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Palacky and the Marxists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Joseph F. Zacek
Joseph F. Zacek*
Affiliation:
Occidental College, Los Angeles
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Notes and Comment
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , June 1965 , pp. 297 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1965

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References

1 See Historický ústav, Československá akademie věd, Přehled československy'ch dějin (3 vols, in 4; Prague, 1958-60), covering the period to 1945; and , Hcmopust VexocJioeamu (3 vols.; Moscow, 1956-60), for the period to 1958. See also the two series of university texts, Přehled dějin československy'ch v epoše feudalismu and Přehled dějin československy'ch v epoše kapitalismu, and the history of Czech literature to 1900 issued by the Ústav pro českou literaturu, Československá akademie věd, Dějiny české literatury (3 vols.; Prague, 1959-61).

2 No attempt has been made in this article to give a complete listing of all significant Czech and Slovak writings on Palacký since 1948. Nor is it asserted that all of the authors mentioned are nečessarily Marxists, either by declaration or conviction, but simply that their works have appeared during the period of Marxist historiography in Czechoslovakia and reveal its influenčes and pressures in varying degrees.

3 Richard Pražák, “Palacký a Mad'aři před rokem 1848, ” Časopis Matice moravské, LXXV1I (1958), 74 (hereafter cited as ČMM).

4 , No. 10 (Oct.), 1950, pp. 72-85; Slovak translation in Historicitý sbornik Slovenskej akadémie vied a umeni, X (1952), 347-69. All subsequent referenčes are to the Slovak translation. In reviewing previous Czech treatments of Palacký, Udal'tsov was very critical, charging that many authors still employed the old liberal-bourgeois concepts and that even “progressive” historians contented themselves with labeling Palacký's acts “wrong” but avoided the logical conclusion that they were absolutely determined by his class affiliation.

5 In a later important study, however, Milena Jetmarová accepted the sincerity of Palacký's preoccupation with the nationality question. She pointed to the important role that nations played in his philosophy of history (he saw them as carriers of great moral and political ideas and the principle of nationality as a healthy antithesis to increasing political centralization) and praised his farsightedness in giving Czech nationalism a political instead of merely a cultural program. She nevertheless criticized his tactics (his cooperation with the reactionary aristocracy) and agreed that he overstressed the importance of the nationality issue and paid too little attention to the more pressing social problems of the day. František Palackf (Prague, 1961), especially pp. 119-24.

6 Udal'tsov, p. 361.

7 Jetmarová, p. 107.

8 Udal'tsov, p. 368. Czech Marxists generally have continued to grant Palacký his old title but have maintained that he completely identified the “nation” with the “bourgeoisie.“ However, one prominent Czech historian, František Kutnar, has expressed the contrary opinion that Palacký conceived of the nation as embracing the broad masses of the people, all social classes, from the common people to the nobility, with the core being the petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry. Kutnar conceded, though, that Palacký had little interest in the economic and social welfare of the lower strata, especially the proletariat; see “Palackého pojeti společnosti, národa a státu, ” in Tři studie o Frantšku Palackém (Olomouc, 1949), pp. 23-32 (“Acta Universitatis Paiackianae Olomucensis, ” Vol. I, ed. František Kutnar).

9 ČMM, LXXI (1952), 19-40.

10 Ibid., p. 40.

11 Ibid., p. 21.

12 Quoted in Udal'tsov, p. 360.

13 Quoted in Sindelaf, p. 29.

14 Ibid., p. 25.

15 J. Macek et ah, eds., Vingt-cinq ans d'historiographie tchécoslovaque, 1936-1960 (Prague, 1960), p. 25.

16 Václav Husa, “Šmeralovo hodnocenί Palackého výkladu českých déjin, ” Zápisky katedry deskoslovenský'ch Déjin a archivnίho studia, III (1958), 165.

17 K., “Vzpomίnati 155. výročί narozenl Fr. Palackeho, ” český zápas, XXXVI, No. 25 (1953), 4.

18 Quoted in František Kumar, “Palackeho slovanstvl, ” Slovanský” přehled, XIII (1956), 154.

19 Written in 1921 and 1926, the two studies are reprinted together under the title “František Palacký” in Zden£k Nejedlý, O smyslu českých dějin (Prague, 1952), pp. 144-98. 20 Husa, p. 164.

21 Ladislav Rieger, “Poznámky k Palackého filosofii dějin lidstva, ” Zdeňku Nejedlému československd akademie v£d (Prague, 1953), p. 446. See the summary evaluation by Josef Polišenský, “František Palacký a naše historická véda, ” Zprávy československé historické společnosti, I, No. 2 (1958), 33-38.

22 “František Palacký, ” Rovnost, June 14, 1898; quoted extensively in Šindelář, pp. 35-38.

23 See, for example, Jetmarová, especially pp. 132-34.

24 See, for example, Jetmarová, p. 106, and Milan Machovec, František Palacký’ a česká filosofie (Prague, 1961); “Rozpravy československé akademie věid, ftada společenskčch vM, “ Vol. LXXI, No. 2. On the other hand, professional Czech historians, also like their bourgeois predečessors, continue to assert that Palacký reached his conclusions primarily on the basis of careful study of historical source materials. See PoliSensky, p. 36; and Jaroslav Marek's review of Machovec, in československý časopis historický, IX (1961), 609.

25 Marie Řepková, “Přispěvek k osvětlení problematiky českého obrození” (review of Machovec), česká literatura, IX, No. 3 (1961), 373.

26 See, for example, Déjiny česke literatury, II, 465-66: “Palacký saw two wings in Hussitism, and to him the Táborites were the real representatives of Hussite goals. However, speaking of Tábor and Žižka, he did not have in mind the Tábor of the period of the supremacy of the poor but of the period when it was the head of the bourgeois opposition. The revolutionary manner by which the Táborites achieved their goals was completely unacceptable to him.“

27 Machovec, p. 111. But Jetmarová insists that “the very principle of this overvaluation … is social; personalities are comprehended and judged by their relationship to significant social events” (p. 103).

28 Jaroslav Charvát, ed., Z Déjin ndrodu českého (Prague, 1957), p. 26. Jetmarová states that it was precisely Palacký's blindness to the significance of social class differenčes within nations which led him, as historian and statesman, to the error of describing Czech-German enmity as involving both nations as a whole, instead of only their respective bourgeois classes (p. 130).

29 Charvát, p . 17.

30 “O poměru historie k dnešku, ” Československtý časopis historický, VIII (1960), 33. This article was originally delivered as an address at the Third Congress of Czechoslovak Historians, Sept. 16-19, 1959.

31 “Palackého kořeny, ” in Palackého rodnd obec: Kronika Hodslavic, ed. František Hanzelka (Hodslavice, 1948), p. 10.

32 “Ké dni Palackeho, ” Kostnické” jiskry, June 11, 1953, p. I.