BOHEMIA DOCTA The Historical Roots of Science and Scholarship in the Czech Lands Edited by Alena Míšková, Martin Franc and Antonín Kostlán Academia Praha 2018 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 3 11. 9. 2018 12:06:20 This book was published with the support of the Czech Academy of Sciences KATALOGIZACE V KNIZE – NÁRODNÍ KNIHOVNA ČR Bohemia docta : the historical roots of science and scholarship in the Czech lands / Alena Míšková, Martin Franc, Antonín Kostlán (eds.). ‒ First edition. ‒ Prague : Academia, 2018. ‒ 578 stran. ‒ (Historie) Přeloženo z češtiny ISBN 978-80-200-2639-2 (brožováno) 001(091) * 001-051 * 001:316.3 * 001:061 * 316.344.32 * 001.83-027.22 * (437.3) * (048.8:082) - dějiny vědy ‒ Česko ‒ 16.–20. století - vědci ‒ Česko ‒ 16.–20. století - věda a společnost ‒ Česko ‒ 16.–20. století - vědecké instituce a organizace ‒ Česko ‒ 18.–20. století - intelektuálové ‒ Česko ‒ 16.–20. století - intelektuální život ‒ Česko ‒ 16.–20. století - kolektivní monografie - history of science ‒ Czechia ‒ 16th–20th centuries - scientists ‒ Czechia ‒ 16th–20th centuries - science and society ‒ Czechia ‒ 16th–20th centuries - scientific institutions and organizations ‒ Czechia ‒ 18th–20th centuries - intellectuals ‒ Czechia ‒ 16th–20th centuries - intellectual life ‒ Czechia ‒ 16th–20th centuries - collective monographs 00 - Věda. Všeobecnosti. Základy vědy a kultury. Vědecká práce [12] 000 - Generalities [12] Reviewers: Prof. PhDr. Petr Svobodný, Ph.D. PhDr. Miroslav Kunštát, Ph.D. © Masarykův ústav a Archiv AV ČR, 2018 © Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, 2018 Translation © Melvyn Clarke, Hana Jirkalová, 2018 Illustrations © Masarykův ústav a Archiv AV ČR, Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, 2018 ISBN 978-80-200-2639-2 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 4 11. 9. 2018 12:06:21 CONTENTS Jiří Drahoš: Introduction … 9 Václav Pačes: Introduction … 13 Jan Janko: Scholars in the Czech lands, their ideas and institutions … 16 Antonín Kostlán: The idea of an Academy of Sciences in the Czech lands during the early modern era (16th‒18th centuries) … 37 Magdaléna Pokorná: Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences … 84 Antonín Kostlán – Ladislav Niklíček: Scholarly and scientific institutions and associations in the Czech lands from the end of the 18th century to 1882 … 149 Jan Janko: Jan Evangelista Purkyně … 200 Jiří Pokorný: Josef Hlávka … 205 Jiří Pokorný: Josef Hlávka, Marie Hlávková and Zdeňka Hlávková Foundation … 212 Jiří Pokorný: Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts … 219 Alena Míšková: German science in Bohemia … 248 Antonín Kostlán – Jan Janko – Ladislav Niklíček: The organizational structure of science, 1882‒1945 … 269 Emilie Těšínská – Jindřich Schwippel: Masaryk Academy of Labour (MAL) … 309 Daniela Brádlerová: Czechoslovak National Research Council, 1924‒1953 … 365 Vlasta Mádlová: CASA in the new Czechoslovak state … 394 Antonín Kostlán: Czechoslovak scholars in exile and their institutions … 440 Alena Míšková: The development of science outside Czechoslovak universities and at CSAS since 1945 … 490 Rudolf Zahradník: Postscript … 565 Names index bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 7 … 569 11. 9. 2018 12:06:21 Antonín Kostlán CZECHOSLOVAK SCHOLARS IN EXILE AND THEIR INSTITUTIONS During the twentieth century Europe saw much war and turmoil, which took a toll of millions of lives, with millions more displaced. Great forced migrations affected both ordinary people and the political, economic and cultural elites, not sparing Czechoslovakia, which underwent such a fundamental upheaval in 1938‒1939. Up until that time it had been a place where refugees were accepted from elsewhere (sometimes amicably and sometimes out of compassionate duty), but now it was a place that people fled. This was also the case for the rest of the twentieth century except the final decade. Two totalitarian regimes succeeded each other during this period, the Nazis (1938/39‒1945) and the Communists (1948‒1989). The overall extent of emigration from Czechoslovakia just before and during the Second World War can be estimated at around 40,000‒45,000 people. In the period from the Communist takeover in February 1948 to spring 1968, some 60,000 people left the country, followed by some 200,000 from the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops in August 1968 to the fall of the Communist regime in November 1989. 440 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 440 11. 9. 2018 12:07:59 czechoslovak scholars in exile… Scholars, researchers and other members of academic communities did not evade such enforced exile from their homeland either. In various countries worldwide there were thousands amongst them who had felt so threatened that they left their previous work and homes just to save their bare lives or to remain free. Of course, even during peacetime, undergraduate and graduate researchers visit universities and research institutes abroad to gain new experience, often for good if they can find better conditions for their research work in one of the developed countries (as in human capital flight or the “brain drain”). Researchers in exile differed from these, particularly in that as a rule they left their country under considerable personal and political pressure, often for an uncertain future at an advanced age. In the majority of cases, researchers in exile only gradually and with great difficulty found new employment in one of the free countries. They had to overcome a number of problems, from the language barrier to new cultural and social conventions and methods of work. As refugees scholars usually preferred to attempt to continue their specialist work at universities and in research institutes in their new country. Even under such trying circumstances some of them succeeded in competition with local scholars, while many others did not and had to seek alternative livelihoods, often in various ancillary or manual professions (e.g. according to research carried out in 1942, about half of Czechoslovak scholars in Britain were in this category). In exile a scholar also inevitably came into contact with a number of institutions of various calibres (universities, research organizations, government agencies, NGOs, societies, associations and the like). Some of them assisted in his flight and the difficult first days, others employed him and gave him a livelihood, while yet others provided a link with the old country and its memory. In this chapter we shall focus primarily on those associated with the needs of Czechoslovak political émigrés and those co-created by the scholars in exile themselves to enhance their specialist careers and to make themselves better heard in the free world. 441 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 441 11. 9. 2018 12:08:00 antonín kostlán Scholars from the Czech lands in exile during the Second World War After the Munich Agreement was signed in September 1938 and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was created under the occupying German administration in March 1939, an extremely distressing situation arose for a considerable proportion of the Czechoslovak population, particularly those with a Jewish background and political opponents of the Nazis Questionnaire for Jewish emigrants, which was mandatorily to be filled out by every individual (including minors) requesting permanent departure from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, if the Nuremberg laws could be applied to them (from August 1940). The questionnaire recorded details of the applicant’s financial circumstances. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection 442 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 442 11. 9. 2018 12:08:00 czechoslovak scholars in exile… both among the Czechs and the Czech Germans (usually democrats, socialists and Communists). Hence many people decided to go into exile, including hundreds from the world of culture and academia. On the threshold of the Second World War one of the primary destinations at first was France, where as early as November 1939 Československý národní výbor (the Czechoslovak National Committee) formed around President Edvard Beneš as an interim political body. However, after the German invasion of France in 1940, the Czechoslovaks in exile quickly moved elsewhere, as they did from other countries occupied or threatened by Nazi aggression, e.g. Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. Not all refugees managed to move on from these countries. For example, pharmacologist Emil Starkenstein left the German University in Prague for exile in the Netherlands, only to be incarcerated there in 1941 and sent to Mauthausen concentration camp, where he died. The paediatrician Berthold Eppstein, another professor from the German University in Prague left Czechoslovakia for Norway, but there he was imprisoned in October 1942 and later sent to Auschwitz. A similar route lay in store for psychistrist Leo Eitinger, who was sent to Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Subsequently the primary destination for scholars escaping Czechoslovakia was the United Kingdom, where the largest overall concentration of Czechoslovak refugees had gathered (there were some ten thousand of them there in 1943, about one tenth of whom were German-speaking). Let us also recall that former professors from the German University in Prague who settled there included theoretical physicist Reinhold H. Fürth and professor of ancient history Victor Ehrenberg. Czech émigrés at that time included biochemist Egon Hynek Kodíček, while many more were active there as co-workers or advisors for the Czechoslovak government-in-exile based in London (details later). The younger Czechoslovak refugees took advantage of the opportunity to complete their interrupted secondary education and to go on to higher education. A graduation ceremony for Czechoslovak 443 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 443 11. 