Paměť a (soudobé) dějiny. Nejen nad třemi ročníky časopisu Paměť a dějiny

The author begins his assessment of the first three volumes (2007–09) of Paměť a dějiny (Memory and History), the quarterly of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, in Prague, by considering the terms in the title of the periodical and their relationship to each other, particularly in the fi eld of contemporary history and with regard to the Communist past. He discusses the composition of the periodical, the individual sections, and the changes they have undergone, and he points out articles that particularly merit attention. The overall level of the published articles, according to the author, is markedly uneven, with descriptive articles full of facts based on primary-source research and conceived positivistically. The periodical, according to the author, lacks articles with a theoretical basis, methodological focus, and comparative scope. In this assessment, the author argues, that a relatively narrow pool of contributors predominates, most of whom are employees of the Institute. Overall, the periodical is focused on oppression, its machinery, and its victims in the period under investigation. On the other hand, the periodical also focuses on varying degrees of expression of civil resistance to that oppression. The founders and editors of the periodical, however, have strikingly placed to the fore stories about specifi c people. The vast majority of contributions concern the period of the Communist régime in Czechoslovakia, whereas the years of the German occupation remain largely neglected. The greatest pitfalls of the periodical, according to the author, are in its narrow or one-sided conception, which leads to a black-and-white picture of the (Communist) past: put more simply, it is a picture of heroes or victims facing culprits. In addition, ‘ordinary’ society remains more or less ignored, and this makes it impossible credibly to explain either the operation of the régime or the limited extent of resistance to it. The author proposes a number of topics and topic areas, which the periodical could, or should, devote itself to in order to expand its scope and to provide more comprehensive knowledge of the recent past.