Miloslav (Milan) Petrusek (1936 – 2012)

By Hana Cervinkova, August 29th, 2012
Milan Petrusek © Filip Handourek | foto HN

Milan Petrusek, a pillar of integrity and a major figure in Czech social science, died last week. In this post, Hana Cervinkova pays tribute to him and to Alena Miltová, his wife. Together, they have been quiet heroes of Czech social science, culture and public life. I have long appreciated their work and benefited from it. It has been a privilege to know them personally. I publish this remembrance with sadness and appreciation. -Jeff

The world of Czech social science is a rather small community concentrated in several academic and research institutions in this country of ten million people. Today’s quality institutions in Prague and Brno are results of the complex process of the post-1989 (re)construction of various disciplines (including sociology, political science, anthropology, philosophy and economics), following their almost total destruction during the Communist rule. While in Poland, for example, a distinct tradition of critical social thought developed despite official restrictions prior to 1989, Czechoslovak social science was subject to all-encompassing censorship that concerned not only indigenous production, but also the prohibition on translations of Western theoretical texts. Leading Czech and Slovak scholars who dared to express critical and independent views were quickly removed from academic and research positions. As a result, the struggle for the (re)construction of the Czech and Slovak social science that began in 1989 was a difficult and somewhat solitary task wrought with many predicaments that characterized academic and scholarly work in this small post-traumatic professional community. Once the borders opened, some (including me) decided to temporarily or permanently emigrate to countries with larger and better established professional milieus. The task of shaping the local tradition was taken up by a few exceptional personalities who dedicated their professional lives to the building of institutions that allowed for the Czech social sciences to grow.

The professional wisdom, patience and resoluteness involved . . .

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August 29th, 2012 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hungarian Alert for Central Europe

By Kacper Szulecki, January 13th, 2012
Konrád György © Unknown | SZDSZ-Archive

Who would have thought that twenty-two years after the fall of communism in Hungary that György Konrád, the respected writer and one of the most famous Central European dissidents, would have to sign yet another open letter defending fundamental rules of democracy in his home country? And that the letter would be a strong accusation addressed to that young man with soot black hair whose hard-shell speech in 1989, at the symbolic funeral of the martyrs of the ’56 revolution, electrified Budapest – one Viktor Orbán?

The New Year’s appeal of Hungarian intellectuals including former key figures of the opposition such as Konrád and Miklós Haraszti is a democratic alert not only for Hungary. It echoes the dissident appeals of the old days. It does not attack Orbán’s regime for its ideological content, but rather for its form. Liberal democracy is, first and foremost, a set of rules, written down so that the game remains fair for whoever might be sitting at the table. That was the essence of the democratic opposition’s struggle in Eastern Europe – to overthrow the red dictatorship, because it is a dictatorship.

On the other hand, the anti-Communist opposition, of which Orbán is a descendent, wanted to overthrow the red dictatorship because it was red. Following this logic, one can treat human rights in an instrumental fashion. One can perceive torture as justified or not – for example justified in the case of Pinochet, and vicious in the case of Castro. One can also believe that authoritarianism can be built in the name of a just cause. If you disagree with this judgment, you should listen carefully to what the Hungarian democratic dissidents . . .

Read more: Hungarian Alert for Central Europe

January 13th, 2012 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,