When thinking about the philosophy of a nation one cannot omit the fact that we are entering the domain in which objectivity, with which nearly every sphere of human knowledge has to deal, is most problematic. Jiina Popelová wrote that history, both as what is retained in the memory of a nation and what is written in textbooks (which orients its historical interest) is linked with problems faced by the nation at the present time. In Popelová's approach this is not a classical presentism, but rather the reason why the pressing question of the objectivity of historical research is raised. With this question there is associated a group of problems concerning not only historical scholarship as such, but also the philosophy of history. If we, therefore, take the philosophy of history as asking and attempting to answer such questions as: what is the course of historical development or is there a sense of history, and if so what is it, then the philosophy of history must be related to the present time, perhaps much more than to historiography.

BEFORE 1900

These aspects of the philosophy of history come forward above all in the case of a nation which had to fight for its very existence for centuries. The question of the role of such a nation in history is closely associated with the question of whether its very existence is legitimate. This question emerged in the development of Czech philosophy of history in connection with the relationship between the Slavic and Germanic nations. It appeared with full urgency in the nineteenth century when the modern nations evolved in Europe and when the problem of the character of the Central European area was put quite seriously. In this area the Czech countries were closely linked with the German environment due to the fact that, with few exceptions, only Austrian and German emperors were Czech kings after 1526. Beginning with Maria Theresia, who ruled from 1740 to 1780, the Germanization policy of the emperors was not motivated initially by explicitly anti-Czech goals, but by enlightened rational efforts to simplify the administration. Undoubtedly, it is much easier to rule an empire with one language than one which has two or even more languages.

Germanizing efforts, however, appeared also in connection with the centralization of administration, which had ancient traditions. Although the Czech Kingdom was a part of the Austrian empire, it had not been formally nullified. So it happened that two factors, not significantly associated with one another could be unified in resistance against Viennese centralization: the resistance of the provincial and mostly German speaking nobility against the restriction of its historically inherited autonomy, and the resistance of the rural population and of the lower urban classes against the increased language pressure. So it happened that both constitutional and language movements appeared at the heart of the revival of Czech patriotism. In consequence, up to the present day⁽²⁰²⁾ the definition of a nation has been associated in the Czech consciousness with the existence of an independent state and of an advanced language.

In the nineteenth and later also in the twentieth century, a question occurred mainly on the German side which undoubtedly has a certain degree of rationality: would it be better to have a unitary national and language (i.e., German) formation in the Central Europe than a diversified conglomerate of language enclaves which would advance ever new demands, based on some more or less doubtful historical claims. A still well-known statement of the historian Frantiek Palacký: "We existed prior to Austria: we shall also exist after it!" indicates, eventually, the response of the Czechs to such questions. From their point of view, it was necessary to solve two problems under these conditions. The first was to demonstrate that, in spite of the fact that it undoubtedly fell behind the languages of the classical cultural European nations, the Czech language was able to express in a cultivated manner all that could be said in English, French or German. This problem concerned, above all, linguists and writers. The second problem, for historians and philosophers of history, was to justify the existence of an independent Czech state from its origin until the present time and into the future. This problem, too, had to be solved in opposition to the German approach to the role of Germans and Slavs in the territory of Central Europe.

In this struggle, Czech history and philosophy of history could reassume to a certain extent the idea of Slavic solidarity and the idea of "The Great Slav People"; in this context, the problem of Czech identity within the Slavic mass could reappear, although rather with regard to future development. Herder's ideas about the role of the Slavic nation in world history were a second support for Czech philosophy of history in the nineteenth century. In this context there emerged the problem of the character of Slavic nations and, above all, of the Czech nation. This is the source of a relatively long-lived legend about the "dove-like" (i.e., calm and peaceful) nature of the Czech nation.⁽²⁰³⁾

