October 2013 - September 2014
Mail: r.kucera(at)email(dot)cz
Rudolf Kučera is a research associate at the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences, where he has been head of the Department for Research and Source Editions since 2012. He began teaching at the Institute for International Studies at Charles University Prague in 2012. Kučera completed his PhD – jointly supervised by the Freie Universität in Berlin and Charles University Prague under a cotutelle agreement – in 2008. He is the recipient of several prizes and scholarships, including the Jaroslav Krejčí Prize for outstanding young scholars in the humanities in 2011. In 2009/2010 he was a junior fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies. He was also a PhD student at the Berlin School for Comparative European History from 2004 to 2008. He was awarded the Fritz Stern Scholarship at the Willy Brandt Centre in Wrocław in 2007. In 2005/2006 he availed of a scholarship from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture to study at the Historical Institute of the University of Vienna.
Violence in the Transformation of Central Europe 1914-1922. A Comparative Study of the Austrian and Czech Lands
The project focuses on violence as a key factor in the fall and reconstitution of Central Europe in the period from 1914 to 1922, when the direct repercussions of the destructive war had been overcome. It compares developments in the Austrian and the Czech lands. While Czechoslovakia's public space was shaped by an overwhelming 'culture of victory' after the war, a contrasting 'culture of defeat' prevailed in Austria. As regions that shared a common constitutional framework until the end of 1918, but took different trajectories in the autumn of 1918, the Austrian and Czech lands are particularly suited to a comparative analysis. This analysis may reflect both the shared experience during the First World War and the entirely different context of the successor states after 1918. The project examines how the meaning of violence was 'handled' in everyday life by means of rituals and legal, social, and discursive practices during World War I and in the context of the new order that emerged shortly thereafter. It revolves around questions about the status and legitimacy of the use of force in the region, about legitimizing strategies of violence, about the place of violence in different national cultures, and about continuities and discontinuities beyond one of the most significant ruptures in the region's twentieth-century history.
KUČERA, Rudolf, Život na příděl. Válečná každodennost a politiky dělnické třídy v českých zemích 1914-1918 [Rationed Life. War, Everyday Life and Labour Politics in the Czech Lands 1914-1918], Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, Prague 2013.
KUČERA, Rudolf, Staat, Adel und Elitenwandel. Die Adelsverleihungen in Schlesien und Böhmen 1806–1871 im Vergleich, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012. (Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft, Bd. 205)
KUČERA Rudolf (ed.)., Identity v českých zemích 19. a 20. století: Hledání a proměny [Identities in Czech Lands in 19th and 20th Centuries: Searches and Changes], Prague 2012.
KUČERA Rudolf (ed.), Muži října 1918. Osudy aktérů vzniku Republiky československé [Men of October. The Actors of the Foundation of the First Czechoslovak Republic], Prague 2011.
KUČERA, Rudolf, Marginalizing Josefina. Work, Gender and Protest in Bohemia 1820-1844, Journal of Social History 46, No. 2 (Winter 2012), pp. 430-448.
KUČERA, Rudolf. Entbehrung und Nationalismus. Die Erfahrung tschechischer Soldaten der Österreichischen Armee 1914–1918, in: Bernhard Bachinger - Wolfram Dornik (Hrsg.), Jenseits des Schützengrabens. Der Erste Weltkrieg im Osten: Erfahrung - Wahrnehmung - Kontext, Wien - Innsbruck 2013, pp. 121-137.
KUČERA, Rudolf, Muži ve válce, válka v mužích. Maskulinita a světové války 20. století v současné kulturní historiografii, Soudobé dějiny 4/2011, pp. 549-562.
KUČERA, Rudolf, Philanthropy and Public Donation Striving for State Recognition. The Bohemian Ennoblements 1806 – 1871, in: Milan Hlavačka, Magdaléna Pokorná, Tomáš W. Pavlíček (eds.), Collective and Individual Patronage and the Culture of Public Donation in Civil Society in the 19th and 20th Centuries in Central Europe, Prague 2010, pp. 194 - 209.
KUČERA, Rudolf. Páni kamarádi. Gender v raném dělnickém hnutí českých zemí před rokem 1848, Český časopis historický 107/2009, č. 4, pp. 797–822.
KUČERA, Rudolf. Občanská společnost. Koncept a jeho historizace. Dějiny – Teorie – Kritika 2/2007, pp. 219–231.
KUČERA, Rudolf. Állam, Nemesség és Civiltársadalom. Nemesi címadományozások Csehországban és Sziléziában, 1806–1871, Korall. Társadalomtörténeti folyóirat 28–29 (September 2007), pp. 31–59.
Jan Harasimowicz - Matthias Weber (Hrsg.): Adel in Schlesien. Gesamtausgabe in 2 Bänden, München 2010, in: Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 4/2011, pp. 500-501.
Lukáš Fasora. Dělník a měšťan. Vývoj jejich vzájemných vztahů na příkladu šesti moravských měst 1870-1914, Brno 2010, in: Střed/Centre. Časopis pro mezioborová studia střední Evropy 19. a 20. století, 2/2011, pp. 109-120. Nancy Folbre, Greed, Lust and Gender. A History of Economic Ideas, Oxford - New York 2009, in: Dějiny - Teorie - Kritika 2/2010, pp. 328-333.
Angelika Epple - Angelika Schaser (eds.), Gendering Historiography. Beyond National Canons, Frankfurt am Main - New York 2009, in: Gender, rovné příležitosti, výzkum 1/2010, pp. 92-96.
Francois Mayer, Češi a jejich komunismus. Paměť a politická identita, Praha 2009, in: Střed/Centre. Časopis pro mezioborová studia střední Evropy 19. a 20. století 1/2010, pp. 153-157.
Jiří Štaif, Obezřetná elita. Česká společnost mezi tradicí a revolucí 1830 – 1851, Praha 2005, in: East Central Europe / L´Europe du Centre-Est. Eine wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift 2 / 2007.
The full list of publications can be found on the website of the Masaryk Institute, Prague