Czech Lands Research Articles

Mind the Gap: On the Absence of Writing Women in German-Language Literature of the Czech Lands

The absence of female writing forms a particularly striking gap in the historiography of German-language literature in the Czech Lands during the decades around 1900. Women participated significantly in the literary scene of the period but were largely forgotten. Our article will discuss the conditions and discourses that enabled women to be active in the public space but later led to their absence in literary history. Approaches are sought that make future inclusion possible again. The first step for (re-)establishing a female presence in this area is to reconstruct biographies with a focus on female-specific social realities at the time and on the interaction of cultural, social and historical factors. In the next step, attention is brought to the “minor” or “simple”, rather non-canonical literary genres that were often used by women authors at the fin de siècle.

Biowarfare against the Nazis: the ethics, efficacy and consequences of a forgotten operation by the Czech resistance in the Second World War

This article investigates a little-known instance of biological warfare in the Czech lands during the first phase of the Nazi occupation in 1939–1940. The authors analyse the case in terms of the motivations, the related ethical challenges, strategies and tactics. Using archival materials, for the first time, they describe in detail the activities of the so-called Vignati group, a part of the broader Czech resistance organisation Obrana národa. Strategically, these activities were an attack against German military and civilian targets, but the objectives were not reached tactically because the biological agents used proved ineffective.

Silent shadows in the rebirth of Czech nation: Unveiling the role of rape and sexual violence in the ethnic cleansing of post‐WWII Czech lands

AbstractThe article explores the harrowing use of sexual violence as a tool in the ethnic cleansing of Germans in post‐World War II Czechoslovakia. By examining the grim realities of internment camps, prisons, and border regions, it reveals a disturbing pattern of abuse aimed primarily at German women by Czech men. This violence was not isolated but integral to the broader project of national cleansing, laying bare the patriarchal foundations of Czechoslovak society. State policies, including the differential treatment of mixed marriages, reinforced a male‐dominated ethos. By stripping Germans of their citizenship and legal protections, Czech authorities fostered a climate of impunity, allowing a wave of sexual violence to persist through the ‘German transfers’. The article sheds light on this dark chapter, exposing how rape was used to reaffirm Czech men's dominance in the nation's postwar rebirth.

„Býti národním v umění je směšný pleonasmus. Národní je i spánek.“ K německočeské debatě nad moderním meziválečným uměním

As an art historian who has long focused on the manifestations of the visual culture of the German-speaking scene in the Czech lands, I have repeatedly encountered the topic of perceiving the “Czechness” and “worldliness” of domestic production. From my research perspective, I see two levels in this beautiful and provocative challenge. The first is the evergreen of German-Bohemian art, i.e. if we apply a national or geographical scale to the artistic expressions that emerged from the Czech lands. Today, of course, we take a geographical view, but if we look at the production of individual regions side by side, it is impossible not to see clear differences on the part of the ethnically Czech and German scenes. Capturing and defining more universally some of the subliminal specifics that are apparent at first glance is a challenge that still occupies me mentally, despite the awareness of the absurdity of searching for a national definition of art. Fixing the key features is complicated by the existence of multicultural exceptions, which often introduce an element of Judaism into the traditional dualism of the period under review. These exceptions successfully disrupt the flattened idea of parallel Czech- and German-speaking cultural and social worlds of the Czech lands. Moreover, it is precisely these exceptions that are often the bearers of tendencies towards imaginary worldliness, which brings us to the second level of this consideration – to what extent and through what phenomena the territorially and numerically relatively small art scene of the Czech lands can be perceived as world-class. The answer may be the market, or a confident search for regional authenticity. In the words of Josef Kroutvor, “minor branches of modernity.” It seems to me that in today’s global world, their offsprings are more important than many textbook examples of the avant-garde.

Českost a světovost moderního umění v Čechách (1848–1948)

The texts contained in this special issue of Acta Universitatis Carolinae: Philosophica et Historica / Studia Historiae Artium were presented as papers at a conference entitled Czechness and Internationalism of Modern Art in Bohemia (1848–1948), held on 24 May 2022 at the Institute of Art History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. The theme of the conference was chosen in respect of the research interests of Professor Petr Wittlich, a long-time pedagogue and researcher at the Institute, who celebrated a significant jubilee on 23 May 2022. Colleagues, pupils and friends of the professor, who during their professional careers have also dealt with the issue of national, transnational and international identity of modern art in the Czech lands, were invited to participate in the conference. They focused both on local disciplinary practice and retrospective assessment of the phenomenon of nationality within modernity, modernism and the avant-garde, and also explored historical debates on this topic, projected into specific works, art projects and institutional programmes.

