Czech Sociology before, during and after Czechoslovakia. A short incursion into the formation and transformation of a prominent national tradition

Czech Sociology before, during and after Czechoslovakia. A short incursion into the formation and transformation of a prominent national tradition

Levente SZÉKEDI, szekedi.levente@partium.ro
Universitate Creștină Partium, Partium Christian University
Romania, 410209 Oradea, str. Primăriei nr. 36
+40-259-418244, partium@partium.ro

extras din Revista Transilvania, nr. 2-3, 2020 

The history of Czech sociology is inevitably connected with the political history of the Czech nation. The national awakening and the national affirmation of the Czech people at the end of the 19th century coincides with the genesis of the Czech sociology, promoted by its first master, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, who viewed sociology as the key scientific tool in the formation of Czech nation and state. The peculiar philosophical and moralist approach to sociology promoted by no less than the state president stimulated and in the same time hindered the development of the interwar Czech sociology, which established its basic institutional layout before WWII. The German occupation and the short transitory of “popular democracy” was followed by years of abolishment, until the gradual restoration and powerful revival of sociology in the second half of the sixties, which designated sociology as the motor of the Prague Spring of 1968. During the neo-Stalinist normalization era the institutional settings were largely maintained, but emptied, unless the Velvet Revolution of 1989 opened up a new era for the discipline. The third institutionalization started with a welcome upgrade and institutional renewal, after the EU-integration ending up in a highly pluralized, fragmented and professional domain.

Keywords: book review, Marek Skovajsa, Jan Balon, Czech sociology, institutional history, Masaryk, Czechoslovakia

Review of the book: Skovajsa, Marek – Balon, Jan (2017). Sociology in the Czech Republic: Between East and West. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-45026-5

There is probably not a single introductory course in sociology which dares to omit the first grand, methodologically sound study of the new science of sociology, Le Suicide, elaborated in 1897 by Émile Durkheim, the institutionalizing father of French sociology. Contemporary social scientists are far less familiar with an earlier study on suicide, the habilitation thesis at the University of Vienna of the later statesman, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937), founder of Czechoslovakia, a promising new democratic state formed on the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Suicide as mass social phenomenon of modern civilization,[1] originally published in German, can hardly be considered a sociological study when comparing the achievements of Durkheim’s opus, albeit this philosophical, moralist and humanist monograph points to the disorientation and lost (religion-offered) certainties of the modern man as greatly influential in the rising social malady of suicide. The scientifically-minded but spiritually displaced person is actually “half-educated”, sheer knowledge without (Protestant) morality is a disintegrating factor.[2]

Despite the rather philosophical nature of Masaryk’s study on suicide it is widely considered as marking the genesis of Czech sociology, a new discipline on the course of institutionalization and self-affirmation mainly due to the prolific activity of Masaryk, who held a course on philosophy and sociology at the University of Prague in 1884-1885, precluding Durkheim’s sociology lectures in France. Masaryk and his peculiar type of philosophical sociology (or sociological philosophy) had a lasting influence on the institutional framework and scientific production of the Czech (or rather Czechoslovak) interwar sociology, the Masarykian legacy of a public, committed sociology in the service of the nation and the state, a belief in a sociology with mission was shortly revived after the fall of communism and the proclamation of the independent Czech state in 1993.[3]

The oeuvre of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the long serving president of Czechoslovakia (1918-1935) and his contribution to the institutionalization of Czech sociology in a relatively brief chapter of a recently published volume in the Sociology Transformed series of Palgrave Macmillan Publishing, which focuses on the evolution in the field of sociology in the past decades. The book dedicated to the late Jiří Musil (1928–2012) and Miloslav Petrusek (1936-2012), key figures in the post-communist revival and international affirmation of Czech sociology, was authored by Marek Skovajsa and Jan Balon, with the former in charge with the four chapters presenting the evolution of Czech sociology from the turn of the century, while J. Balon detailing the complex transformations from 1989 onward in the closing two chapters of the book. The six chapters are prefaced by a clear and succinct synthetic summary of the main phases in the history of the Czech sociology and the Introduction also delimits the scope of the scientific endeavour, highlighting the existence of separated Czech and Slovak traditions even during the postwar decades and the limited influence of non-Czech nationals on the development of Czech sociology. The authors forward the main analytic approach of the volume: it is the institutional, one would speculate to say it is an institutional and social history of the Czech sociology with a particular emphasis on an in-depth description of key events or episodes.