9. 2018 12:08:00 antonín kostlán Professor at the Medical Faculty of the German University in Prague, Emil Starkenstein (1884–1942) was the last prominent representative of the Prague German pharmacological school. In March 1939 he fled to the Netherlands, where he was arrested in autumn 1941. He died 6 November 1942 at Mauthausen concentration camp. National Archive, Police Headquarters, PŘ 1941–51, b. 10589, S5275/5 Starkenstein E. medical students at Oxford University on 27 February 1943 was attended by none other than President Edvard Beneš. Many scholars who had escaped Czechoslovakia found employment at various universities in the USA, e.g. philosopher Jan Blahoslav Kozák, historian and diplomat Vladimír Kybal, historian Otakar Odložilík (later in London), sociologist Antonín J. Obrdlík, cardiologist Josef Brumlík (in the USA from the end of the war, previously he had been working in Mexico) and astronomer Zdeněk Kopal. Einstein’s successor at the German University in Prague, physicist Philipp Frank, also went to the USA, where his subsequent post was at Harvard University. Mathematician Karl Löwner worked successively at several universities there (and at Stanford from 1951). 444 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 444 11. 9. 2018 12:08:00 czechoslovak scholars in exile… Graduation ceremony for Czechoslovak medical students at Oxford in the presence of President Edvard Beneš and the Czechoslovak government-in -exile. The ceremony took place 27 February 1943 at the Sheldonian Theatre. MIA CAS, Edvard Beneš fond IV/3, ID No. 1141, No. 559/6. To a lesser extent other host countries such as Canada, Switzerland, Palestine (particularly the recently established Hebrew University in Jerusalem) and Turkey (the new universities in Ankara and Istanbul, where biochemist Felix Haurowitz worked before he moved to Indiana University in the USA in 1948) came to the aid of fugitive Czechoslovak scholars, while Latin American states were no exception either, e.g. Argentina (where physicist Guido Beck found employment) and Ecuador (where mathematician and insurance expert Emil Schoenbaum worked). Only a handful of Communist dignitaries had any hope of a kindly welcome in the Soviet Union, e.g. historian and musicologist Zdeněk Nejedlý, who became a professor at Lomonosov University in Moscow. 445 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 445 11. 9. 2018 12:08:01 antonín kostlán Incidentally, it was not only scholars whose lives had long been bound up with Czechoslovakia who were abandoning it for the free world, for by the end of the 1930s it had also become a transit country for many Germans and Austrians fleeing Nazism. For example, astronomer Erwin Finlay-Freundlich before his departure for Scotland, philosopher Rudolf Carnap and lawyer Hans Kelsen before their departure for the USA worked temporarily at the Minutes from the first meeting of the Cambridge Allocation Committee of the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (27 October 1939), recording the names of the first support grant winners from among scientists and scholars who had escaped from Czechoslovakia (on the first place Roman O. Jakobson, former professor at Masaryk University in Brno). National Archives London-Kew, Council for Assisting Refugee Academics 446 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 446 11. 9. 2018 12:08:01 czechoslovak scholars in exile… German University in Prague. Physicist Peter Gabriel Bergmann, who worked in the USA as Albert Einstein’s assistant from 1936 to 1941 also fled through Czechoslovakia. From 1935 to 1938 the Prague Psychoanalytical Working Group (Prager Psychoanalytische Arbeitsgemeinschaft) in exile headed by Otto Fenichel was also active here. A number of German researchers passing through Prague belonged to the Communist opposition, such as Trotsky’s friend, neurologist Erwin Ackerknecht and historian Walter Bartel, one of the later official interpreters of the past in what was to be East Germany. We do not have any precise statistics on the number of scholars who managed to leave Czechoslovakia at the time it was under threat and occupation by Nazi Germany. According to a survey drawn up in 1942 by the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning in London, at least 143 leading researchers and doctors were directly threatened by the Nazi invasion, of whom more than a half were already in exile by that time, though a substantial proportion of them (46%) remained in danger and had very little hope of getting away. An initial estimate indicates that the total number of scholars emigrating from Czechoslovakia at that time came to four or five hundred. In the great majority of cases these were people leaving Bohemia and Moravia, while the number of refugees from Slovakia was substantially lower. Out of all émigrés the proportion of scholars and university tutors varied considerably from one individual group leaving Czechoslovakia at that time to another. Jewish refugees (who made up about one half of the total number) were dominated by the middle class, with business people, physicians, lawyers and other intellectual professions strongly represented. There was also a higher proportion of academic professions among the ethnic Czech refugees (about one third), while the German element from Czechoslovakia was primarily made up of the working classes. Those who left also included prominent figures from the German University in Prague, with 26 professors and lecturers from the Medical Faculty going into exile and a similar number from other faculties. We can form an approximate picture of the professional structure of Czechoslovak academic exiles from surviving statistics and 447 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 447 11. 9. 2018 12:08:01 antonín kostlán As Minister of State Hubert Ripka thanks on the behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile the British public for their support during the Second World War as its representatives go back to their homeland. He thanks also Oxford University for its patronage of the scholars and students from the closed universities of Prague, Brno and Bratislava. The Times, March 1945 registers. It appears that the number of scientists in the “hard” exact disciplines (mathematics, physics etc) was roughly equal to the number of scientists in biological and chemical fields, and the figures are similar for representatives of the social sciences (e.g. economics, law, psychology and sociology). However, the figures are significantly higher for two other professional groups: those in the humanities (e.g. philology, history, archeology, art history and musicology) and those in the medical sciences. The latter group accounted for up to one half of all Czechoslovak academic exiles. They were mostly graduates of the German University in Prague, as only about one third of the doctors had studied at Czech universities in Prague and Brno or at the Slovak University in Bratislava. 448 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 448 11. 9. 2018 12:08:02 czechoslovak scholars in exile… Physicians and other qualified healthcare workers had a truly extraordinary position among Czechoslovak émigrés. In 1942 there were 250 former Czechoslovak doctors registered in Great Britain and more recent research (by Paul J. Weindling) has indicated that over 680 healthcare workers arrived here during the war. Many of them served in the British armed forces (mostly in the Royal Army Medical Corps) or in Czechoslovak military units, which had access to several clinics, sanatoria and field hospitals. The USA also saw a similar influx of Czechoslovak physicians. From 1933 to 1938, 49 Czechoslovaks applied for their medical licensure and by 1941 around 80 Czechoslovak doctors were working in the USA. About a score of them applied to join the American army. When the Second World War came to an end in Europe in May 1945 with the defeat of Nazi Germany, conditions were all set for the scholars to return to their homeland, but many of the German-speaking ones did not go back, due inter alia to the rather hostile environment that they faced in the reconstituted Czechoslovakia. Most of the Czech-speaking scholars did go back, though a number of them went into exile again after February 1948, e.g. cardiologist Josef Brumlík, astronomer Zdeněk Kopal, historian Otakar Odložilík, Egyptologist Jaroslav Černý, lawyer Adolf Procházka and Byzantologist František (Francis) Dvorník. Then in the 1960s more prominent scholars went into exile for the second time, e.g. computer expert Antonín Svoboda and biochemist Arnošt Kleinzeller. Czechoslovak scientists on the run from the Communist regime After the end of the Second World War a democratic regime took over reconstituted Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1948, only to be destabilized by the Soviet Union’s and the local Communists’ demands for power. In February 1948 the Czechoslovak Communist Party established its monolopy of power in the country and the previously independent state began to turn into a Soviet satellite. Civil liberties were immediately quashed and an era of repression 449 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 449 11. 9. 2018 12:08:02 antonín kostlán Biochemist Arnošt Kleinzeller (1914–1997) escaped from his homeland twice, first in 1939 to Britain, and again in 1966 to the USA. The picture shows him with his wife Lotte in 1960, when he was organizing a large international symposium Membrane Transport and Metabolism. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection against democrats got under way. In response, not only politicians and those holding alternative political opinions went into exile, but also increasingly those who simply feared repression or wished to extricate themselves from the authoritarianism that had begun to dominate the state. Even during the Communist takeover and the first few months thereafter, thousands of people left, including hundreds of members of the political, cultural and scientific elite. These first made their way to Britain in particular, although only a few of them settled down to work there (economist Karel Maiwald did find long-term employment there, however, as did physician and physiologist Jan Bělehrádek after an interlude in Paris). Thanks to its considerable openness, the USA increasingly became the most popular country for Czechoslovak scholars, as testified by the life stories of mathematician Václav Hlavatý, literary theoretician 450 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 450 11. 9. 2018 12:08:02 czechoslovak scholars in exile… Milada Součková, historian Otakar Odložilík, sociologist Otakar Machotka, economist Josef Macek, lawyer Vratislav Bušek, politologist Josef Korbel and many others. Canada also offered a new engagement (e.g. for botanist Vladimír Krajina and historian Bořivoj Čelovský), as did South America, Australia, France, Spain (where historian Bohdan Chudoba worked, as well as in the USA) and other European countries. Some African and Asian countries also assisted (e.g. the sociologist Zdeněk Ullrich worked in Egypt). The emerging Communist dictatorship soon proceeded to build barriers between the citizens on its territory and the free world. Leaving the country without authorization was now considered Telegram from the British Ambassador in Prague, Sir Pierson J. Dixon, sent 8 March 1948 to the London Foreign Office, describing the persecution of professors and students at Czechoslovak higher education institutes that had started soon after the Communist takeover. He also warned against participation in the upcoming celebration of the 600th anniversary of the founding of Charles University in Prague. National Archives London-Kew, FO 910/710 451 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 451 11. 9. 2018 12:08:03 antonín kostlán a serious criminal act and draconian measures were adopted at the borders (e.g. electric wire entanglements, minefields, ready-to-shoot border guards with dogs). Attempts to leave the country continued but under the stricter conditions only some people succeeded. Hundreds of those who tried ended up in prison or dead. One of these was historian and Political and Social Studies College professor Jaroslav Vozka, who committed suicide following an unsuccessful attempt to cross from East into West Berlin in May 1954. The strict limitation of trips abroad applied till the end of the 1950s, after which there was some gradual liberalization. To some extent the regime began to regularly release individuals it considered loyal, either for business trips (including participation at scientific symposia) or organized tourist excursions. Hence the number of Czechoslovak scholars escaping into exile again began to rise somewhat. Some of these escapes were very dramatic, as in the case of Jan and Eva Roček, chemical researchers who with their two children and Eva’s mother jumped from an East German excursion ship into the sea nearby the Danish port of Gedser in July 1960. Presumably, overall from February 1948 to spring 1968 some 600‒800 representatives of scientific and cultural life left Communist Czechoslovakia. However, the great majority of the post-1948 cultural and scientific elite stayed in the country and tried to adapt to the new regime or even supported it. This was in sharp contrast to the Nazi period, when the majority of the Czech cultural and academic elite disassociated themselves from those in power. The increasing liberalization of the Communist regime which took place during the Prague Spring of 1968, basically allowed more people to visit the free world. In the case of scholars this even meant long-term study trips and research fellowships. The atmosphere at the time was imbued with an optimistic vision of Czechoslovakia’s future development, so people were not so motivated to go into exile. But then the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies on the night of 20 and 21 August 1968 brought about a fundamental transformation. Tens of thousands of people decided to leave immediately under shock from the invasion, while others joined them over the next few months, including hundreds 452 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 452 11. 9. 2018 12:08:03 czechoslovak scholars in exile… of scholars. The situation was favourable for leaving, because the border guards were politically disoriented and until 1970 the border was relatively permeable. It can be presumed that from August 1968 to November 1989 some 2,500‒3,000 scholars, researchers and university tutors emigrated from Czechoslovakia, of whom an estimated two-thirds or more left between 1968 and 1970. As the pro-Soviet Communist clique gained control over the country, the opportunities for leaving it legally were again substantially curtailed. For Czechoslovak scholars the subsequent period of “normalization” also meant that the links they had forged with foreign research centres during the 1960s were cut or substantially weakened. Yet the extent of academic emigration from Czechoslovakia increased considerably during the early 1970s due to intransigent demands made by Czechoslovak authorities and embassies for scientists and scholars staying at that time in the USA or Western Europe on long-term fellowships and stays to immediately return, for under such pressure many younger scholars in particular preferred to stay in the free world and build their professional careers. During the 1980s Communist Czechoslovakia’s border policy relaxed slightly, but a number of young people in particular emigrated to the free world illegally, often by escaping via Yugoslavia, for example, where journeys were permitted with relative frequency. The great majority of successful scholars and researchers in exile had presumably worked before their departure either at institutes of higher education or at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The professional standards at a number of applied research and development centres were rather problematic and could not guarantee those leaving that their professionalism would recommend them for a new workplace. From CSAS itself, some 560 to 590 scholars and other staff members emigrated after August 1968, the most seriously affected being the CSAS Institute of Nuclear Physics in Řež near Prague, where 50 employees left, and the CSAS Institute for the Theoretical Bases of Chemical Engineering, the CSAS Institute of Physics, the CSAS Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry and the CSAS Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry. 453 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 453 11. 9. 2018 12:08:03 antonín kostlán Out of those scholars who left, around 35% had worked in physical, astronomical and technical research. Many of them worked their way up to be world famous specialists. If we use citation databases (according to the Web of Science) as an index of success then they include astronomers Ivan Hubený (who subsequently worked at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, USA) and Zdeněk Švestka (Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Utrecht), astrophysicist Zdeněk Sekanina (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, USA), physicists Václav Vítek (University of Pennsylvania), Pavel Winternitz (Université de Montréal), Jan Tauc (Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island) and Jiří Mathon (City University in London). More than half of those scholars who emigrated from Czechoslovakia after August 1968 were involved in research into chemistry, Astrophysicist Ivan Hubený (*1948) went into exile in 1986 because of the dissatisfaction with the ideological and economic constraints in the CSAS Astronomical Institute and then worked in the USA (at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt and at other important sites). Picture from 2008. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection 454 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 454 11. 9. 2018 12:08:04 czechoslovak scholars in exile… One of the scientists who decided to remain in exile after the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia was physicist Jan Tauc (1922–2010). This picture was taken in February 1960 at the CSAS Institute of Technical Physics. (Jan Tauc on the right) MIA CAS, CSAS and CAS Reportage fonds medicine and biology. They included such prominent figures as Josef Michl (University of Colorado) and Josef Paldus (University of Waterloo, Canada), immunogeneticist Jan Klein (at a number of American universities, from 1977 Director of Max-Planck-Institut für Biologie in Tübingen), immunologists Jiří Městecký (University of Alabama), Juraj Iványi (King’s College, London) and Emil Skamene (McGill University in Montreal). Only some of the most successful can be mentioned here, but a detailed list would be much longer. An estimated 15% or so of the scholars who emigrated from their homeland after August 1968 were engaged in the social sciences 455 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 455 11. 9. 