In this context, however, a more serious question arises for the Czech philosophy of history, i.e., the problem of the structure and character of Czech society. In opposition to the rather feudal structure of the Germans, Palacký emphasized the democratic character of the Slavs and, although it was in the period when Bohemia was again predominantly Catholic, he pointed also to the democratic efforts observable mainly in some phases of the Hussite movement and in the Czech Reformation. Thus, the Hussite movement, as a permanent and valued factor, re-centered discussions about the philosophy of Czech history. The question of the sense of the Czech Reformation appeared at the turn of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. This characterized above all the so-called controversy about the sense of Czech history which blazed between the historian Josef Peka (1870-1937) and Tomas G. Masaryk. This controversy determined to a great extent the dynamics of Czech philosophic-historical thinking in the period of the first republic and its echoes also could be observed later, as we will see below.

This outline of the basic range of the problems of the nineteenth century Czech philosophy of history already indicates two components of this philosophy: one is of purely national character, the other is an increasingly remarkable integration of Czech history and historiography into the context of the world philosophy of history. The latter component became stronger in that period when the right of Czechs to a national and state existence had been firmly accepted and the priority task of the Czech philosophy of history became integrating specific national problems into the context not only of European, but also of world development.

In this period Czech philosophy of history was reacting with increasing frequency and sensitivity to different stimuli from abroad. When speaking about Palacký, we referred to Herder, but even earlier there are indications that Czech historical and philosophical-historical thinking was not isolated from other West-European thought.

PEKAR VS. MASARYK

These tendencies intensified at the turn of the century. Geo-political factors created a rather ambivalent situation for the Czech philosophy of history: Bohemia was both a direct neighbor of Germany and also a part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. This proximity of itself generated a strong impact of German thinking, which was further supported by the very high level of German historical science at that period. On the other hand, this same political context and the political disagreement with German ideas forced many Czech philosophers and scholars to seek to counterbalance this German influence by looking to France, England and, under certain circumstances, also to Russia. In this brief survey, however, it is not possible to discuss all the personalities and problems which were significant for recent generations of the Czech philosophy of history.

Goll's school has remained an important concept in Czech historiography. This school formed a whole generation of Czech historians at the beginning of the twentieth century; its indisputable success lies in the development of methodologies for, and the realization of, empirical work. Belonging to the positivistic stream, it was characterized by a certain distance from the greater historical concepts extending to the philosophy of history.

The controversy usually specified as "Peka contra Masaryk" was very important for the development of the Czech philosophy of history. Although this was, to a great extent, a controversy concerning the sense of Czech history, it was also a dispute between two different personalities; while Peka was a historian with enormous erudition, Masaryk's strongest point was his philosophic thinking. When comparing Peka and Palacký, the philosopher Mirko Novák emphasized that Palacký was accustomed to thinking in a wider, European context and was prepared for far-reaching generalizations. In contrast, Novák viewed Peka as only a very competent special historician, but nothing more. This insufficient capacity for philosophical thinking left Peka with no understanding for what Masaryk called the sense of Czech history (i.e., the reformation and democratic traditions) and with rather simplistic political attitudes. In this context, Novák wrote of Peka that "this outstanding historian paid for his unsettled bills with historical noetics, philosophy of history and sociology".⁽²⁰⁴⁾

Historian, Jan Slavík, expressed a similar opinion about this controversy. While not denying Peka's excellent erudition, he blamed him for the anachronism of putting modern content into the concepts or religion, democracy, nation, etc., which he used in his studies.⁽²⁰⁵⁾ Peka was not able to rebut either Palacký's or Masaryk's statements⁽²⁰⁶⁾ and Slavík agreed with Novák's opinion that incompetence in Peka's scientific methods was directly associated with his inability properly to estimate the current development.