Relevant developments in sociology are accurately contextualized, the “spirit and mood” of the times are aptly recreated with contemporary quotations and historical analysis is coupled with a peculiar kind of story-telling, so especially the chapters penned by M. Skovajsa are uncommonly and pleasantly readable, which is a rare delight in the world of rather technical social studies, abundant in contemporary social research. We reproduce a short excerpt from the third chapter of the book for exemplifying the genuine storytelling ability of the author: “After a vain attempt to meet any representative of Czech sociology in Prague, Eubank was enthusiastically welcomed at the train station in Brno by Bláha holding a recent issue of the American Journal of Sociology. Their first meeting resulted in a friendship and in an excessively enthusiastic picture of Czechoslovak sociology, as painted by Eubank in his reports for the American professional audience.”[4]

The Introduction features a structure summary table[5] which concomitantly presents periods/milestones of political history and major evolutions in the history of sociology, which illustrates the complicated past of a discipline born with a sense of mission (nation and state building) at the end of the 19th century, recently turning into a pluralized, highly fragmented and arguably even McDonaldized professional field. In-between the two end “in one important sense, the history of sociology in the Czech Republic is the history of its resilience vis-à-vis political manipulation and control.”[6] It is worth to mention, that the phases outlined in the table partly coincide with similar evolutions in other Central and Eastern European countries of the region, with a notable difference in the significance of the year 1968 (Prague Spring and the forthcoming grim era). The key periods in the history of Czech sociology are the following (paraphrasing the original):

• 1882-1918: Masaryk and his followers “initiate sociology”, sociology in service of the nation
• 1918-1938: The first institutionalization of the Czech sociology
• 1939-1945: National social sciences outlawed, limited organizational space
• 1945-1950: Interwar sociology continued
• 1948-1956: Sociology blacklisted, labelled as pseudoscience
• 1956-1963: Cautious debates about an eventual sociology within historical materialism
• 1964-1969: The second institutionalization of the Czech sociology, sociology in service of the reformed socialist state
• 1969-1989: “Normalization”, ideological control, emptied institutional form
• Since 1990: Scientific and educational expansion and opening, short-lived belief in the new mission: sociology in service of a beneficial post-communist transformation
• Since 2000: Internationalization, pluralisation, fragmentation, professionalisation, project and problem orientation

The brief second chapter of the volume highlights key events and trends in the early evolution of Czech sociology under the influence of Tomas Garigue Masaryk, the first and foremost creator of Czech sociology, since “no other country was the emergence of sociology the creation of a single individual to the same degree as was the case in today’s Czech Republic”.[7] Masaryk, a pioneer of the field even in Western terms, was continuously pursing his goal to create an engaged (or – as the author argues – public sociology) ever since he had entered Czech academic life in 1882 as the chair in philosophy at the University of Prague. In the years to come until the formation of the Czechoslovak state in 1918, Czech sociology was represented by a small though influential group of followers and students gathered around the charismatic leaders, including second-in-command Edvard Beneš, who took over Czechoslovak presidency from Masaryk in 1935 and the other docent, Břetislav Foustka, with an important role in the institutionalization of sociology after the Great War.

The Masarykian conception of sociology was far from the disengaged sciences promoted by Max Weber, sociology was deeply political, a sort of “missionary science”, albeit purportedly laid upon the foundation of positivist empirical social research. The close connection between social sciences and reformism was evidently not unusual at the turn of the century and the first decades of the 20th century, though the programmatic, strategic and long-term use of sociology in the nation building project could be merely be identified in the Romania sociology, through the person of Dimitrie Gusti and the activity of the Bucharest School.