2018 12:08:04 antonín kostlán or humanities, of whom amongst others the following entered broader public awareness: historians František Graus (University of Basel in Switzerland) and Bedřich Loewenstein (Freie Universität Berlin), economist and sociologist Jaroslav Krejčí (Lancaster University, GB), economist Jiří Jindřich Kosta (Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main), literary historian Antonín Měšťan (Freiburg University), philosopher Ivan Sviták (State California University in Chico, USA), linguist Ladislav Zgusta (Illinois University, USA), Indologist Kamil Veith Zvelebil (Utrecht University, Netherlands) and ethnologist Ladislav Holý (Queens University, Belfast, later St. Andrews University, Scotland). Those scholars who left Czechoslovakia in the post-1968 wave of emigration basically aimed for the same countries that were Economist Jiří Jindřich Kosta (1921–2015), Holocaust survivor (during the WW2 he was a prisoner in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz), took up a leading position at the CSAS Economics Institute after 1962, when he took part in the forthcoming economic reforms under the auspices of Ota Šik. From 1969 he worked in exile in West Germany. This picture is from 2003. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection 456 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 456 11. 9. 2018 12:08:04 czechoslovak scholars in exile… destinations after February 1948. It can be presumed that about one half of them made their way to North America, primarily to the USA and to a lesser extent to Canada. Free European countries were still good destinations, with West Germany (including West Berlin) in a strong position, while others included Great Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria. The mosaic of destination states was rounded off by a number of other countries in Europe (e.g. Italy, Spain and Scandinavian states) and elsewhere (e.g. Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and South Africa). Scholars in the service of political exile In the eyes of the majority who left former Czechoslovakia to go into political exile, their old homeland did not lose any of its importance. Although the need to make a living and the unclear prospects of a return helped to settle them into civil and professional life in their new working environment, many of them tried as much as their circumstances permitted to contribute to the destabilization or fall of the undemocratic regime that ruled in their homeland. As volunteers, their tasks included careful monitoring and analysis of developments in Czechoslovakia, and the preparation of scenarios regarding procedure if the situation permitted a return home. The Czechoslovak representatives in exile also had other difficult tasks involving the endeavour to keep political émigrés active, to limit their internal disputes and to raise their prestige in the free world. These political émigré representatives were individuals who had been active at the apex of politics in the old country, i.e. primarily former ministers, deputies and other representatives of political parties. However, the political and intellectual elites had never been totally separate in Czechoslovak society, but had always to a large extent overlapped, so scholars and those who were at home in academic activities also found themselves very much at home in politics. This was borne out by the fact that two members of the government-in-exile that had convened in London during the Second World War had been active at home both 457 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 457 11. 9. 2018 12:08:04 antonín kostlán in politics and in academia (Jaroslav Stránský was a professor of law at Masaryk University in Brno from 1934 and Hubert Ripka lectured at the Free School of Political Studies and then after the war at Charles University). President Edvard Beneš himself was a member of the tutorial staff at Charles University Faculty of Arts as a full professor of sociology (appointed in 1922) and an honorary professor at the Czech Technical University. Prominent scholars also sat on the State Council, a supervisory and consultation body of the London government-in-exile (with Charles University Faculty of Arts professor of philosophy Jan Blahoslav Kozák, and historian Vladimír Klecanda, a pre-war professor of auxiliary historical disciplines at Comenius University President Edvard Beneš (right) at Oxford in conversation with the Dean of Christ Church College John Lowe. The meeting took place at the graduation ceremony for Czechoslovak medical students in February 1943. MIA CAS, Edvard Beneš fond IV/3, ID No. 1147, No. 559/12. 458 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 458 11. 9. 2018 12:08:05 czechoslovak scholars in exile… in Bratislava). A number of other prominent figures were active as advisors and volunteer co-workers in the two bodies, including physician František Smetánka, professor and Dean at the Faculty of Medicine in Zagreb (from 1936 he organized escapes from threatened Czechoslovakia via the Balkans), lawyer Adolf Procházka, historian Otakar Odložilík and Protestant theologian František M. Hník. A group of left-wing economists also worked in various specialist and advisory roles for the Czechoslovak government in London (e.g. Ludvík Frejka, Josef Goldmann, Bedřich Levčík and Eugen Löbl, who worked also for the Czech Refugee Trust Fund); after February 1948 these took up high positions in the Communist regime but soon themselves for the most part fell victim to its repression (Frejka was executed in 1952). When creating their expert facilities, the émigré representatives of various European nations often did not just connect with free-standing structures (ad hoc committees and advisory bodies), but in some cases they also initiated or supported the creation of émigré documentation centres and specialist institutions. For the Polish government-in-exile this role was played e.g. by Polski Ośrodek Naukowy (Polish Research Centre, established in London, 1939), Instytut Józefa Piłsudskiego w Ameryce (Józef Piłsudski Institute of America, in New York from 1943), the institute of the same name in London (from 1947) and Instytut Historyczny im. gen. Sikorskiego (General Sikorski Historical Institute, in London, 1945). The Czechoslovak government-in-exile moved in the same direction when it established Československý studijní ústav (Czechoslovak Research Institute) in London. But its tasks did not only involve collecting documentation, but also drawing up well-researched analyses. The London Institute primarily focused on subjects associated with the Czechoslovak government’s need to defend its position and viewpoints (issues surrounding national minorities in Czechoslovakia, the economic effects of the Munich Agreement and so forth). However, a number of its projects also focused on the future. An analysis of the food situation in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was meant to be a jumping-off point 459 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 459 11. 9. 2018 12:08:05 antonín kostlán for finding a solution to the issues involved in feeding the population when the government went back home. Studies of the postwar distribution of vitamins, for example, had a similar focus. The Institute published a number of specialist publications in English and Czech, as well as several periodicals (Bulletin and Politický zápisník). Special interest was devoted at this time to medical research, over which the Institute collaborated closely with the Czechoslovak Medical Association in Great Britain. In one 1942 issue of the Association’s Bulletin, scientists close to the Czechoslovak government-in-exile (e.g. biologist and geneticist Hans Kalmus, statistician Václav Myslivec and internist Bruno Schober) analysed the racial theories prevalent at the time and showed how the findings of the exact sciences could be combined with ideological distortions and nationalist prejudices. A similar view was adopted by former Carlsbad physician and anthropologist Ignaz Zollschan, who in exile carried on his efforts during the 1930s, publishing his book Racialism against Civilization in London in 1942. Thus Czechoslovak specialists endeavoured to help promote an international expert discussion to condemn Nazi misconstruals of racial theory. In 1943 an appeal was made under the auspices of the Czechoslovak Research Institute to create a Charter of Health for Free Europe, for doctors, public health, research workers and co-associates from various countries. On this basis an Inter-allied Health Charter Movement grew up, sponsored by Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs in exile Jan Masaryk. This movement aimed to focus attention on the role of housing, nutrition, education and the leisure system in healthcare in post-war Europe. Two Czechoslovak specialists in exile backed this project with their expertise, nutrition expert Egon Hynek Kodíček and Julius Löwy, a doctor specializing in occupational disorders. The post-1948 wave of emigration from Czechoslovakia also included a strong contingent from the political and intellectual elite, so the very first refugees included scholars who had been active in prominent political positions from 1945 to 1948, e.g. Vladimír 460 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 460 11. 9. 2018 12:08:05 czechoslovak scholars in exile… Invitation to a reception arranged by the Czechoslovak Medical Association in Great Britain for British doctors in London, 11 November 1941. This event took place at the Czechoslovak Institute, which was established by the British Council in order to familiarize the British public with Czechoslovak culture. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection Krajina, a prominent participant in the anti-Fascist resistance and prior to his departure into exile General Secretary of the Czech National Socialist Party. He was also a prominent botanist and professor at Charles University. Physician and biologist Jan Bělehrádek, who became the first postwar Rector at Charles University following his return from Nazi incarceration in 1945 was also a Social Democratic deputy and Chairman of the Czechoslovak Committee for the United Nations. National economist Karel Maiwald, former professor at Charles University Faculty of Law, who before his departure into exile used to lecture at the Political and Social Studies College in Prague, was also Chairman of the State Planning Office and a deputy for the Social Democratic Party. Other deputies included Bohdan Chudoba, a historian 461 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 461 11. 9. 2018 12:08:05 antonín kostlán The Bulletin of the Czechoslovak Medical Association in Great Britain was published in London during the Second World War thanks to the Czechoslovak Research Institute. One of its single-subject special issues (No. 2 from 1942) analysed the Nazi racist theories of the time. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection whose specialist interests focused on the early modern period, and Štěpán Václav Benda, an agricultural engineer who in later US exile retrained to become a highly regarded physicist. A list of this kind could go on for some time. These and many others carried on their specialist activities for the most part at various universities, though they also got involved in Czechoslovak political structures in exile. For a long time the most prominent role was played amongst them by Rada svobodného Československa (The Council of Free Czechoslovakia), established in Washington 25 February 1949 as a joint political platform for Czechs and Slovaks in exile. Its membership also included a number of scholars and other people who lectured regularly at institutes of higher education, such as Jaroslav Stránský and Hubert Ripka, 462 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 462 11. 9. 2018 12:08:06 czechoslovak scholars in exile… who up until February 1948 had been ministers in the Czechoslovak government, as well as diplomat Štefan Osuský (who lectured in the history of diplomacy at Oxford during the Second World War and then from 1945 at Hamilton, USA), lawyer Adolf Procházka (from 1936 an extraordinary professor and then from 1945 a full professor at Masaryk University in Brno), veterinary doctor Martin Kvetko (from 1936 an instructor at the Veterinary College in Brno), aviation expert Jan Bervida and the aforementioned Vladimír Krajina and Štěpán Václav Benda. Czechoslovak political life in exile soon started to split along party lines and various regional institutions and associations began to gain in importance, with an increasing role being played there by exiles, who might justifiably be termed Bohemia docta. In subsequent developments some media took the initiative in setting out the political and ideological objectives of exiled Czechoslovaks, particularly Radio Free Europe (where Vratislav Bušek, former professor of law at Bratislava, Brno and Prague Universities found further employment) and the journal Svědectví (Testimony), published from 1956 in New York and from 1960 in Paris. A significant role was also played by the journal Skutečnost (Reality) published between 1948 and 1953 by a group of young non-Communist students in Geneva, focusing on political, sociological, economic and cultural issues. A review Studie (Treatises) with a theological and philosophical bent was published between 1958 and 1991 in Rome by the Czech Christian Academy (Křesťanská akademie Řím), established in the early 1950s as an educational institute in exile. Another Christian review was Archa (Ark) published between 1958 and 1963 in Munich by Antonín Kratochvíl. Also within the post-1948 wave of emigration the idea gained ground of creating an independent institute to provide exile representatives with the required documentation and to draw up analyses where required. On 7 March 1950 Ústav dr. E. Beneše pro politické a sociální studium (Dr E. Beneš Institute for Political and Social Studies) was established with the declared aim of “bringing together scholars, literary researchers, students and other interested parties for mutual support in the study of political and social 463 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 463 11. 9. 2018 12:08:06 antonín kostlán sciences”. The institute had been the initiative of the now deceased second Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš, who made funds available for its requirements, as well as the house in the London suburb where the institute was originally based. The executor of Beneš’s will was his former Chancellor Jaromír Smutný; in addition to him other members of the Institute’s Board of Trustees were the President’s brother Vojta Beneš (succeeded upon his death in 1951 by diplomat and historian Jan Opočenský), physician František Smetánka, former Minister of Education Jaroslav Stránský and lawyer and legionnaire Lev Sychrava (succeeded after his return to Communist Czechoslovakia in 1952 by diplomat Karel Lisický). Probably the most important output from the Beneš Institute was its thirty-volume series Doklady a rozpravy (Proofs and Discussions), published between 1952 and 1958. These studies, material summaries and editions dealt with considerable erudition not only with the circumstances of the political takeover that occurred in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, but also with prior developments in the Czechoslovak state (with special stress on the circumstances of the Munich Agreement) and its relations with Slovakia, Subcarpathian Ruthenia and the Czech Germans (including the issues surrounding their expulsion). Activities at the Institute were quite divorced from the needs of Czechoslovak political exiles and they wound down until the death of J. Smutný in 1964, when they stopped entirely. Independently to this London Institute, from 1949 worked also Československý zahraniční ústav v exilu (Czechoslovak Foreign Institute in Exile), established by Ivan Gaďourek, who settled in the Netherlands, and Mojmír Povolný, who at that time worked in Paris. However, this institute was chiefly informative in nature and saw to the publication of the notable journal for exiles Tribuna (Tribune). Whereas the great majority of scholars going into exile after February 1948 were opponents of the Communist regime, this was not the case with the great wave of emigration that followed August 1968. Very few of the researchers who left at that time held explicitly anti-Communist views. Some were supporters or even creators of the Communist regime, while others had previously 464 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 464 11. 9. 2018 12:08:06 czechoslovak scholars in exile… Caricature published in the official Communist humorous magazine Dikobraz in June 1950, in which Czech political representatives’ emigration after 1948 is associated with subservience to imperialistic powers, spying and racism. On the table at right is placed the name of Vladimír Krajina. been prepared to show at least the mandatory loyalty towards it. A large number of them had been members of the Czechoslovak Communist Party before their departure and some had held important positions in the party or state. A number of later exiles received high state awards from the Socialist state for their specialist results before their departure, including two full members and ten corresponding members at CSAS. Hence their approach to political life in exile was very uncoordinated. Some joined exile organizations and associations already in existence, while many others deliberately did not, either because of their distaste for politics or in an effort to identify rapidly with their new environment. Post-1968 exiles in general did not bring with them any coherent idea of their political aims to the new sphere of activity; nor did they for the most part create their own institutional base, although a significant exception here was a group of former Communist exponents who attempted to gain broader international support for their ideas of a reformed Czechoslovak socialist society among Western European Communist and Socialist parties. This group gathered around the magazine Listy, which was published from 1973 in Köln. Its central figure was Jiří Pelikán, who had previously been Central Manager of 465 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 465 11. 9. 