RATAJ, Jan; MARTÍNEK, Miloslav. Česká politika 1848–1918

1st ed. Prague: Metropolitan University Prague Press, 2015. ISBN 978-80-87956-12-0

The monograph focuses on the fight for the restoration of modern Czech statehood from the Czech political beginnings in the revolution between 1848–1849 till the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in the turnaround year of 1918. The mention of decline of Czech statehood and deterioration of Czech national identity after the Battle of White Mountain in 17–18th centuries precedes the main topic of the monograph.

The monograph results from interdisciplinary historical and political points of view. The institution of the Habsburg Monarchy and the transformation of Czech political ideas are reflected more in the political context.

When creating the synthesis the authors chose the traditional concept of Czech political history. At the beginning of 1990’s many historians were fed up with the party ideological history of politics and started to process the history in a different way concentrating on the microcosmos of an ordinary day. The interpretations of transformations of political thinking were put to shame with close psychological, sociological and art historian attitudes. The wide range of everyday pictures enriched the results of history inevitably, but raised a kind of imbalance in the view of Czech history. The awareness of modern Czech statehood and programme became less perceived as well as the attitude to political development  in the point of view of the basic balance democracy – nondemocracy. The underestimation of political interpretation of history formed the issue of Central European, nostalgic, Austrian-Hungarian myth preferring the positive sides of the Danube monarchy only, and making the system of privileged parliamentarism and political function of the Habsburg Monarchy tolerant and human-rights friendly, even seeking in the Habsburg confederation of states an appropriate example for the current European integration. Nevertheless, the reality of monarchy as well as our experience of it were different. Thus the monograph brings factual information on the power, election, constitution and political system of the Habsburg Monarchy. It compares the information to the knowledge of democratic and authoritarian systems.