Komplex nadřazenosti. „Naše“ versus „cizí“ v českém užitém umění mezi světovými válkami

André Gide described Soviet attitudes towards the outside world in the 1930s as a manifestation of a superiority complex. And it seems to me that the proclamations of representatives of architecture, applied arts and professional art education in the Czech lands between 1918 and 1925, when they created a “national” or “state” style, do not differ much from these attitudes in many ways. In the texts of Pavel Janák, Otakar Novotný, Jaroslav Benda, V. V. Štech and others, the pronoun “our” occurs most often, which seems to have been generally accepted without further explanation; the opposite is “foreigners” who have nothing more to offer “us” – as the above-mentioned representatives of the Czechoslovak Werkbund, an organization that has set itself the goal of raising the level of housing culture and the environment of life in general, assure themselves. It manifestly promoted “domestic values and domestic spirit”, which are embodied in Slavic poetic, emotional, melodic works, suitable for the mood of “our people”, who were defined as a small, modest person, an ordinary descendant of farmers and village teachers. He is satisfied with the “provinciality”, the “obsolescence” of “our” art, because it reflects “our” conditions. Although the textual programmes of the representatives of the state, national style come to terms with the position of Czech applied art and architecture on the world stage in an immature way, the actual results of their artistic work no longer have to be evaluated from the modernist perspective as a dead end, but as distinctive manifestations of international modern decorativism, despite the isolationist ideas of the creators at the time.

Dějiny historické vědy. Normativní příběh vlastního oboru nebo reflexivní dějiny kulturní praxe?

This polemic article is a reaction to the collection Německá medievistika v českých zemích do roku 1945 / German Medieval Studies in the Czech Lands up to 1945. In it the author considers contemporary Czech scholarship on German historiography of the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th century and criticises the methodologically unexplained limitation of the work to medieval studies. He argues against the rigid division of German historiography into university and regional and the unambiguous definition of economic and social history as the matrix for distinguishing between two German historiographies. From the methodological point of view he challenges the use of almost any kind of normative assumptions when writing the history of historiography. He regards the best research approaches to be those that use biographical analysis to uncover the strategic practice of specific historians. Conversely he questions studies concerned with identifying the contribution of Germans historians to the crimes of Nazism and its legitimisation, and takes a sceptical view of the possibility of distinguishing between ideological "deformation" and "pure scholarship".

Count Leopold I Berchtold and his contacts with Great Britain as a source of inspiration for his philanthropic activities

This paper deals with the British contacts made by Count Leopold I Berchtold (1759–1809), a prominent philanthropist from the Czech lands, as well as examining how these contacts influenced his activities and the spread of scientific knowledge to the Czech lands and presenting a rather unusual kind of cultural transfer between Britain and the Habsburg Monarchy involving philanthropism and medical science. The paper is based on the analysis of the sources stored in the Moravian Provincial Archive in Brno relating to Leopold’s life as well as on the analysis of some of his writings.

National Indifference Concept and Contemporary WWII Military Reenactment in Czech Lands: A Comparative View of the Groups Reenacting Hultschin and Estonian SS Conscripts

National Indifference Concept and Contemporary WWII Military Reenactment in Czech Lands: A Comparative View of the Groups Reenacting Hultschin and Estonian SS Conscripts

Searching for the Fundamental Book of Buddhism in the Czech Lands and Slovakia

Searching for the Fundamental Book of Buddhism in the Czech Lands and Slovakia

The Army, the Great War, and the Belated Industrialisation of Shoemaking in the Czech Lands

The army was perhaps the first bulk buyer of mass-produced footwear. In Europe, several regions focused on the bulk production of military (and civilian) footwear owe their origins to the army. This was also the case in the Czech Lands. The belated industrialisation of footwear production in the Czech Lands dates back to the Balkan Wars and World War I. The army and the war economy businesses under military control played a key role in this process. This study is devoted to the multifaceted role of the army in the completion of the industrialization of Czech shoemaking.

The Beginnings of Steroid Chemistry in The Czech Lands

Steroid research in the Czech Republic has a long tradition, and this article takes the liberty of summarizing the most important details and information that the author remembers and that he managed to find.