“Yet, very much unlike in the large countries of the West, Czech sociology was intimately wedded, through the person of Masaryk and his followers, to the project of the cultural, social, and political emancipation of the Czech nation. This expectation that sociology should play a political role and make a concrete contribution to the nationalist cause was present from the very beginning of the discipline’s history in Czech society. It further grew in intensity when nation-building seamlessly turned into state-building after the defeat of Austria-Hungary in WWI in 1918, which provided a unique historical opportunity for Czechoslovak independence.”[8]

The idea of sociology as a provider of scientific basis for political actions persisted throughout the career of Masaryk and Benes, even if motivations behind several of their actions had no resemblance with Protestant morality promoted in the writings of Masaryk. Nevertheless, the leadership of interwar Czechoslovakia could be considered the most democratic in the whole Central and Eastern European region, even under the circumstances of a few necessary non-Orthodox pragmatic political solutions and tricks.

Paradoxically, the great appeal of Masarykian sociology can be traced back exactly the ambivalent, and in the modern sense largely non-sociological traits of his science, which opened up the field for a varied group of thinkers, practitioners, engaged and bystander intellectuals: “the ’dual character’ of Masaryk’s sociology paved the way for two distinct types of sociological development: the rise of empirical social research and the cultivation of an interest in sociology among Czech philosophers, theologians and, one may add, historians.”[9] The author argues, that this enlargement in scope and the speculative, ambiguous nature of Masarykian sociology stimulated the institutionalization of this fashionable new national science, but in the same thwarted the development of a genuine empirical sociology in the Czech lands: “the view of sociology as just a more sophisticated form of the philosophy of history (which differs from unscientific philosophies of history in that it is pursued by an educated critical mind) and the prestige lent to this conception by the figure of TGM [Masaryk] has hindered the development of Czech sociology ever since international sociology moved beyond its speculative-philosophical stage.”[10] The almost mythical personality of Masaryk (with the rare historical accomplishment of lending his name to a university and the national sociological society) made his way of thinking inescapable in the interwar social science: “His fate was that of a dominant founding father whose intellectual descendants were unable to emancipate themselves from him in due time as a condition of the discipline’s further progress. The specific problem of Czech sociology in the first half of the twentieth century was that Masaryk’s extraordinary status as a politician and national symbol made it virtually impossible for his sociological progeny to step out of his long shadow. Masaryk’s authority was one of the main factors that maintained the generation of his students in positions of power and influence for a very long time, keeping his students in a subordinate position.”[11]

One could argue that the achievements of Masaryk and his movement in terms of social reforms reverberating the whole Czech nation easily counterbalance his equivocal legacy on the science of sociology as such. Indeed, Masaryk stimulated the productive import of modern Western currents (like feminism) which opened up and democratized the young, but internationally acclaimed Czechoslovak state, while retaining a sense of Czech national dignity arisen from a non-Marxist humanist, religious (Protestant) and in the same time socialist world view. Masaryk indeed believed that people should gather for peaceful, even altruist national construction, so honourable work must prevail over cruel fights: tensions should be settled through diplomacy instead of war. The reform mindedness and community orientation can also be grasped in the work of Masaryk’s daughter, Alice, whose scientific career was curtailed by the ubiquitous “glass ceiling” prevailing in the academic circles. A good connoisseur of the community programs affiliated to the University of Chicago (through her training in US), Alice Masaryk became an “applied sociologist” and a key figure “in the development of social work and public health in the Bohemian lands and later in Czechoslovakia.”[12]

