Czech Dissidents and History Writing from a Post-1989 Perspective

A recognition of the value of "factography" caused many professional historians, most of them from the "gray zone," to criticize [Podiven]'s book. Critics such as Josef Hanzal, a historian at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, were quick to label Czechs in the Modern Era an "essay" rather than a proper work of history. "What we are discussing here is an extremely inconsistent and contentious work," he wrote. "It is not at heart a work of scholarship but an essay [consisting of] speculations concerning key periods and problems in Czech history.... [The authors] let a number of factual errors slip in and do not offer enough argumentation for some highly questionable judgments and condemnations."(38) Too often critics like Hanzal failed to pinpoint these "errors," but others did. Jaroslav Valenta, a researcher in the Academy of Sciences Department of Central and East European history, took special issue with Podiven's claim that Czechs were insulated and parochial, and to prove his point offered a long list of examples that pointed to Polish-Czech harmony. Czechs in the Modern Era, he concluded, "is full of judgments and conclusions that only with great difficulty hold up to historical criticism."(39) Ji...í Rak, a professor at Charles University, went so far as to call the work an "antimyth." Their arguments, he stated, were drawn not from history but from the authors' perception of today's national consciousness. Far from overcoming historical myths, Podiven had merely created a new -- and somewhat unpalatable -- contender, he stated.(40) For Rak, historians, as opposed to "publicists," owe their first allegiance to "scholarship" -- objectively seeking to advance knowledge by employing accepted methods of the guild. Their work, he wrote, should "avoid extreme stances, point out positive and negative aspects of historical development and the historical context of phenomena, [and] refrain from categorical judgments."(41)
This approach has its critics, however, as witnessed by the responses to Pánek's speech in newspapers, at a recent conference in December 1999 and in an ongoing internet discussion.(92) Included among them arc those, in the tradition of Podiven, who insist that historians should look at the uncomfortable periods in the nation's life, arguing that a critical approach to history strengthens society: "Communal failures...are one of the best means toward social solidarity. At the same time this requires pulling out from memory negative experiences."(93) There is, one of the December conference's organizers stated, a long history of "negative" or, better put, critical Czech historical writing from notable figures such as Rádl, [Jan Pato]...ka and the dissident community.(94) But many also wonder if historians should be attempting to reach some sort of consensus as to a "correct view" of Czech history at all, suggesting that such goals arc unfit for a post-1989 world. "Factography," they maintain, functions as an alibi for predefined conceptions about history and historical development, given weight by thin claims to science and objectivity. Such an approach may use "scientific" language to mute debate, something which historians should be encouraging in a democratic society.(95) Instead, what emerges is a dangerous "partisan optimism" among historians who believe that they can insulate themselves from outside ideas. As one critic recently concluded, the effort to justify a "correct" interpretation of Czech history in the name of national consciousness "seems disastrous to me because only a totalitarian regime can be completely successful in providing such assurances."(96) In other words, as another internet contributor wrote, it looks like many former Communists' efforts at writing history, "like a claim to political control by social science which would no longer belong to the realm of asserting individual, group, class or national interests and [instead] would become the guarantor of historical truth. We have already had that, right?"(97)