However, this very fact indicates that the disputes concerning Peka, which resulted in his condemnation after World War II, were influenced also from the ideological point of view. In contradistinction to Slavík, e.g., Frantiek Kutnar stated that Peka's revision of Palacký's opinion concerning the importance of Hussitism was not an anachronism. Peka retained the crucial historical importance of the Hussite movement in Czech national development as a period of the greatest upsurge of Czech thinking and aspirations. But, simultaneously, he incorporated it organically into the Middle Ages as a social and intellectual movement which, in spite of some new elements, did not exceed the limits of that time and, therefore, did not open the way to modern social and political thinking and to a modern economic and social structure.⁽²⁰⁷⁾

Masaryk's view was much broader, also in the field of the philosophy of history. This fact corresponded with his interest in global political events and with his education. In Masaryk's thinking we find a synthesis of historical, politological, sociological and culturological knowledge and opinions. This explains his efforts to understand the sense, not only of Czech, but also of European and perhaps even world history to the limited extent characteristic of European science of that time. This can be demonstrated also with regard to his interest in Russia. Masaryk, as Czechoslovak President, demonstrated his ability as a realistic and successful politician. As for the philosophy of history, his interest in the spiritual factors of historical development predominated: hence, his emphasis upon the elements of reformation and democracy in the Czech national tradition, which was expressed in the slogan: "revolution of heads and hearts" (formulated in partial opposition to the methods of the Russian revolution). However, this was also a basis of his evaluation of the causes of suicide in his work Suicide. In this paper, which is among the fundamental works in Czech sociology, appear some of his basic working methods as mentioned above. This reflects, on the one hand, his ability to study concrete material, and, on the other, his tendency to look for crucial factors of the phenomena under study among the cultural, moral and, therefore, generally spiritual component of both the individual's personality and society as a whole.

JAN SLAVÍK

The correlation between Czech and world philosophy of history became clearly evident in the period of the first republic. Jan Slavík (1885-1978) was one of the historians who very expressively--and also polemically--emphasized this correlation. Above all he opposed an earlier achronic positivistic concept and emphasized recent methodological trends, above all, in German and Russian historiography. He was, therefore, influenced both by Marxist, i.e. Russian and Soviet, historical and theoretical literature and by the methodology presented by M. Weber and, in the Czech milieu, by Masaryk.

Slavík blamed earlier historical science for the use of obsolete concepts and priorities (especially of terms "State" and "Nation"⁽²⁰⁸⁾) and for insufficiently systematic research. In his opinion the knowledge of sources represents a pre-requisite of the historian's work, but must be supplemented by knowledge of the human approach to history and of our criteria for evaluating historical events.⁽²⁰⁹⁾ For that reason, he recommended the introduction into historiography of methods of social sciences which, in his opinion, were based above all on perception and the analysis of concepts. He also welcomed the interest in philosophy and philosophy of history which forced other sciences to move forward by raising new questions and formulating methodological problems. First of all, however, Slavík criticized Czech historiography for its lack of interest in noetics which he defined as "a theory of historical cognition explaining which are the principal historical concepts and their historical structure."⁽²¹⁰⁾ In this context Slavík mentioned, above all, representatives of the German philosophy of history and some historians of the Russian school: Dilthey, Windelband, Rickert and, above all, M. Weber, Milyukov and Kareyev.

Referring to these authors, Slavík treated, for instance, the concepts of objectivity and of historical fact. In contrast to the above philosophers and methodologists of history, he did not elaborate noetic concepts in greater detail; he was satisfied to introduce them from their foreign environment into Czech historiography and to use them within the framework of concrete historical research. For instance, he did not resolve the problem of the essence of values, although he knew and sympathized with Rickert's theory of historic fact. So it happened that he often interpreted values in the spirit of subjectivism, although he acknowledged the important role of evaluation in historical studies and proclaimed the end of "gnoseological innocence⁽²¹¹⁾.

