Sousedé. Společná česko-rakouská kniha o dějinách
Neighbours. An Austro-Czech History Book
Bibliothek der Provinz, Weitra, 2019, with contributions by Tomáš Dvořák, Stefan Eminger, Lukáš Fasora, Hanns Haas, Richard Hufschmied, Ota Konrád, Petr Koura, David Kovařík, Sandra Kreisslová, Suzanne Kříženecký, Rudolf Kučera, Miroslav Kunštát, Niklas Perzi, Václav Petrbok, Walter Reichel, Hildegard Schmoller, David Schriffl, Jaroslav Šebek, Václav Šmidrkal, Arnold Suppan, & Luboš Velek
Centuries of neighbourliness and three hundred years of shared statehood unite Austrians and Czechs - one people with two languages or begrudging cousins after all? In twelve chapters, this book reviews the history of the past two centuries of living together, apart, side by side and against each other. In twelve overview chapters, 27 historians from both countries trace what they have in common and what divides them. They do not juxtapose two national histories, but show how certain developments have inscribed themselves in societies there and there.
After the "Springtime of Nations" and the bourgeois revolution, a period of alienation followed even in the common state. Living together, experiencing differently, is how one could describe the coexistence in the last decades of the Habsburg Monarchy and the First World War. The newly created states of (German) Austria and Czechoslovakia after 1918 lived in the tension between competition, togetherness and disinterested coexistence. Despite the different state and (after 1948) system affiliations, there were commonalities. After 1989 and the fall of the "Iron Curtain", conflicts such as "Temelin" or the "Beneš Decrees" seemed to dominate: This is despite the fact that mutual economic, political and cultural contacts are closer than they have been since 1918. The book initiated by the Standing Conference of Austrian and Czech Historians on Common Cultural Heritage (SKÖTH) aims to contribute to mutual acquaintance and understanding.
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