2018 12:08:06 antonín kostlán the Communist Czech Television and who from 1979 was a deputy for the Italian Socialist Party at the European Parliament. This group also included a number of individuals who had worked in academia as well as politics, e.g. Zdeněk Mlynář, who from 1956 to 1968 had been a staff member at the CSAS Institute of State and Law and whose political career peaked in June 1968, when he became Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee, i.e. one of the most powerful men in the country. Before the Soviet invasion in August 1968, economist Ota Šik had been Director of the CSAS Economics Institute and at the same time a member of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee, as well as Deputy Prime Minister in the Czechoslovak government from April 1968. Also to be mentioned here are physicist František Janouch and historian Karel Kaplan, while other prominent Communists among the scholars were outsiders, e.g. Arnošt Kolman, a contradictory character who ranged between politics, science and philosophy, as well as between Prague and Moscow. This former comrade in arms of Lenin went into Swedish exile in 1976, where he wrote a strongly critical letter to the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Even though the Socialist opposition group in exile around Listy did not lay down a more solid institutional base than that of the Beneš Institute after its post-1948 exile, it did manage to secure expert backing for its political aims in several team documentary and analytical projects. The leading light here was now Zdeněk Mlynář, who headed a research project between 1979 and 1981 entitled Zkušenosti pražského jara 1968 (Prague Spring Experiences 1968), with an academic board that included such émigré scholars as literary historian Eduard Goldstücker, historian K. Kaplan, economists Jiří Jindřich Kosta and Radovan Selucký, lawyer Vladimír Klokočka and journalist Jiří Pelikán. From 1982 to 1989 Zdeněk Mlynář then led an international project Krisen der Systheme sowjetischen Typs (Crises in Soviet-Style Systems), with such participants as émigré Polish specialists Włodzimierz Brus, at that time living in Oxford, and Aleksander Smolar in Paris, and then from Hungary Péter Kende in Paris, Ágnes Heller and Ferenc Fehér in Australia and later the USA, and French sociologist 466 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 466 11. 9. 2018 12:08:06 czechoslovak scholars in exile… After he left Czechoslovakia in 1974, nuclear physicist František Janouch (*1931) took part in a number of political events and protests in exile. From 1978 he was a leading figure in the Charter 77 Foundation based in Stockholm. This photo is from 2009. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection Georges Mink, Zagorka Golubović and Svetozar Stojanović from the circle around the then prohibited Yugoslav magazine Praxis, and German sociologist Gert-Joachim Glaessner from the Berlin Freie Universität. Other Czechoslovak exiles involved in these projects included philosopher Erazim Kohák, economist Bedřich Levčík and sociologist Zdeněk Strmiska. One way the post-1968 wave of emigration differed substantially from previous waves was its close links with some of the opposition figures and groups back home persecuted by the Communist regime as “dissidents”. This two-way communication gained in strength 467 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 467 11. 9. 2018 12:08:06 antonín kostlán Former Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee and politologist Zdeněk Mlynář (1930–1997). After 1968 he became involved in a number of anti-regime activities and in 1977 emigrated to Austria. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection during 1977 when the Czechoslovak domestic opposition came into the limelight with its Charter 77 movement. Just a year later the Charter 77 Foundation was established in Stockholm, with its most prominent representative soon to be exiled physicist František Janouch. This Foundation distributed considerable funds which it had managed to raise from various organizations supporting freedom of speech, as well as from financial circles, and it supported the publication of books and magazines. From 1981 it had a branch active in Norway and another one in New York a year later. One figure who played a significant role in the regular communications between the domestic opposition and the exiles was 468 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 468 11. 9. 2018 12:08:07 czechoslovak scholars in exile… An English anthology of texts from the samizdat periodical O divadle (About the Theatre) was published in 1989 thanks to the Charter 77 Foundation in collaboration with the Documentation Centre for the Promotion of Independent Czechoslovak Literature. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection historian Vilém Prečan. In 1976 he was forced by the Communist regime to emigrate to West Germany, where in 1986 he succeeded in establishing Československé dokumentační středisko nezávislé literatury (Documentation Centre for the Promotion of Independent Czechoslovak Literature) in Scheinfeld-Schwarzenberg, where independent, anti-regime manuscripts and publications from Communist Czechoslovakia (i.e. “samizdat”) were collected and preserved. This centre was also playing an important communication role, as he was in close contact through various well-concealed channels with dissident circles inside Czechoslovakia, which 469 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 469 11. 9. 2018 12:08:07 antonín kostlán Historian Vilém Prečan (*1933) was compelled by the Communist regime to go into exile to West Germany in 1976. There he organized the export of correspondence and samizdats across the Iron Curtain from Czechoslovakia and arranged for the import of émigré literature and magazines back into his homeland. In 1986 he founded the Documentation Centre for the Promotion of Independent Czechoslovak Literature. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection it supplied with exile literature, while information and documents were brought out through the iron curtain. exile Scholars in the service of science and culture Hitherto we have dealt with institutions and structures where refugee scholars accommodated political needs in exile, but we also know that in the free world a number of exile institutions 470 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 470 11. 9. 2018 12:08:08 czechoslovak scholars in exile… The founders of the Documentation Centre for the Promotion of Independent Czechoslovak Literature in front of the Schwarzenberg Castle in Scheinfeld, Germany, where the Centre was based. Top left to right Jiří Pelikán, Vilém Prečan, Josef Jelínek and Ivo Kunstýř, bottom Ivan Medek and Jan Vladislav. The Czechoslovak Documentation Centre had the priority task of teaching and disseminating learning and scholarly research, rather than working for political ends. Some of these were brought from their homeland, while others were created abroad. Those brought out include Institut Nikodyma Pavloviče Kondakova (the Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov Institute) with its extensive documentation of the development of Russian art, which was transferred to Prague in 1925 and 1931, and the Warburg Institute in Hamburg, which managed to move with its extensive library to London in 1933. In a number of other cases at least the valuable documentation, collections, research strategies and know-how were successfully moved abroad. In some cases the host countries saw the establishment of new institutions whose operations were wholly or mostly reliant upon 471 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 471 11. 9. 2018 12:08:08 antonín kostlán scholars in exile. Hence after 1917 the Russian and Ukrainian intelligentsia created free universities for themselves in exile and other research institutions (e.g. in Czechoslovakia, see the chapter summarizing the 1882‒1945 period). This was also managed e.g. in the case of the New School for Social Research in New York City, where thanks to the efforts of German-language refugees the University in Exile was established in 1933 as a graduate division, as was the French-language École libre des hautes études (Free School of Higher Studies) at a later date. The Polish community could also boast of numerous institutions of this kind. In December 1939, Paris saw the establishment of Polski Uniwersytet za Granicą (Polish University Abroad) and after its demise a number of independent medical, veterinary, pedagogical, architectural and legal faculties were established at various English universities. The tradition of such schools was continued in London even after the Communist regime gained power in Poland, e.g. Polski Uniwersytet Na Obczyźnie (Polish University Abroad, from 1952/53). These are all examples of institutions that Czechoslovak exiles cannot boast of, as scholars from Czechoslovakia for the most part went into exile individually and under pressure of time, so as a rule there was no question of transferring any research institutions or even any significant part of their infrastructure. However, in isolated instances they did manage to bring out valuable collections and documentation. Mention might be made here of botanist Ernst Georg Pringsheim, Prague German University professor, who went into British exile in February 1939, taking with him a collection of some 300 rare protozoan and algal cultures, the importance of which was recognized in Britain, especially “in relation to freshwater fishery research”. This collection was housed at Queen Mary College in London and it was decided that it would form the basis of the National Collection of Type-cultures of Algae and Protozoa, with Pringsheim as curator. However, this case was very exceptional. In a number of cases extensive written documentation of great importance was successfully smuggled out – with historians undoubtedly most active in this. When K. Kaplan informed the Western 472 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 472 11. 9. 