Dějiny obětí : k historiografii a politice identity českých židů

• Authors: Vít Strobach

Title variants

EN

The history of the victim : concerning the historiography and politics of identity of the Czech Jews

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

CS

a2_Dějiny židů podle mínění autora zabředly do výkladu založeného výhradně na tezi o ''věčném antisemitismu'' a jeho obětech. Slouží tak jako dobrý příklad dějin, respektive paměti, tvořících neodmyslitelnou součást ideologie. Jako takové fungují v celistvém prostoru vědy a politiky a vytvářejí etnocentrickou identitu židovského národa. To vede ke schematizujícímu rozdělení společenských vztahů na konfliktní národní i kulturní (rasové) tábory, které jako by existovaly od nepaměti a "přirozeně", k postupné izolaci židovské komunity a jejímu vymezování vůči ostatním skupinám. O tom může svědčit nejen vztah českých židů vůči Arabům (muslimům), ale rovněž prosazování diskurzu o bezpečnosti v jejich politice identity i v oblastech tak specifických, jako je architektura a sociální péče.

EN

a1_After the Changes of 1989 a change also took place in normative points of articulation of social conflict in eastern Europe. The paradigm of the social sciences, including historiography, changed as well. It is on the whole fair to call this the ''identity turn''. The meaning of the term ''identity'' was inspired by history but changed into up-to-date forms. The article analyses points of friction where contact took place between majority Czech society and cultural identity, historical memory, and historiographical self-reflections of Czech Jews after the Changes of 1989 to 2012. In this article, the author seeks to analyse the basic structure of statements about Jewish history in the Bohemian Lands in this period, and to determine what role the narrative of the victim plays in them. The author presents his hypothesis of the considerable influence of the "lachrymose conception of Jewish history" in Czech historiography after the Changes of 1989. In this, he distinguishes between three paradigms, which he then further defines and assesses according to their functions: methodological nationalism, methodological totalitarianism, and methodological culturalism. He then identifies the constellations in which they appear both in academic and in public discources, especially those influencing the politics of identity of the Czech Jews. At the same time, he seeks to explain why the schemes make it difficult to understand the modern history of the Jews of the Bohemian Lands.

EN

a2_The history of the Jews, according to the author, became locked in an interpretation based solely on the idea of ''eternal antisemitism and its victims''. This is therefore a good example of history/memory as an inherent component of ideology. As such, it has been operating in the undifferentiated space between scholarship and politics, and has been constructing the ethnocentric identity of the Jewish nation. This has led to a schematizing division of social relationships into adverse national and cultural (racial) camps, which have seemed to exist ''since time immemorial'' and ''naturally'', and to the gradual seclusion of the Jewish community and its defining itself or being defined against other groups. This is evident not only in the approach of Czech Jews towards the Arabs (Muslims) but also in the assertion of the security discourse in their politics of identity in fields as specialized as architecture and social care.

Keywords

CS

historiografie; dějiny Židů; národní identita; antisemitismus

EN

historiography; history of the Jews; national identity; antisemitism

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History)
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 391-421
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Vít Strobach

• Soudobé dějiny, redakce, Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v.v.i., Vlašská 9, 118 40 Praha 1, Czech Republic