Ota Konrád received the AV ČR award for the extraordinary results in research

This year, the awards of Czech Academy of Sciences highlight six extraordinary research results in the fields of medicine, informatics, biology and philosophy. Scientists received awards in two categories.

Ota Konrád from the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University and Rudolf Kučera from the Masaryk Institute and Archives of Czech Academy of Sciences were awarded in category a) the award of Czech Academy of Sciences for extraordinary results in research, experimental development and innovation, which were achieved when solving research tasks supported by Czech Academy of Sciences.

They won the prize for the world-unique monograph Paths out of the Apocalypse: Physical Violence in the Fall and Renewal of Central Europe, 1914–1922. The scientific monograph fundamentally reinterprets the key themes of the current international debate in relation to war violence, the collapse of transnational empires and the emergence of nation states and the related issues of nationalism and the impact of war on society.

In contrast to previous research, which placed great emphasis on political history, the publication brings an innovative view of the warring society from below. Through a wide range of archival sources, newspapers and specialist publications, it focuses mainly on the socially lower strata of the population, which usually do not leave behind deeper written traces and whose contribution to the formation of public space and politics is often neglected.

The extraordinary success of this result is its publication by the prestigious publishing house with a global readership, Oxford University Press, in one of its profile series on modern history - The Greater War. In the context of Czech historical sciences, this is a unique success, where the results of local research significantly speak to the global debate and reinterpret it in a fundamental way.

Photo and text source: Czech Academy of Sciences