2018 12:08:08 czechoslovak scholars in exile… On the left a letter from Muriel Robertson (a protozoologist from the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine in London), sent 9 January 1939 to Sir Edward Mellanby, the Secretary of the British Medical Research Council, regarding the collection of type-cultures of Algae and Protozoa, gathered by a professor at the Prague German University, Ernst Georg Pringsheim. On the right a transcription of a letter from E.G. Pringsheim dated 9 October 1938 to M. Robertson about his desperate situation and about the importance of his collection. National Archives London-Kew, FD 1/990 European and American public in May 1977 of the importance of the documents which he had managed to bring out in collaboration with others, he caused considerable uproar. There were some 14,000 pages of personal notes, photocopies and microfilms from Communist archives, for the most part involving strictly confidential affairs from the 1950s and 1960s. On the basis of this material inter alia, Kaplan soon worked his way up to be one of the most prominent Czech historians researching contemporary history. New higher education and research institutes were also not often established abroad by Czechoslovak exiles, as only occasionally 473 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 473 11. 9. 2018 12:08:09 antonín kostlán did specialists among the Czechoslovak refugees get together in large numbers. That situation only actually occurred once, at the very beginning of the post-1948 wave of emigration, when a number of tutors in higher education and other scholars found themselves in German refugee camps. As these camps were also full of Czechoslovak youth thirsting for education an attempt was made at the Arsenalkaserne camp in Ludwigsburg to set up an interim Czechoslovak University in exile. Masaryk’s University College of Czechoslovak Students in Exile launched its activities in Historian Karel Kaplan (*1928) left Czechoslovakia in 1976 for exile in Germany. At considerable personal risk he managed to bring out a huge number of documents from the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee Archive, considerable part of which were strictly confidential. He went back home after November 1989. This picture is from 2008. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection 474 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 474 11. 9. 2018 12:08:09 czechoslovak scholars in exile… autumn 1948, with a number of university professors lecturing there, including sociologist Zdeněk Ullrich (who later worked at Egyptian universities in Alexandria and Cairo), national economist Vladislav Brdlík (former Czechoslovak Minister of Agriculture and Rector at the Czech Technical University, who later lectured at the University of Akron in Ohio), educationalist and psychologist Stanislav Velinský (later at Oxford), veterinary doctor František (Frank) Král (later at Pennsylvania University in Philadelphia) and literary scholar and aesthetist František Kovárna (who later worked in Paris and New York). After leaving the refugee camps these Czechoslovak experts went their separate ways to various host countries and universities abroad. This gave them little opportunity to engage in everyday collaboration at a higher education or research institute. The greater concentration of Czechs and Slovaks living abroad particularly in the USA and Western Europe sometimes formed a backdrop for local centres and museums to emerge, documenting conditions in the old country and developments among the Czechoslovak diaspora, though such endeavours rarely grew into institutions of importance to research. In 1952 a Slovak Institute was established at the local Benedictine St. Andrew Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio, with František Hrušovský as its first Director. This Institute focused on research into and support of Slovak culture, it had an extensive library and its own publishing plan. A branch was established in Rome in 1963. The Sudeten German community was in a somewhat different situation, as after their expulsion from Czechoslovakia in 1946 they gathered together in Bavaria in particular. This gave them the opportunity inter alia to establish various research institutes, the best-known of which was Collegium Carolinum, founded with the aid of the Bavarian government in Munich in 1956. The name of this research institute referred back to the tradition of Charles University in Prague (and its German section, closed down in 1945). Its research programme focuses on the history of the Czech lands and their social, economic and cultural development. The institute reached its scholarly peak between 1980 and 2003, when it was headed by the renowned historian Ferdinand Seibt. 475 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 475 11. 9. 2018 12:08:09 antonín kostlán Sample from a Cleveland (Ohio) Slovak Institute publishing programme: book by J.M. Kirschbaum on the Slovak poet and panslavism campaigner Ján Kollár from 1966. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection No institute was established in exile for natural science research due to the financial challenges and other understandable reasons, but it should be remembered that in a few cases under the Communist regime several prominent teams did manage to a large extent to get out. Of course, their members emigrated from Czechoslovakia individually and they did not manage to come together again as a team at a single establishment in the free world, but as a rule they worked at various institutions, often in different countries. However, the joint know-how which they brought with them, together with the opportunity to utilize it in free discussion within the scholarly world, significantly helped to change some scholarly discourses and schools of thought. 476 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 476 11. 9. 2018 12:08:09 czechoslovak scholars in exile… A situation of this type developed around computer expert Antonín Svoboda, who applied himself during the 1950s to creating the first Czechoslovak computer, independent of foreign models. For this purpose he was allowed to open the Institute of Mathematical Machines (Ústav matematických strojů, as part of CSAS until 1958 and then outside it), but both he and the institute were subject to some harassment, so he decided to emigrate again (he had previously emigrated during the war to France and the USA), and worked from 1964 at the University of California in Los Angeles. Round the same time and for the next few years several dozen other employees at this institute also emigrated along with their families. Most of them continued to work in the field of computers in the free world, around one half of them in Diagram of the automatic SAPO computer, on which a team led by Antonín Svoboda worked at the Institute of Mathematical Machines. The computer was developed during the 1950s and was in operation 1958–1960. It was located in a building on the Loreta Square in Prague and occupied a 100 m2 space. MIA CAS, First Section 477 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 477 11. 9. 2018 12:08:09 antonín kostlán A team led by Antonín Svoboda (second from the right) working on the SAPO computer plan on one of their winter trips in 1951. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection the USA (e.g. Jan G. Oblonský, Jiří G. Klír and Vlastimil Vyšín) and the others in Switzerland, Germany and other Western European countries. A figure that inspired a number of geneticists and immunologists was the long-term Director at the ASCR Institute of Experimental Biology and Genetics Milan Hašek, who managed to build up an unusually creative atmosphere there. After the Soviet invasion in August 1968, Hašek, who had been lecturing at that time in West Germany, decided to emigrate, though later he preferred to go back home, only to find he was immediately dismissed from his position as Director and together with his deputy Jan Svoboda, a prominent geneticist, he was subjected to harassment and persecution. However, several dozen of his co-workers and pupils sooner or later went into exile and became prominent genetics and immunology researchers in the free world. These included Petr Démant and Pavel Iványi (in the Netherlands), Juraj 478 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 478 11. 9. 2018 12:08:10 czechoslovak scholars in exile… In September 1988 Czech immunologist Milan Hašek’s former students in exile arranged a conference in his memory at Ommen near Amsterdam. The gathering was given the symbolic name Realm of Tolerance. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection Iványi (who worked in Britain), Jan Klein (in the USA and Germany), Emil Skamene (in Canada) and others. In September 1988 Hašek’s former pupils in exile arranged a conference in his memory in Ommen near Amsterdam. This meeting acquired the symbolic name Realm of Tolerance and 25 of Hašek’s former colleagues came along with a number of other scientists from many countries. Like other communities in exile the Czechs and Slovaks abroad had a rich associational life. Many of their associations were connected with the academic and student worlds, history and other humanities, as well as with some scientific and technical disciplines. Hence the idea also emerged amongst them over time of forming a representative body bringing together the leading cultural and academic figures living abroad, thus creating a counterpart in exile to the domestic Academy of Sciences and other learned societies. Such representative societies were regularly created 479 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 479 11. 9. 