The Czechs and their View of History

ABSTRACT

This article aims to provide the first complete overview of the nature and content of the historical consciousness of the Czech population to be based on knowledge gained through tools from quantitative sociological methodology. First there is a snapshot of the population's interest in the history of the Czech Republic as such; then the focus is on general aspects of historical consciousness, particularly people's ideas about the importance of the forces that influence the course of history, and their assessment of the general importance of history. Interpretation of the analysis concludes with evaluations of Czech national history and its various stages and major events. In the final discussion there is a comprehensive interpretation of the empirical knowledge gained, in the context of existing theoretical concepts.

Keywords:

• historical consciousness
• collective memory
• history
• Czech national history
• sociological research
• quantitative methodology

Notes

1 This Article was prepared with the support of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, during the project Sociological Research of Historical Consciousness of Citizens of the Czech Republic (reg. no. 403/09/0862).

2 The term historisches Bewußtsein has gradually gained widespread use alongside the term Geschichtsbewußtsein even in German scholarship. See, e.g., Straub (1998), Georgi and Ohliger (2009).

3 As yet these discussions in Czech scholarship have not resulted in (if we leave aside texts published before 1989) any representative published outcome attempting to offer a more precise definition of historical consciousness that we could refer to here. Traces of these discussions can, however, be found on websites. Czech historiographers that used term historical consciousness include J. Křen, Miroslav Hroch, Z. Beneš and many more.

4 The questionnaire survey ‘Aktér 2009’ is one stage of research in the team project ‘Actors, Risks, and Trust in Society’, which is part of the research programme of the Faculty of Sciences and the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, ‘The Advancement of Czech Society in the European Union: Challenges and Risks’. Data collection in the field was conducted by STEM between 13 and 21 December 2009 from a quota sample of 1071 respondents representing the population of the Czech Republic between the ages of 18 and 65.

6 These viewpoints were revealed in an exploratory factor analysis of the data from the series of questions on history and its significance. The output of the analysis of the whole data set is shown here to provide more descriptive insight (Principal Component Analysis, Varimax rotation, explained variance: 54.6%, min. eigenvalue: 1.00.)

11 We know from archive documents that this was a closed question, the respondents were offered a list of responses from which to choose.

12 What is more, it is also the case that in the period between 1948 and 2009, the period when the surveys were carried out and that is the focus of our discussion, some periods and events ceased to belong to the first group and moved into the second one. For example, the First Republic was for most respondents in 1948 one that they had lived through themselves. In 2008 the share of respondents who were at least ten years of age in 1938 and of whom it can be assumed they had at least some personal experience with that period was only 1%.

13 The sample representing the entire population of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was made up of 1088 respondents; 662 were from the Czech regions, 426 from the Slovak regions. Unfortunately, there are no primary data available for this survey either.

14 In Slovakia, the glorious periods in history were ordered as follows: the Slovak National Revival (Štúr period) 36%, the period after January 1968 36%, the Slovak National Uprising 26%, the First Czechoslovak Republic 17%, the period after February 1948 (the Communist coup) 16%, 1945–1948 13%, the period of the Slovak State 13%, Great Moravia 3%, other responses 3% (Vztah 1968: 9).

15 The phrasing used in the survey is typical of research conducted under the Communist regime: ‘the most significant’ need not mean ‘the greatest’ or ‘the most glorious’

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jiří Šubrt

Jiří Šubrt, CSc. (*1958) lectures in sociology at the Faculty of the Humanities and at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. Since 2009 he has been head of the Department of Historical Sociology at the Faculty of the Humanities. He is the author or co-author of several books (in Czech): The Civilization Theory of Norbert Elias (1996); Figures and Questions in Contemporary Theoretical Sociology (2001); Time and Society (2003); Historical Sociology (2007, editor), Contemporary Sociology Vols. I, II, III, and IV (2007, 2008, 2010 editor).

Jiří Vinopal

Jiří Vinopal, Ph.D., (*1978) is a research methodologist of the Public Opinion Research Centre at the Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. He lectures in sociological research methodology at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. He is the author of the books (in Czech) Cognitive Approaches in Survey Methodology: The Immediate Validation Method (2008), Empirical Accessibility of Left-Right Political Orientations (2006), Standardised Questioning: Communicative and Cognitive Aspects (2006). Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, Celetna 20, Prague 1, Prague, 11642 Czech Republic. E-mail: [email protected]

Martin Vávra

Martin Vávra (*1979) is currently a doctoral student in sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. The subject of his thesis is the sociological aspects of the transformation of criminal law after 1989. He works in the Sociological Data Archive at the Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, where he specialises in the management and archiving of sociological research data and in sociological research methodology. He also works as a researcher at CESES at the Faculty of Social Sciences, where he specialises in research on values in society. Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Czech Sociological Data Archive, Jilska 1, Prague 1, Prague, 11000 Czech Republic. E-mail: [email protected]