The Czechs in Modern History (1848–1939)

This unusually voluminous work by the authorial trio of Otáhal, Pithart, and Příhoda was created in the late 1980s as a counterpoint to the then-expedient interpretation of modern Czech history. In it, the authors attempt to dismantle the "Czech national myth" as it was systematically built not only in the last century but as it often survives today. The book holds an uncompromisingly strict mirror to our view of recent Czech history – from 1848 to the Munich events – and to our role in the European political and social context. It is partly for this reason that the first edition of this book also provoked a number of polemical reactions. The authors' goal was not to write a specialised historical work – the conditions of the originally intended samizdat publication did not even allow for that. In the words of one of the authors, Petr Pithart, this book is more of an "atypical essay with a number of unsettling questions". The book also provides a detailed look at the period of the First Czechoslovak Republic, without rosy illusions, without sentimentality and idealising nostalgia, without simplifying stereotypes, without later ideological layers. Likewise, the view of nascent Czech politics after 1848 and the subsequent striving for modern Czech statehood raises a number of questions as to whether and how we succeeded in this work, whether and how we used or squandered the chances that history placed in our path. In the relationship of the awakening Czech political representation to the Austrian monarchy, the contemporary reader can also uncover a number of parallels with the current relationship of Czech society to the European project and to our role within it.

MUDr. Petr Příhoda (1939–2014), was a physician-psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and publicist. From 1962, he worked as a doctor in a psychiatric hospital, and from 1970–1990 he was an outpatient psychiatrist. In the 1970s and 80s, he published under various pseudonyms (Jan Příbram, Vojtěch Kořán, Franz Jederman, Podiven) in samizdat and foreign periodicals. He published the samizdat series Publikace. From 1990–1991, he was the press spokesman and adviser to the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Petr Pithart, and from 1991 he headed the Institute of the Foundations of Education and Medical Ethics at the 2nd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University. From 1990 onwards, he continued to publish regularly, especially in Přítomnost, Perspektivy, and Hospodářské noviny, and previously in Lidové noviny and Mladá fronta Dnes. He was a member of the Bioethics Commission of the Government Council of the Czech Republic, the coordination council of the Czech-German Discussion Forum established by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, and the Ethics Commission of the Syndicate of Journalists.

Doc. JUDr. Petr Pithart, dr. h. c. (* 1941), is a lawyer, politician, political scientist, and historian. From 1962–1970, he worked at the Faculty of Law of Charles University and on the editorial board of Literární noviny. Shortly after August 1968, he left the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) himself, and as an exponent of the reform process, he was forced to temporarily leave his profession in 1970. He worked in manual labour jobs, then briefly again as a lawyer, but after signing Charter 77, he returned to manual labour, later working as a clerk. In the 1970s and 80s, he was active in the dissent movement, publishing in samizdat and abroad, distributing banned foreign and exile literature, publishing magazines, and organising apartment seminars. From 1989–1990, he was a leading representative of the Civic Forum, from 1990–1992 he was the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, briefly also the Deputy Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak Federative Republic (ČSFR), and at the same time a Member of Parliament. He co-founded the Civic Movement; after its electoral failure in 1992, he temporarily left politics. From 1996–1998 and 2000–2004, he was the President of the Senate, holding his senatorial mandate until 2012. In 2003, he ran in the presidential election of the Czech Republic. He is the author of numerous political and historical studies, essays, and translations.

PhDr. Milan Otáhal, CSc. (1928–2017), was a historian. From 1955–1970, he was a research fellow at the Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (ČSAV), where from 1964 he headed the department of modern Czech history. In 1970, he was expelled from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), dismissed from the ČSAV, and criminally prosecuted for the collection of documents about August 1968, "Seven Prague Days" (the so-called Black Book), of which he was the editor. In the 1970s and 80s, he was active in the dissent movement (si