2018 12:08:10 antonín kostlán by other nations’ communities in exile, as borne out e.g. by the German Academy of Arts and Sciences in Exile, established in 1936 in New York City with its scientific division headed by psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. Polskie Towarzystwo Naukowe na Obczyźnie (Polish Society of Arts and Sciences Abroad) was established in London in 1950 on similar principles, with economist Tadeusz Brzeski as its first President. A similar role was also played to some extent by Polski Instytut Naukowy w Ameryce (Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America), which had been established in 1942. Under a plan from the late 1940s, Sdružení vědeckých pracovníků (the Association of Research Workers) was to be set up at the Beneš Institute in London to bring together about a hundred Czech professors and other people working at various foreign universities. This was clearly meant both to ensure close collaboration between the planned Czechoslovak ideological centre in exile and scientists and scholars abroad, and to increase its influence upon them. This plan did not actually work out, but soon afterwards Czechoslovak intellectuals in exile had the opportunity to get involved in the activities of a more broadly conceived society that was intended to bring together the intellectual elite in exile from Communist bloc countries. This bore the name Académie internationale libre des sciences et des lettres (International Free Academy of Science and Letters) and was established in February 1952 at the Polish Library in Paris. It soon had 120 members, including prominent Czechoslovak figures like J. Stránský and art theorist F. Kovárna. A national Czechoslovak body for scientists and scholars in exile was not formed until later at the end of the 1950s in the USA. After lengthy preparations the foundations were laid here in 1958 for Společnost věd a umění (hereinafter SVU; the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences) based in Washington. Up until 1989 its members primarily included Czech and Slovak scholars and artists living abroad. During the initial stages from 1958 to 1962, alongside lawyer Vratislav Bušek and conductor Rafael Kubelík as Vice-Presidents it was headed by mathematician Václav Hlavatý, a former professor at Charles University in Prague, who after 1948 became 480 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 480 11. 9. 2018 12:08:10 czechoslovak scholars in exile… The first President of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU) between 1958 and 1962 was mathematician Václav Hlavatý (1894–1969), famous for his studies of the theory of relativity. Photo from his youth. MIA CAS, František Antonín Novák’s Archives a professor at Indiana University and the Graduate Institute for Applied Mathematics in Bloomington, USA. From 1962 to 1966 the SVU President was renowned literary and comparative studies scholar René Wellek, a former member of the Prague Linguistic Circle, who had been in exile since 1939. He lectured in the USA at the University of Iowa and Yale University and lived to see the fall of Communism and the award of the Order of T.G. Masaryk by President Václav Havel in 1995. After 1966 a number of other prominent figures took over consecutively as SVU President. Led by such renowned scholars, the Society soon gained the trust of exile circles and it began to grow 481 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 481 11. 9. 2018 12:08:10 antonín kostlán significantly. In 1963 it had over 200 members, three years later around a thousand and perhaps twice as many today. Whereas originally SVU only had local groups in the USA (the oldest being based in Washington, Chicago and New York), by 1961 it had expanded its activities to Canada and Germany and by 1967 to Britain. Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa followed in the 1970s, with Austria in the 1980s and finally after 1989 Czechoslovakia itself (the Czech Republic and Slovakia as of 1993). Although SVU works on a joint basis, its activities are fairly varied and wide-ranging. Since its establishment it has now had 26 world congresses (at various places in the USA and Canada – since 1992 mostly in the Czech lands or Slovakia), plus a large number of conferences, symposia and joint activities in Europe and beyond. SVU is also characterized by its extensive publishing activity. In addition to such periodicals as Zprávy SVU – SVU News (since 1959) and SVU Bulletin (1980‒1994, Los Angeles Chapter 1969‒1991) from 1964 to 1991 the Society also published the quarterly Metamorphoses (in Czech Proměny, and in Slovak Premeny), and since 1982 it has published the journal Kosmas. As a publisher and sponsor SVU has also been involved in bringing out a series of books and other publications, many of them on historical developments in the Czech lands, particularly on Tomáš G. Masaryk the man and his times and the period under Communist rule. Various catalogues and bibliographies of exile books and periodicals, collections of information and genealogical studies on Czechs and Slovaks in America were also of documentary value. A prominent role was played here particularly by long-term SVU President Miloslav Rechcígl Jnr, who amongst other things focuses on the history of SVU and records of bohemical archive sources in the USA. From among his natural science publications his anthology of mathematical studies published in honour of V. Hlavatý in 1966 attracted much attention. Of course, most of the independent publications that SVU helped see the light of day aimed to familiarize the anglophone world with Czech and Slovak literature, cultural life and history. 482 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 482 11. 9. 2018 12:08:10 czechoslovak scholars in exile… The 9th World Congress of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU) in Cleveland (Ohio, USA) in 1978 saw a meeting of six Presidents from this organization: Jan V. Mládek (in office 1970–1972), Jan F. Triska (1978–1980 and 1990–1992), René Wellek (1962–1966), Miloslav Rechcígl Jnr. (1974–1978 and 1994–2006), František Schwarzenberg (1972–1974) and Jaroslav Němec (1968–1970). CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection They also included translations of some works by Jan Amos Komenský (Comenius), for whom an independent symposium was arranged by SVU in 1970. Essays were also published by R. Wellek on Czech literature (1963) and the works of a number of other literary scholars and linguists. Anthologies of Czech poetry (1973) and prose (1983) were also published for English readers, as well as translations of some poets (Jiří Orten and Jaroslav Seifert). Additionally, SVU also supported the publication of original works of literature in Czech. Like other institutions in exile, SVU endeavoured to confront the totalitarian regime back home, but it wished to do so by 483 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 483 11. 9. 2018 12:08:11 antonín kostlán different means to those of the political representatives in exile. Its strategy was succinctly summarized by the Czechoslovak secret police in one of its reports in 1966 as follows: “They try to carry on the struggle at a high intellectual level, to nurture the idea of resistance among their members and to prevent their assimilation and integration into the place where they live. The society has its correspondents in European countries and many members have outstanding social positions.” SVU was involved in the publication of memoirs by postwar Czechoslovak Minister of Justice Prokop Drtina. The manuscript had been smuggled out of Czechoslovakia, and this was used by the Communist regime in 1977 to prosecute Václav Havel and three of his friends. SVU grew close to the Charter 77 domestic dissident movement through V. Prečan. It helped to financially secure his Documentation Centre for the Promotion of Independent Czechoslovak Literature, and assisted in the publication of Prečan’s documentation on independent Budget of the Documentation Centre for the Promotion of Independent Czechoslovak Literature from 1986, fully covered by a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy, which was secured for the Centre by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU). The Czechoslovak Documentation Centre 484 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 484 11. 9. 2018 12:08:11 czechoslovak scholars in exile… historiography in Czechoslovakia at that time (Acta creationis, 1989) and his anthology of dissident essays and articles by Václav Havel (1989). During the 1980s it worked together with exiled Zdena and Josef Škvorecký’s 68 Publishers in Toronto and the Charter 77 Foundation. The fall of Communism in 1989 placed SVU in a new situation. Whereas the society had been created (in the words of one of its founders and former President Jaroslav Němec) “out of anger at the world’s indecision and inability to stop the inevitable disaster”, its tasks in the new situation had substantially broadened. They were defined as follows by their President M. Rechcígl Jnr in 2001: “Now, in addition to its original mission, the Society has become a bridge between Czech and Slovak professionals and those in other countries. It has allowed scholars abroad to benefit from contact with their Slovak Seminar of the Swiss group Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences, which was arranged for Czech and Slovak students in Schwarzsee, 1993. Left to right: slavicist Ľubomír Ďurovič, sociologist Jiřina Šiklová, sociologist Karel Hrubý, economist and sociologist Jaroslav Krejčí and historian Vilém Prečan. CAS Institute for Contemporary History, History of Sciences Department Collection 485 bohemia docta eng blok 24-5.indd 485 11. 9. 2018 12:08:11 antonín kostlán and Czech colleagues, as well as helping to reintegrate the intellectual life of these two nations into the mainstream of world science, arts and letters, from which they were separated by political barriers for so long.” (SVU News No. 2/2001, p. 1). Of course, a similar task has confronted not only SVU since 1989, but the entire émigré Czech and Slovak community, which, it should be said, has acquitted itself with honour, endeavouring for the most part with its best experience to assist Czech society to reintegrate into the free world. 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