The third chapter of the book on the history of Czech sociology focuses mostly on the interwar era, when long lasting institutional arrangements of the discipline were established, including the axes of Czech sociology: the departments/seminars at Charles University in Prague and Masaryk University in Brno. The Brno seminar was coordinated by a highly committed social scientist, Inocenc Arnošt Bláha (1879-1960), who, similarly to Masaryk, believed in the national mission of sociology, but displayed more affinity towards empirical social research. Under the prolific management of Bláha, chair of sociology for approximately 30 years, the “Brno sociological school” was transformed from an enthusiastic group of educators and students to a genuine training and research institution with an international visibility. The author of the first Czech introductory course in sociology (1905), Emanuel Chalupný (1879–1958) was later affiliated with the Brno centre. Ironically nicknamed “Chalupný the Voluminous”, he published a large number of volumes with a debatable scientific worth, as “the academic reception of his ideas, which reflected the state of the discipline from the time when Masaryk left for politics (meaning around 1900), was mixed at best.”[13]

The traditional centre of gravity of Czech sociology, Prague, had a seminar opened at the Charles University in 1919. The academic milieu at the seminar chaired by an almost retirement age professor, Bretislav Foustka (1862–1947) and influenced by the ever-busy politician professor Edvard Benes offered Brno a competitive advantage. The appointment of philosopher Josef Král (1882-1978) proved to be beneficial, for despite being a professional outsiders he supported empirical sociological research. It is worth to mention that both Foutska and Král were committed followers of Masaryk.

Sociology gain in importance and by the beginning of the Second World War more than 50 students chose a sociological topic for their dissertation and 18 professors and private docents were involved in the sociological education, albeit sociology, an empirical science “caged” in the “sacred” and monolithic world of faculties on humanities and/or philosophy, was less prestigious than well consecrated sciences. This relative marginalization and the limited number of paid university jobs explains the growing popularity of “outsider” establishments offering more room of manoeuvre for young sociologists and some opportunities for implementing empirical research projects. The state funded Free School of Political Sciences in Prague was a higher education institution training various professionals in social sciences and journalism with a considerable number of sociologists in it teaching staff, the Social Institute of the Czechoslovak Republic (Ministry of Social Welfare) offered opportunities for certain, social policy orienter research programs, but funding issues frequently occurred.

It was the Social Institute which contributed with office infrastructure, space and variable funding to the establishment of the Masaryk Sociological Society in 1925, the first association of the Czech sociologists. As its name rightly suggests, the society was heavily influenced by the Masarykian tradition and acting under the legitimate authority of consolidated faculty members and their “apprentices”. In due course a split inside the scientific community was transpired in the daily workings of the society, when the “empiricist” Prague group of young sociologists stepped out in 1930 and formed the Society for Social Research in 1937: “in the eyes of the secessionists, the type of sociology cultivated within the Masaryk Sociological Society was philosophical or journalistic rather than scientific. The Prague group’s conviction that Chalupný and his allies in the MSS, Bláha among them, represented an obsolete form of sociology was the main reason for the society’s disintegration and also an essential factor that contributed to Czechoslovakia having not just one but two sociological journals.”[14] Indeed, the two groups published two separate journals of equally high quality, the Sociologická revue (Sociological Review) of the Masaryk Sociological Society and the Sociální problémy (Social Problems) of the Prague group, the former having much regular issues, a larger number of collaborators and especially and an abundance of literature reviews.

The conflict between the groups was above all a generational conflict and not a competition between the cultural centres of Prague and Brno. „(…) geographical tension is of secondary importance. The conflict which defined the character and delimited the possibilities of interwar Czech sociology was the one between those who saw sociology as applied social philosophy in service of the national community, often with a moralizing and religious-based agenda, and those who wanted to practice sociology as an ’objective,’ secular, and empirical social science (see Petrusek 2002, p. 10). This was to a large extent a generational issue, pitting the students and followers of Tomáš G. Masaryk, born around 1890 or earlier, against the younger cohort born around 1900, which drew inspiration from the discipline’s development in the most advanced Western countries.”[15]

The main promoters of the empirical Western sociology (with focus on the pragmatic approach of American applied sociology) were Zdeněk Ullrich (1901-1955) and Otakar Machotka (1899-1970), getting familiar with new ideas during their Western study sessions. Significant is their contribution to the Czech urban sociology with their study on the communities of the Prague surroundings in 1932-1934, which proves their exceptional command of the methodological tools developed by the human ecologists of the Chicago School.

