Jan Mertl: sociolog-kolaborant, nebo oběť okolností?

Abstract

The article analyses the life and academic contribution of one of the most prominent interwar Czech sociologists, Jan Mertl (1904-1978), whose studies in political sociology studies were highly innovative in his day, in both the Czech and the international context. Mertl was a follower of Max Weber and focused on the comparative historical-sociological analysis of political partisanship and party systems. He also devoted extensive study to changes in the relationship between state administration/bureaucracy and political representation. He enriched the field of (Czech) sociological theory with his concept of the 'self-regularity of social phenomena', dealing with the unintended outcomes and latent functions of social action, and he attempted to distinguish between Weberian ideal types and 'historical types'. He also made the first systematic analysis of modern bureaucracy, using the Weberian concept of the 'iron cage of modernisation'. However, Mertl is a significant figure in the history of Czech sociology for another reason: his behaviour during the Second World War is generally perceived as an explicit example of collaboration with Nazism, which led to Mertl's total exclusion from the academic community after the war. The author analyses the motives and extent of Mertl's 'wrongdoing', as well as the reasons for his being ostracised by the academic world, even though he was officially acquitted of collaboration. The author also provides a brief description of his later life. The article is based on all available published sources and on a large number of previously unknown and unexploited archive materials.