Progress versus tradition – traditional craftsmanship and attempts at industrial tower clock production in the Czech lands in the 19th century

Progress versus tradition – traditional craftsmanship and attempts at industrial tower clock production in the Czech lands in the 19th century

Jesuit Art and Czech Lands, 1556–1729: Missionizing through the Arts ed. by Kateřina Horníčková and Michal Šroněk (review)

Jesuit Art and Czech Lands, 1556–1729: Missionizing through the Arts ed. by Kateřina Horníčková and Michal Šroněk (review)

Czech Hercules: Gustav Frištenský, ‘Musculinity’, the Others and Visual Pleasure around 1900

Before 1900, in the Czech lands of the Habsburg Monarchy, the lean body of an athlete became a representation of strength, health, and beauty. Through Sokol gymnastics, the body of every Czech man was to be shaped into the form of the somatic mythotype Apollo. After 1900, in circuses, variety shows, and strength sports clubs, a new ideal man embodying somatic mythotype Hercules appeared: the strongman, who transformed a lightly muscled Apollonian shape into a modern Herculean form bulking massive shredded musculature. Strongman Gustav Frištenský in particular, whose body was eroticized, photogenized, nationalized, and racialized, embodied a mobilizing sports star who strengthened the Czech national community. Frištenský’s body was shaped by Hellenistic idealism, which gave rise to his adherence to the somatic mythotype of Hercules. This subsequently gave birth to ‘musculinity’, a new kind of hegemonic masculinity. The perception of Frištenský’s body was influenced by a physical resemblance to the Estonian wrestler Georg Lurich, by practices of othering, and the myth of white male supremacy. The steel and statuesque aesthetic of Frištenský’s body and the voyeurism of the masses then undermined traditional middle-class prudery and patriarchal control over the distribution of visual pleasure.

Accounting on Czech Noble Estates during the Agricultural Revolution

ABSTRACT The paper follows Edwards’ (2011) findings published in the Accounting Historians Journal concerning the persistence of a simpler style of bookkeeping in practice instead of double-entry accounting, even in the period of growth of the capitalist mode of economy. The article supports the conclusion about the use of accounting for managerial purposes by examining the content of treatises written by members of the Puteani family, who fundamentally influenced accounting on noble estates in the Czech Lands during the agricultural revolution (late 1700s–1870s). The paper describes the structure and essence of cameralist accounting, which replaced the older bookkeeping style and was preferred over double-entry accounting by landowners. It demonstrates that cameralist accounting became an integrated part of the reforms applied at Czech noble estates during the agriculture revolution due to its objectives, which fully corresponded with the purposes of the owners for the management and development of their estates. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: N83; N13; M41; O16.

Jesuit Art and Czech Lands, 1556–1729: Missionizing through the Arts, edited by Kateřina Horníčková and Michal Šroněk

Jesuit Art and Czech Lands, 1556–1729: Missionizing through the Arts, edited by Kateřina Horníčková and Michal Šroněk

Solidarity or National Prejudice? Migrating Brewery Workers and the Troubles with Transferring Internationalist Ideologies from the Czech Lands to the United States, 1890–1914

Abstract Brewery workers who migrated between the Czech Lands and the United States existed in a complex world of fluid loyalties and ideologies that traveled with them as they crossed back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean. This article focuses on the publications of brewery workers’ unions on both sides of the ocean, as they espoused often competing and conflicting interpretations of both nationalism and internationalism. A study of these publications, which included contributions from rank-and-file union members, helps us see how migrating brewery workers and union leadership interacted with these ideologies differently according to context and location.

Cartographic analysis of two centuries of map printing using copperplates – examples from the Czech Republic and Malta collections

Abstract This paper provides a comprehensive description of preserved copper plates used for map printing in order to enrich the existing knowledge and, at the same time, contribute with new knowledge on the topic of the engraving of old maps. The dimensions, thickness, and weight of individual printing plates were measured. Qualitative indicators of the material were also examined. Printing plates originating from countries north of the Alps (former Czech lands) and from Mediterranean regions (Malta and Italy) are represented. For the purpose of the study, the term printing plate refers to a copperplate on which the engraving was made using the burin or line etching technique. These are some of the oldest reproduction techniques used for printing old maps. The period studied covers the 18th century, approximately. Studies dealing with a large set of printing plates and their classification are rather an exception (Hameleers 1989). The issue of the qualitative properties of printing plates has not yet been comprehensively addressed in the literature focusing on the history of cartography.

Založení nejstarších benediktinských klášterů v Čechách ve světle písemných pramenů (od šedesátých let 10. do šedesátých let 11. století)

The article is devoted to the establishment of the oldest monastic institutions in the Czech lands in the 10th and 11th century and the scriptural sources dealing with the circumstances of their establishment. It deals with the founding of the female monastery of St. George at Prague Castle and the male monasteries of Břevnov, Ostrov, and Sázava.