The winning party of the competition between the “empiric” and “philosophic” fractions of scientific community was definitely the latter, for “the followers and epigones of Masaryk were not willing to cede an inch in their determinedly anti-scientist vision of sociology. Their camp was very influential in the interwar public discourse, and the resulting intellectual climate had a more fatally limiting effect on the development of ’objectivist’ sociology than the lack of resources.”[16]

During the Second World War, under the German rule (1939-1945) the institutional texture of Czech sociology was crippled by the closure of universities, extermination, persecution, censorhip and the suspension of the two journal. The Sociological Society had some limited sociological activity, including education and sociology also survived through professionals employed in various public institutions, which could not be closed for practical reasons. Following the 1945 liberation intellectuals, scientists, even major protagonists of the interwar regime (like Benes) enthusiastically subscribed to the promising new world of “popular democracy”, which would supposedly offer a brave future to the Czech nations just awaken from the horrors of the war – with a key role in this rebuilding process for the social sciences. Most interwar sociologists, who stood behind the “Czechoslovak national and social ’revolution’ (which was led by the sociologist Edvard Beneš as the country’s restored president) without any visible reservations” ([17]), the restarted journals were heralding the glory of the new regime, sociology made a pledge to act as a scientific liberator of the new nation. However, it soon became clear that the “the alliance between Marxism-Leninism and sociology”[18] was a fake friendship, the scope of socialism was forcefully re-conceptualized and non-Stalinist views were abolished.

The short postwar transitory period of sociology can be regarded by and large as a continuation of the interwar evolution, but the installation of Stalinist regime in 1948 resulted in the expulsion of sociology, representative sociologists (Machotka, Ullrich) were expelled, the chairs of the Prague and Brno (Král, Bláha) seminars were forcibly retired, sociology students were expelled and enrolled in Marxism-Leninism courses. The books and ideas of Masaryk (and other “idealist” thinkers) were prohibited, even though the persecution of sociologists was less brutal than in other Central and Eastern European States, where “anti-system” social scientists were regularly imprisoned.

In the years before the “liberalization” of the Khrushchev Thaw sociology was firmly stigmatized as a “bourgeois pseudo-science” in the Eastern Bloc, though, as the author points out, exactly this dark epoch turned to be beneficial for the sociology reconstituted in the second half of sixties, the reform era of Czech communism. “While the 1950s were clearly a lost time for sociology, it should be noted that during this decade the frenzied organizational activities of the Communist Party created a new institutional matrix within which Czech sociology would be reestablished a few years later. This matrix consisted of three types of institutions: research institutes at the Academy of Sciences, university departments, and professional research institutes sponsored by various ministries of the Czechoslovak government.”[19] The fourth chapter of the book aptly entitled 1950–1969: Becoming a Counselor to the Socialist Prince traces the history of sociology from the “the existence of a noneexistent discipline”[20] from early Stalinism until 1964 and the second institutionalization of sociology in the last half of the 1960s.

The frequent defamatory campaigns on the “reactionary” field of “bourgeois sociology” in the Stalinist period and the overall demonization of empirical research, typical of the ideological discourse of the communist states, was gradually substituted by more permissive approaches, articles started to debate the role and function of “concrete social research”, but strictly within the framework of historic materialism. The flimsy attempts towards the rehabilitation of sociology often triggered a party backlash, the ideological being gradually loosened after the “legalization” of sociology in the Soviet Union, and, more importantly, the extreme attraction of the Polish model for the reform-minded Czech thinkers. In 1956 the ideological beacon of the party, the Filosofický časopis (Philosophical Review) published an article calling for the opening of Czech sociology and a critical reconnection to its own past, 1958 saw the establishment of sociological section at the Philosophical Association, in 1959 Jaroslav Klofáč and Vojtěch Tlustý published a volume on the Contemporary empirical sociology.