Here we encounter a certain paradox between Slavík's philosophy and his methodology of history. Probably due to the fact that his endorsement of historical epistemology was, to a great extent, merely declarative in nature, we observe his opinions oscillating not only as regards the problem of evaluation, but also with regard to the relationship between nomothetism and idiographism. In some stage of his development, Slavík also promoted the Marxistic concept of history, though for him Marxism was reduced to a mechanical deduction of social structure from the state of the economy. For this reason, he had considerable trouble when he tried to join this opinion with Masaryk's concept of evolution as a tendency to ever greater perfection, i.e., to democracy.⁽²¹²⁾ Slavík's greatest merit was the fact that he emphatically directed the attention of his contemporaries to the necessity of introducing general reflective concepts and procedures into historical science. This was, among other things, associated also with his fight against anachronism in historical science. Slavík was characteristically strong in his criticism; even in the period of the First Republic he was considered by many to be confrontational. After World War II, he could not reconcile himself to the gradual simplification of history and, for that reason, was silenced after 1948.

MIRKO NOVÁK: PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

AND AESTHETICS

No one dealt exclusively with the philosophy of history in the Czech milieu in the twentieth century. Thus, it is necessary to extract philosophic-historical opinions from works of theorists, whose main interest was directed elsewhere, even if they are historians, politicians or philosophers. Mirko Novák (1901-1980) was above all an aesthetician, but his interests were broader and the aesthetic problems led him to an interest in history. Here the question of values and evaluation was the connecting link.

In Novák's opinion the origin and development of human society are quite natural. Social life creates a certain super-structure above natural life. Cultural reality is developmentally superimposed on the original natural reality and has its own structure, development and rules, though it is conditioned by the original natural reality.⁽²¹³⁾ Novák strongly criticized attempts to explain biologically social and historical facts which he found, for instance, in racism and, more concretely, in Nazi racism.

Although Novák accepted that an impulsive desire for life was transferred from natural to historical reality, in contrast to Bergson or Scheler he amended this opinion with a positive evaluation of reason.⁽²¹⁴⁾ Novák considered the philosophy of life to be in agreement with unconscious life feelings, but attributed a high position to the act of knowledge mediated by conceptual thinking. Thinking and reason are not created by life to be its own antagonists, to weaken or kill it; they are the natural culmination of life's activities and mediate not only its survival, but also its further qualitative development. Novák's theory of society and its development thus extends quite genuinely into axiological theory which involves a response to the question of the sense of human history. In Novák's opinion, the sphere of spiritual reality represents a culmination of human history. This sphere involves the highest social values, which deserve to be improved and protected by all mankind. His emphasis on the problem of values brings him near those German philosophers of history who based the concept of history on values, i.e., Windelband and Rickert. He shares their opinion concerning the difference between natural and spiritual sciences.⁽²¹⁵⁾ This, however, introduces a certain contradiction into his work for an idiographic conception of history could hardly be integrated with the opinion that society develops in a certain direction, i.e., toward humanization.

JIRINA POPELOVA: PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

AND CZECH LITERATURE

A book by Jiina Popelová (1904-1985), Ti studie z filosofie djin (Three studies of the philosophy of history; Prague, 1947) is one of very few works dealing specifically with the philosophy of history in Czech literature. ⁽²¹⁶⁾ Although, in her further work, Popelová focused predominantly on problems of ethics and on the history of philosophy, she analyzed here three cardinal questions of the philosophy of history: the relationship of being and events, the problem of historical relativism, and the question of time and temporality. This was done on the basis of an analysis of world literature dealing with these topics. This was not easy during World War II when the book was written. However, she was able to relate to the most important personalities of European philosophy of history of that time, e.g., with Fr. Meinecke or E. Troeltsch, or on questions concerning relativity.

