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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7853-1117

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Südböhmische Universität České Budějovice

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Constitutional History in the Czech Republic 2000–2015

Bohumil Jiroušek

Cracow Studies of Constitutional and Legal History, Volume 10, Issue 4, Volume 10 (2017), pp. 567-577

https://doi.org/10.4467/20844131KS.17.023.8406

This paper focuses on the topic of research in constitutional history in the Czech Republic at the beginning of the 21st century, specifically in the period 2000–2015. The paper charts Czech historians’ interest in constitutional (legal) history in the region of the modern Czech Republic (including some overlaps concerning constitutional law in Central Europe) throughout the whole history of the Czech state. It is obvious that constitutional history (as well as other areas of historical research) of modern times, especially of the 19th and 20th centuries, has recently become a topic for greater discussion among scholars. However, the major editions are still more connected with older Czech history. The topic of legal history is studied at law faculties, at faculties of arts and philosophy, and at some institutes of The Czech Academy of Sciences (Institute of State and Law of the CAS, the Masaryk Institute, and the Archives of the CAS). The current paper will also treat with the professional publications (i.a. the magazine “Právněhistorické studie”), major studies, and important figures (i.a. Karel Malý, Pavel Krafl, Jiří Přibáň, Ladislav Soukup, Karolina Adamová, Jan Kuklík, Aleš Gerloch). Finally, yet importantly, the paper will point out that the “founding fathers” of the constitutional history of the 19th century (Jaromír Čelakovský and Josef Kalousek) have attracted modern scholars’ attention as well as the critical perception of legal aspects of globalisation.

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Legal Aspects of the Position of Slovakia in the Newly Established Czechoslovakia in Vratislav Kalousek’s Interpretation

Bohumil Jiroušek

Cracow Studies of Constitutional and Legal History, Volume 13, Issue 3, Volume 13 (2020), pp. 321-328

https://doi.org/10.4467/20844131KS.20.023.12518

The following text examines the topic of unifying territories with disparate legal traditions as exemplified by Czechoslovakia during the first years of its existence and interpreted by Vratislav Kalousek (1883–1936), an unjustly forgotten clerk at the Ministry of the Interior, a lawyer and a contributor to inter-war legal magazines. He analyzed how the Czechoslovak law –drafted by the Czechoslovak officials of the Cisleithanian tradition –was implemented in the newly acquired lands, namely in Slovakia and in Carpathian Ruthenia. Vratislav Kalousek perceived the foundation of Czechoslovakia, based on uniting lands with a different history, as well as cultural, social and legal traditions, as a situation in which it was necessary to act swiftly, instead of slowing the process down with emphasis on accuracy typical for legal theory.

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Die Prager Diskussion über den Machiavellismus als Kritik der Politik der UdSSR

Bohumil Jiroušek

Cracow Studies of Constitutional and Legal History, Volume 6, Issue 3, 2013, pp. 277-284

https://doi.org/10.4467/20844131KS.13.017.1611

The Czech history of the second half of the 20th century is marked by a number of historical twists which suppressed the public discussion of past history; however, the discussion was sometimes possible in the form of allusions. This essay focuses on one of those discussions; i.e. the one organized by Plamen magazine in 1969. The participants knew that they could not openly express their opinions on the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies in August 1968. Thus, they used the 500^th anniversary of Niccolo Machiavelli´s birth (1469–1527) to both recollect his personality and his work and to discuss the question of whether small countries were allowed to defend themselves against big ones. The message and topicality of the discussion constituted an unambiguous criticism of the Soviet Union, which claimed supremacy over its neighbors: its bloc.

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