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Pod křídla Sovětů. Mohlo se Československo vyhnout „sklouznutí“ za železnou oponu?

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Smetana V.
Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History)
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2008
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vol. 15
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issue 2
274-302
EN
This article considers alternative possibilities to Czechoslovak developments after the Second World War. The most likely moment when it would have still been possible to reverse the course of events heading towards the Communist take over was, it seems to the author, during the decision facing Czechoslovak policy-makers in July 1947 about whether to join the European countries that had opted to accept the US offer of substantial economic assistance, known as the Marshall Plan. Nevertheless, he also points to the fact that it probably occurred to almost no representative of the Czechoslovak democratic parties to resist Soviet pressure on them to reject American assistance. The author therefore looks for the roots of this dependency on the Soviet Union, and fi nds them mainly in the fear of Germany in conjunction with the traumatic experience of the Munich Agreement of 1938. No matter how much any search for support had a rational core when faced with a resurgence of the German threat, it is clear that for the Czechoslovaks it was a matter of defi nite, unconditional concessions to Soviet wishes – sometimes before they had even been expressed – very often going beyond what could have still been considered the confi dent, respectable foreign policy of an independent state. This was still happening during the Second World War, and intensifi ed after the war had ended. The author then assesses the post-war possibilities for Czechoslovakia in comparison with Poland, Austria, Yugoslavia, and particularly Finland, and briefly considers what the consequences of a possible forced Sovietization of Slovakia and the division of the country would have been. In the epilogue – “dreaming of the past” – he outlines the probable development of Czechoslovakia if the Marshall Plan had been accepted in July 1947.
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Nekonečný příběh s náhlým koncem – a jeho bezprostřední důsledky pro středovýchodní Evropu. Nad mnohočetnými podněty z pražské konference o studené válce

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Smetana V.
Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History)
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2011
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issue 1-2
11-31
EN
In this introductory article, the author return to the history conference ‘Dropping, Maintaining and Breaking the Iron Curtain: The Cold War and East-Central Europe Twenty Years Later’, which took place in the Lichtenstein Palais, Prague, from 19 to 21 November 2009. He provides a detailed report on the conference proceedings and also acquaints the reader with the contents of this double-issue of Soudobé dějiny , the main section of which comprises six articles that were developed from the most interesting papers given by non-Czech participants in the Prague conference. The conference was organized to mark the twentieth anniversary of the collapse of the Communist régimes in central and eastern Europe, the Institute of Contemporary History, at the Academy of Sciences, Prague, together with the Office of the Czech Government and the Institute of International Studies, at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague. About thirty historians from eleven countries of the formerly divided Europe and the United States took part in this meeting of top historians of the Cold War to discuss the records that are gradually being made accessible to scholars and the public and also the changing interpretations of this history. During the conference a former premier of the Czech Republic, Jan Fischer, awarded seven historians – Vojtěch Mastný, Thomas Blanton, Alex Pravda, Mark Kramer, Vilém Prečan, William Taubman, and, in memoriam , Saki Dockrill – the Karel Kramář Medal for the important contributions they have made to our knowledge of modern Czech history. In the introductory panel discussion, the historians, together with some of the actors in the events, discussed the forming of new world order, but mainly in Europe, in the early years after the end of the Cold War. The key processes here were the reunification of Germany, the dismantling of the military-political institutions of the East bloc, and the eastward expansion of Western integrating institutions – NATO and the EU. The dynamically forming reality, at the same time, put an end to conceptions developed by some leading politicians (François Mitterrand’s idea of a European confederation and Mikhail Gorbachev’s ‘common European home’). In a fruitful exchange of views it was repeated several times that the form of the European order which had developed after the Cold War was not something obvious and the eastward expansion of NATO was not something that any of the actors had expected. In the subsequent panels, the participants discussed the matter of whether competing for central Europe was the main cause of the Cold War, as well as considering the role of strategic planning and nuclear weapons and the counter-efforts to maintain or to overturn the Cold War status quo. The highpoint of the conference, according to this author, was the panel discussions devoted to Germany – the division of the country, the existence of two German states side by side, and then reunifi cation – and particularly the end of the Cold War. The conference closed with more general reflections on Communism and the Cold War. In the last part of his article, the author considers some terminological questions in connection with the articles published in this issue of Soudobé dějiny .
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Žhavé ohnisko studené války. Úvodem k bloku příspěvků o německé otázce v letech 1945–1990

100%
Smetana V.
Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History)
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2012
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issue 3-4
405-407
XX
This introduction to the thematic set of articles in the current issue of Soudobé dějiny presents the individual contributions and provides information on how and why they were written and first presented. The five selected essays are on the German question, which during the Cold War was one of the sites of great tension in the rivalry of the two superpowers and their allies. The articles are reworked versions of papers given at the international conference ‘Dropping, Maintaining and Breaking the Iron Curtain: The Cold War and East-Central Europe Twenty Years Later’. The conference was held, on 19–21 November 2009, to mark the twentieth anniversary of the collapse of the Communist régimes in central and eastern Europe. It was organized by the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, with the Cabinet Office of the Czech Republic and with assistance of students from the Institute of International Studies, at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague. The reworked versions of most of the papers will be published this year as Weaving and Tearing Asunder the Iron Curtain: The Cold War and East-Central Europe from Beginning to End in the Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series of Rowman & Littlefield. In 2011 Soudobé dějiny published the articles by David Holloway, Csaba Békés, Alex Pravda, Thomas Blanton, Svetlana Savranskaya, and Mark Kramer in Czech translation, with an introductory report on the conference and its results in the context of current research in the thematic set ‘Nekonečný příběh s náhlým koncem: Studená válka 1945–1989’ (A Never-ending Story with a Sudden Ending: The Cold War, 1945–89), Soudobé dějiny , 18 (2011), nos. 1–2, pp. 11–195. Another four articles, written by William Taubman, Silvio Pons, Bernd Schäfer, and James G. Hershberg, have been published in the periodical Dějiny a současnost (History and the Present) in the thematic set ‘Konec studené války: Rozpad sovětského impéria’ (The End of the Cold War: The Break-up of the Soviet Empire), Dějiny a současnost , 33 (2011), 5, pp. 26–43.
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