In several Eastern Bloc states the controlled renaissance of sociology in the late 1950s and the 1960s followed a top-down logic, the call for sociology often started from the tiers of the party, in effect generating a “channeled” rehabilitation, enabling a meticulous party supervision, a careful selection of the official representatives and a thoughtful orchestration of the international communication: suggesting a friendly appropriation with other nations and concomitantly gently covering issues around real sociological topics regarding the emerging disfunctionalities of the socialist societies. In Czechoslovakia the algorithm was different, “party officials had to be pushed to want it by academics and functionaries already committed to sociology,”[21] the acceptance of sociology required this push to be having an inner and outer legitimacy. This outer legitimacy had been accumulating for years as tangible economic and social problems mounted, causing alarm in party circles, the solutions were offered by the absolute legitimate ideological fortress of the party, the elite Institute of Marxism-Leninism for Higher Education. Key figures in the reform movement form the institute, Miloš Kaláb and Pavel Machonin took the lead in the promotion of the sociology inside the party, for they were connected and legitimate and in just a few years the Institute was thoroughly transformed from a guardian of communism to a prime promoter of reforms and a prestigious sociological center.

Even formerly reticent party leaders accepted that the welcome economic “reshuffle” could not be based on ideological panels and quotation from the great Marx and Lenin, the urgent need for reliable empirical data and the proper knowledge of society prompted decision makers (in the party, government and academia) to support the rehabilitation of sociology. In 1965 the Institute of Sociology was established within the Academy of Sciences (with Miloš Kaláb in charge), reaching the number of 70 employees in 1968, Pavel Machonin was officially mandated with the rehabilitation of Czech sociology, in 1965 the Academy of Sciences’ Academic Collegium for Philosophy and Sociology launched the flagship journal of Czech sociology, Sociologický časopis (Sociological Review).

This “resurgence of sociology” in scientific circles was paralleled with the inauguration of sociology programs in Prague, Brno and Bratislava, with a nominal enrollment figure of 15 student per year. The Brno program which benefited from a new sociology department and a soon established social research laboratory reached the number of 140 students in 1969, the Prague program could boast an even higher number of students in the same year: 200. Sociology became fashionable and wide spread, new organizational units were established at several higher education institutions.

The professional society of the discipline, the Czechoslovak Sociological Association was established in 1964 and gathered an astonishing number of 1200 members, the majority of those not having proper academic background in social sciences. The Associationa presided by Jaroslav Klofáč integrated former living members of the interwar sociological community, signaling a symbolic reconnection with the long stigmatized “golden era” of Czech sociology. The leaders of the professional body “consisted of former Marxist-Leninist academics in their 40s such as Klofáč and Machonin. Politically, the association stood behind the reform program of the Prague Spring.”[22] Sociology was instrumental in the elaboration of the Action Program of the Communist Party in April 1968, widely considered the blueprint of the Prague Spring.

The second institutionalization of Czech sociology was also visible in terms of internationalization: researchers gained from short external study trips, Czechoslovakia was represented at the 1966 ISA World Congress with 40 delegates, the country was visited by the leading experts of the field, like Parsons, Adorno, Berger, Bourdieu or Lazarsfeld. Czech scientific circles dared to have contacts even with the uncomfortable state of Yugoslavia lead by “the Chained Dog of Imperialists”, but the major influence came from the Polish sociology. The international relevance of Czech sociology was still limited, with the notable exception of the turncoat reform communist Radovan Richta (1924-1983) and his optimistic work on the scientific-technological revolution. Sociologically more significant are the findings of a major research regarding the structure of society conducted on sample of 13000 households under the director in Pavel Machonin, published in a book an the Czechoslovak society which was immediately banned after the brutal obliteration of the reform movement.

