Whose Nation?: Czech Dissidents and History Writing from a Post-1989 Perspective

If there was a time to be hopeful in Czechoslovakia, it was New Year's Day, 1990. Only a few weeks earlier Communism had collapsed more swiftly, peacefully and decidedly than anywhere else in East-Central Europe. Intellectuals of various political leanings, most of them former "enemies of the people," were speedily organizing a democratic form of government and planning a transition from state socialism to a free-market economy. Perhaps most remarkably the country's overwhelming choice for president was Václav Havel, a well-known philosopher/playwright/dissident who had been jailed several times by the Communist regime. Everything seemed turned on its head, and for the better. In addressing the country that day, however, Havel's tone was less than jubilant. The country's new leader spoke of Communism's sad legacy, and most strikingly of the country's "moral contamination." As both victims and perpetrators of the previous system, Czechs, he said, had become selfish, parochial and unable to think in terms of the common good: "Our main enemy today is our own bad traits.... The main struggle will have to be fought on this field." ¹

Such self-critical soul searching was in step with Havel's philosophy of "living in the truth," a set of ideals shared by many of the dissidents who came to power that year in a country with a long tradition of mixing art, philosophy and politics. Havel and others were also working within a second tradition, one in which intellectuals took on the role of defining the nation, speaking for it and defending its ideals. The former oppositionist intellectuals did not play out their traditional roles for long, however. Less than three years after Havel's address most of these dissidents turned politicians had been roundly defeated in national elections. Havel has survived, but he is now more a figurehead president and is increasingly accused of egoism and misuse of the public trust. A little more than ten years after the revolution integration into the European Union seems less and less likely, the economy is stagnating, and a sort of fatalistic malaise has settled throughout the country. Intellectuals, and especially former dissidents, seem among the most disoriented. Many have yet to define their role and their relationship to the national collective in a post-1989 world. Who is now speaking to and for the nation? What should they be saying, how should they be saying it and why?

This essay offers a glance, viewed from the outside, at several debates surrounding these questions, and in the process it hopes to provide a brief sketch of recent developments in Czech historiography. It will focus on Czech history writing, and especially its role in defining the nation (often characterized as an organism possessing a single mentality with certain "traits"), in describing its place in the world and in inspiring its members to action. Specifically, the following pages concentrate on a work of history published two years after Havel's speech. Cesi v dejinách nové doby: Pokus o zrcadlo (Czechs in the modern era: An attempt at self-reflection) had previously existed only as a collection of independent and illegal essays penned in the 1980s by a lawyer (Petr Pithart), a psychologist (Petr Príhoda) and a professionally trained historian (Milan Otáhal) under the pseudonym Podiven (One who wonders). ² When it was published in 1991, however, Pithart had become prime minister, Príhoda his spokesman. The essays now seemed like a philosophical program for both the Czech government and population. It was also judged as a scholarly work, often unfavorably. Many members of the historians' guild deemed it a disturbing fiction rather than a proper work of history. As we will see, Podiven's reflection on Czech national identity was originally intended as something else. However appropriate for one specific time and place, Czechs in the Modern Era, unfortunately like many dissidents' ideas...