Češi v dějinách nové doby 1848-1939 – Otáhal Milan, Pithart Petr, Příhoda Petr (2020)

An unusually voluminous work by the author trio Otáhal – Pithart – Příhoda was created at the end of the 1980s as a counterbalance to the then-purposeful interpretation of modern Czech history. The authors attempt to dismantle the 'Czech national myth' as it has been systematically built not only in the last century but also as it often survives today. The book uncompromisingly holds a strict mirror to our view of recent Czech history – from 1848 to the Munich events – and our role in the European political and social context. This also led to a number of polemical reactions to the first edition of this book. The authors' goal was not to write a scholarly historical work – the conditions of the originally intended samizdat edition did not allow for that. In the words of one of the authors, Petr Pithart, this book is rather a 'non-typical essay with a number of disturbing questions.' The book also provides a detailed look at the period of the First Czechoslovak Republic, without rosy illusions, without sentimentality and idealizing nostalgia, without simplifying stereotypes, and without later ideological overlays. The perspective on the emerging Czech politics after 1848 and the forthcoming efforts for modern Czech statehood raises a number of questions about whether and how we have succeeded in this endeavor, whether and how...