The fifth chapter describes the gradual degradation and limited survival of Czech sociology during the 1969-1989 so-called normalization period, when Soviet troops were “temporarily” stationed in Czechosklovakia and the key figures of Czech sociology were dismissed, sidelined or transferred to lower ranks. The purge only partly destroyed the institutional system of sociology, for the well-established setting was typically used and abused by obscure party personnel for their own personal gains, like the pursuance of academic careers of various highly positioned dilettanti well embedded in the party structure. “As noted by one observer (…) ’sociology did not disappear (its institutional structure has been preserved), what did disappear were the sociologists.’”[23] The system favoured the permeation of a culture of academic non-integrity, sustained by the complicated mechanisms of control and surveillance and arbitrary administrative powers of uneducated apparatchiks dispersed in a wide range of party positions. Corruption, nepotism, overt plagiarism was the rule, “economic pressure forced individuals in inferior positions or at the margins of the academic world to write articles, books, or theses for their bosses, for powerful party officials, or for these people’s relatives. Often, these same sociologists also carried the burden of undertaking research and writing papers which their more fortunate superiors then read at international conferences which the real authors were not permitted to attend”.[24] Genuine sociologist could choose to work in various state institutions tolerating some forms of low visibility empirical research and a number of Czech sociologist opted for an escape in methodology, which in turn lead to the overemphasis of quantitative methods and complicated, ideologically safe mathematical models.

The closing two chapters of the volume outline the latest development in Czech sociology since the Velvet Revolution, i.e. the third institutionalization of the discipline. In the first decade the previously isolated and obsolete Czech sociology had successfully upgraded itself in terms of theoretical and methodological advances, even though it could not regain its sense of mission, never regaining its status of “public sociology” in the service of state as in the interwar or the reform communist era. The designated manager of the transformation remained neo-liberal economics through its political representatives, who propelled the newly formed Czech republic in a new post-accession era, where the traditional academic moral values and the integrity of a Masarykian sociology are nothing more than nostalgic textbook remembrances. Slow science turned into scientific production, intellectual debate into project workshops, long term thinking was substituted by a loose chain of problem-oriented applied research studies. The authors view are evidently not as pessimistic as stated above, for the pluralist, fragmented and internationalized Czech sociology has probably never been in such a prolific state, students numbers were sky-rocketing until recently, sociology has really become a useful science. Who would dare to defy this grand evolutions and think of a persisting identity crisis of Central and Eastern European sociology?

References

Masaryk, Tomás Garrigue. Der Selbstmord Als Sociale Massenerscheinung Der Modernen Civilisation [Suicide as Mass Social Phenomenon of Modern Civilization]. Wien: Car Konegen, 1881.

Pynsent, Robert B., George Kolankiewicz, and Stanley B. Winters. T.G.Masaryk (1850-1937): Volume 1: Thinker and Politician. Springer, 1990.

Skovajsa, Marek, and Jan Balon. Sociology in the Czech Republic: Between East and West. Palgrave Pivot. London, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

[1] Masaryk, Der Selbstmord Als Sociale Massenerscheinung Der Modernen Civilisation [Suicide as Mass Social Phenomenon of Modern Civilization].

[2] Pynsent, Kolankiewicz, and Winters, T.G.Masaryk (1850-1937).

[3] Skovajsa and Balon, Sociology in the Czech Republic.

[4] Ibid., 30.

[5] Ibid., 8.

[6] Ibid., 6.

[7] Ibid., 13.

[8] Ibid., 14.

[9] Ibid., 22.

[10] Ibid., 22.

[11] Ibid., 22.

[12] Ibid., 20.

[13] Ibid., 31.

[14] Ibid., 34.

[15] Ibid., 28.

[16] Ibid., 37.

[17] Ibid., 40.

[18] Ibid., 50.

[19] Ibid., 52.

[20] Ibid., 51.

[21] Ibid., 57.

[22] Ibid., 61.

[23] Ibid., 74.

[24] Ibid., 81.