Popelová defines ontological history as a dialectical tension between being and events. In her understanding, history is a reflection not only of the flow of history, but also of the being which becomes in history.⁽²¹⁷⁾ She raises the question of continuity and discontinuity within the framework of a specifically historical context, and discusses the problem of historical time in this context. She demonstrates a wide scope of knowledge when discussing some effects of historical time on the conceptions of time in the works of H. Bergson and A. Carrel, as well as in works of non-classical physics, the history of the arts and existentialist philosophy. The problem of continuity and discontinuity becomes in this context also the question of homogeneity and non-homogeneity which finally is resolved in favor of the homogeneity of mankind and history:

The principal problem for us will be the question of whether we can speak about a simple historical time or if there are several times which belong to different races, nations, cultural epochs, etc. As we discuss the concept of time in history from our historiographic point of view (i.e., as a scientific term and not as a metaphysical reality) we shall therefore decide on only one historical time or a single time concept sui generis, which is, however, elaborated both horizontally and vertically.⁽²¹⁸⁾

If we realize that Popelová raised this question at the beginning of the 1940s, we see how congruent was her work with the philosophy of history (in which this problem was formulated through the Annales school), above all to the works of Braudel. Popelová, who sporadically cited Fevbre, could not have known Brandel's work at that time, for his book which explicitly formulates this problem (i.e., La Méditerranée et le monde méediterranéen a l'époque de Phillipe II) was published only after the war.

In this case, however, we are already in the time of a significant change in Czech philosophical life, i.e., in the period when historical materialism became the sole official philosophy of history. We must again state that it cannot be said that the origins of this change were not grounded socially, politically and intellectually. Between the two wars, there was a strong group of thinkers with a critical social orientation in Czechoslovakia who were aware of the limits of the capitalist social and political régime of that time and who tried to find possible alternatives.

Czech philosophy (and historiography as well) returned to some traditional problems in the 1960s when a certain improvement in the general social situation took place. The problem of national character and of the historical importance of some periods of Czech history was treated, together with the problem of the position of the Czech nation within the framework of both European and world history.

Simultaneously, the problem of Czech baroque also reappeared. Since the end of the 1940s, this problem was interpreted in a simplified way, unilaterally because the period of baroque occurred in Czech history after the battle of White Mountain, i.e., in the period of forced antireformation, of a decline of the Czech state, and of the beginning of the efforts at Germanization. As early as the nineteenth century, the baroque period was considered decadent by nationalistic historians. This is illustrated by the fact that Alois Jirásek, who was considered to be an "official" Czech historian, called his novel on that historical period Temno (The Dark Age). After 1948, Jirásek's depiction was further supported by references to the social and economic oppression of the rural population during that period. During the First Republic, this interpretation was counted above all by Catholic authors who recalled the high repute of baroque art in Bohemia (the major part of the architectural monuments in Prague originate from that period). Till late in the 1960s it was possible for historians, forcibly silenced during the period of Stalinism, to publish their opinions (e.g., Z. Kalista); however, this was nullified by events of 1968.

Nevertheless, August of 1968 did not bring an abrupt break. At least some books prepared for print by nonconformist authors up to the late 1960s were published as late as 1971, and the illusions evoked by the slogan about socialism with a human face, coined by the men of 1968, still survived. For instance, Jan Patoka answered with a vision of Czechs and Slovaks as nations realizing a synthesis of western (individualist and liberal) and eastern (socialist) programs, even after August, 1968⁽²¹⁹⁾; the sharp break came by 1970.

Due to the ideological and political pressure existing in Czechoslovakia after 1970, very few works dealing with the world philosophy of history were published officially and all had to contain a Marxist critique. It was considered an achievement in Slovakia that it was possible to continue publication of Filozofické odkazy (Philosophical Heritage) (thought in insufficient numbers of titles and copies) in which studies written by such philosophers as Dilthey, M. Weber and Foucault were still published. A Czech edition, Filosofie a souasnost (Philosophy and the Present Time), was abolished⁽²²⁰⁾

