children was envisaged via unambiguous, stabile family and national identities.However, in reality individual cases confronted the social workers with the fact thatneither family unity nor national identity can be taken for granted. Consequently,there were contesting views on whether familial or collective care would suit betterthe rehabilitation of Europe’s “lost children”.In chapter five and six, Zahra calls the attention to two case studies on France andCzechoslovakia during the second half of the 1940s. She describes the obsession ofthese two countries with their demography and population planning. And althoughFrance and Czechoslovakia had different approaches in achieving populationgrowth, unity and stability, their main objectives were both heavily nationalistic andinvolved the politicizing of children and their families.At the end of the monograph the author arrives to the Cold War conflict. Theemerging contest and conflict between East and West Europe had a crucial impact onthe future social work with displaced children. Zahra argues that another shift hadtaken place in the conceptualization of children and their relationship to the nationstate. While before the intensification of the conflict children were objects of nation-alist projects for achieving population growth and national sovereignty, in a coupleof years, children simply became “pawns” in the escalating Cold War. The so high-Bohemia Band 53 (2013)246ly praised importance of reuniting families, restoring national identities and psycho-logical well-being suddenly, under the aegis of the “best interest” of children, werereformulated. The idea of what constitutes democracy and family life had once morebeen changed.In retrospect, Zahra concludes that “the family was more politicized than ever in1945, as it seemed to hold the key to European peace and to the future of democra-cy.” She suggests that the Second World War and its consequent massive displace-ment of people transformed both children and childhood and remade home andhomeland as we now know it. With the aid of an incredibly rich material, the monograph paints a very vivid picture of destructed Europe and its “lost children”. However, this richness of infor-mation often becomes overwhelming. This makes this intriguing book a very diffi-cult read. In the small and countless details the main message is sometimes lost anddisintegrated. Certain organizational problem of the material adds to this impres-sion. For instance, the introduction does not clarify enough the intentions of theauthor concerning the organization of the next eight chapters. Therefore, the arrange-ment and the connections between the individual chapters are also not entirely clear. There are complex issues discussed in each chapter. They are approached frommany different and thought-provoking angles. The chapters discuss gender, refugeeand human rights questions, institutionalization of the emerging profession of so-cial work, bi-racial and transnational family relations as well as international adoption.The detailed and numerous case-studies used as illustrations enhance the complexi-ty of the story and sometimes hinder the author to go deeper in the theory. Thequestion of gender, for example, is one of the major issues in discussing family andnation state in the history of the 20th century. Nira Yuval-Davis argues in her semi-nal book, “Gender and Nation”, that the construction of nationhood involves spe-cific notions of both ‘manhood’ and ‘womanhood’. She suggests that in nationalistprojects women often become national properties and acquire symbolic positions ascultural and biological reproducers of the nation.1 Zahra’s arguments would nicelyfit into this line of inquiry, however, the lack of elaboration or the better situating ofthe issue in the structure of the book often prevents the reader to see the link andsimilarity between the concepts of motherhood and childhood in the context ofnational discourses. The connection between pre-World War II maternalist andfamilialist policies and the after war developments is also missing. Women’s symbol-ic position in the future of the family and the nation was also central after World War I. After all, the expression, “Back to home and duty!” was born in the aftermathof the Great War. The lack of connection with interwar social tendencies and poli-cies (relation to family, demography, etc.) gives the reader the impression that thephenomena that Zahra describes in the post-Second World War context are entirelynew and were developed under the influence of social work with displaced children.However, these issues were already present in both Western and Central-Eastern1 Yuval-Davis, Nira: Gender and Nation. London 1997.Rezensionen 247Europe. They were just reformulated and adapted to the new socio-political contextas the consequence of the war.Socio-geographic concepts such as “Eastern Europe”, “Central Europe” or “Cen-tral-Eastern Europe” are also not clarified, in spite of the intense interdisciplinarydebate on their definition and position throughout history (especially the 20th cen-tury). Moreover, discussing issues of forced population movement, shifting nationalboundaries or national identities in the region in the first half of the 20th centurywould require the mentioning of the cases of Hungary and Romania.In conclusion, Zahra’s book is a significant and valuable contribution to the histo-ry of childhood. She brilliantly places the history of children into the general politi-cal and social history of Europe during and after World War II. Her research demon-strates the new direction in historical writing, which emphasizes that the history ofchildhood “is the true missing link: connecting the personal and the public, thepsychological and the sociological, the domestic and the state.” 22 Mintz, Steven: Why the History of Childhood Matters. In: The Journal of the History ofChildhood and Youth 5 (Winter 2012) No. 1, 15-28, here 17.Leuven Vera HajtóHolý, Jiří /Málek, Petr/Špirit, Michael/Tomáš, Filip: Šoa v české literatuře a kulturnípaměti [Die Schoah in der tschechischen Literatur und im kulturellen Gedächtnis]. Akropolis, Praha 2011, 312 S., ISBN 978 - 80 - 87481 - 14 -1.Obwohl es mit Blick auf das große Interesse und im gewissen Sinne auch diePopularität der tschechoslowakischen literarischen und filmischen Produktion überdie Shoah (Holocaust) erstaunlich erscheinen mag, fehlte bislang eine zusammenfas-sende Studie zu diesem Thema – insbesondere eine, welche die Kulturgeschichte imKontext der Erinnerungskultur der Nachkriegszeit behandelt. Das Autorenkollektivunter der Leitung von Jiří Holý vom Zentrum für das Studium des Holocaust undder jüdischen Literatur versucht nun, diese Lücke zu schließen. Die vorliegendePublikation knüpft an den von Holý herausgegebenen Sammelband „Holokaust –Šoa – Zagłada v české, slovenské a polské literatuře“ (Holocaust – Shoah – Ver-nichtung in der tschechischen, slowakischen und polnischen Literatur) von 2007 an.Während der vorangegangene Band jedoch eine Sammlung von Tagungsbeiträgenwar, bemühen sich die Autoren des hier rezensierten Werkes um eine stärkere Ver-knüpfung und Synthese der Texte. Allerdings schlagen die einzelnen Beiträge the-matisch und vor allem methodisch dann dennoch recht unterschiedliche Richtungenein. Etwa die Hälfte des Buches machen drei Texte von Jiří Holý aus, die zusammendas Faktengerüst liefern. Bei seinem Überblick über die Bearbeitung jüdischerThemen und der Shoah in der tschechischen und der slowakischen Literatur derNachkriegszeit, bei der Analyse der literarischen Sichtweisen auf die Täter sowie derTexte der zweiten Generation stützt sich Holý auf seine nachgerade enzyklopädi-schen Kenntnisse und führt Beispiele aus einer Vielzahl von Werken an. Die literari-

Zahra, Tara: The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II

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