Narratives of Totalitarian Historiography as a Heritage of the Normalization Era

The study deals with the question of continuity between pre- and post 1989 Czech and Slovak historiography. This problem is demonstrated on cases of these two much criticized types of narratives - historical-totalitarian (Czech case) and nationalist (in Slovak case). The analysis is based on the recent discussions among Czech historians and attempts to apply some of the conclusions on the Slovak case. Main assertion of the study is that the popularity of positivism and political history, narrow ethnocentrism and distrusts towards "complex" theoretical approaches is a heritage of the normalization era. As a result, the popularity of both mentioned historiographical approaches is not only a manifestation of political instrumentalisation of the past, but it is also results of their simplicity and familiarity for many historians. In the post-1989 Czech and Slovak historiography the interest in new themes was generally not accompanied by the interest in the modern methodological approaches. The analysis shows enduring distrust towards modern theories and methodologies, which are seen as the main causes of (re)ideologisation of history as a science.