Important historical studies published in the `70s and `80s concerned mostly earlier history (e.g., Spváek's monograph about the fourteenth and fifteenth century rulers of Luxembourg) and more or less avoided wider problems of the philosophy of history. However, there are some indications that, under present conditions, publications which will fill this gap will appear. These can be observed in issues of the eský asopis historický (Czech Historical Journal) and Djiny a souasnost (History and the Present Time) in which now appear papers about the philosophy of history in the works of professional historians (e.g., by Jaroslav Marek), and about some themes which had been "prohibited" in the framework of Marxist Czech historiography (for instance about psychohistory), etc. The fact that there was a relatively rich production outside the "official" historiography in recent decades, until now known only to a relatively small group of "samizdat" readers, is being reflected in the editorial activities of our publishing houses. However, these works are of different qualities; some are unbearably ideological, although the ideologies are different. As a whole, they indicate that Czech philosophy of history must return to both of its principal problems: (1) the position of the Czech and Slovak nations in European history (including the importance of individual events); and (2) those general problems of the philosophy of history which for ideological reasons were ignored and/or solved only unilaterally.

Books by authors who were not allowed to publish (or even to work professionally) after the year 1970 now are being published. As an example, we can mention the book Bílá místa v naich djinách (White Spots in Our History) by J. Ken (Prague, 1990). In this author's opinion, these "white spots" are associated not only with the evaluation of Czechoslovak history after the year 1945, but also with problems reaching more deeply into our history. This corresponds with efforts to re-evaluate the work by Peka and to publish at least parts of it. In this case it can be said that the process which developed in our country up to the late 1960s is now being repeated.

The review of the problem of Central European space also appears-linked with the problem of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The experiences associated with developments after its disintegration, i.e., with the occupation of the so-called successor states by fascist Germany, and, thereafter, with the transition of a great part of them into the sphere of Soviet influence, rendered considerably problematic convictions about the possibility of their absolutely free development. For that reason, at the political level efforts are being made to find ways to integrate the interests of the Central European states. This is supported by the fact that, due to historical development, it is possible to find certain common traits in the culture of this region.⁽²²¹⁾

It should be mentioned in this context that the entrance of some persons from the Czech dissents into political office results in their considerations concerning the philosophy of Czech history sometimes being reflected directly in governmental statements. This concerns above all Petr Pithart who, as prime minister of the Czech government, was principally interested in problems of statehood and in questions associated with the institutional foundation of democracy. To a certain extent, it can be said that after November, 1989, the Czech philosophy of history becomes from time to time a politicum, for instance, in association with the problem of the displacement of Germans after World War II or with the problem of the constitutional organization.

It seems, therefore, that the present explosion of interest in the philosophy of history concerns, above all, Czech or Czech and Slovak affairs and, thus, also their place in the European space and in the new international relationships in general. An older book by Jan Patoka, Kacíské eseje o filosofii djin (Heretic Essays about the Philosophy of History), published in Norway, Italy, France, Germany, Spain and Poland and, in 1990, as well as in Czechoslovakia, represents a rare exception. In this book, Patoka links up with the world philosophy of history, above all with its phenomenological and existentialist heritage. In six essays and in his own glossaries to them, Patoka presents an authentic philosophy of history on the basis of selected problems. He looks for the beginning of the historical in policy as a free and responsible activity based on the ability of being to appear (especially through philosophical reflection) and, thus, to problematize the natural (non-historical) world. Patoka treats the concept of history using the problems of the sense of history, Europe of the nineteenth century, technical civilization and the relationship between the war and the twentieth century. While J. Ken and other historians set forth more or less the set of problems which should be solved, Patoka defines the level at which it will be necessary to find the balance for solving historiosophic problems (from the viewpoint of any philosophical movement.)

Czech philosophies of history stand at the very beginning of a radical reevaluation. This does not mean that it is necessary to start from nothing. Even in the official production of the last 40 years, it is possible to find works which must be taken seriously into account. Not only is the whole structure of Czech and Czechoslovak history changing, but also the theoretical framework of history in which this structure could be placed. It seems that this framework will be much more flexible and open than hitherto, which means that we will have to learn once again the art of polemic.