Dějiny obětí: k historiografii a politice identity českých židů

a1_After the Changes of 1989 a change also took place in normative points of articulation of social conflict in eastern Europe. The paradigm of the social sciences, including historiography, changed as well. It is on the whole fair to call this the ''identity turn''. The meaning of the term ''identity'' was inspired by history but changed into up-to-date forms. The article analyses points of friction where contact took place between majority Czech society and cultural identity, historical memory, and historiographical self-reflections of Czech Jews after the Changes of 1989 to 2012. In this article, the author seeks to analyse the basic structure of statements about Jewish history in the Bohemian Lands in this period, and to determine what role the narrative of the victim plays in them. The author presents his hypothesis of the considerable influence of the "lachrymose conception of Jewish history" in Czech historiography after the Changes of 1989. In this, he distinguishes between three paradigms, which he then further defines and assesses according to their functions: methodological nationalism, methodological totalitarianism, and methodological culturalism. He then identifies the constellations in which they appear both in academic and in public discources, especially those influencing the politics of identity of the Czech Jews. At the same time, he seeks to explain why the schemes make it difficult to understand the modern history of the Jews of the Bohemian Lands.