Publication details
Warum tschechische Geschichte?
| Title in English | Why th Czech History? |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2023 |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | In German-language historiography, the term "Historikerstreit" has been firmly anchored for several decades, primarily as "a contemporary historical debate in the Federal Republic of Germany about the singularity of the Holocaust and the question of what role it should play for an identity-forming image of German history". Czech historiography and political journalism also have their "historians' dispute", although its historical context, content and labelling differ somewhat from the German situation. The debate, known as the dispute over "the meaning of Czech history", is characterised by a polemic that took place primarily between 1895 and 1938 and in which the leading figures of Czech philosophy (Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Emanuel Rádl) and Czech historiography (Josef Pekař, Kamil Krofta, Jan Slavík and others) took part, as well as representatives of other disciplines (such as the political economist Josef Kaizl). The dispute took place on several levels, with the conflict between Masaryk's philosophically "idealistic-teleological" and Pekař's "empirical-positivist" interpretation of Czech history crystallising as a central point. |