Jan Křen

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Jan Křen (2014)

Jan Křen (born August 22, 1930 in Prague ; † April 7, 2020 there ) was a Czech historian .

Life

Jan Křen was born in Prague as the son of a simple laborer. He studied history at the Vysoká škola politická ÚV KSČ and taught history at the Charles University in Prague . He was the dean of the historical institute at the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University . From 1946 to 1969 Jan Křen was a member of the Communist Party Komunistická strana Československa . After the crackdown on the Prague Spring and the beginning of the process of “ normalization ” and because of his opposition to the Soviet occupation, he was expelled from the party, lost his job and worked until 1989 as a normal worker at the waterworks. During this time he lived in a shared apartment with the two other historians who were also killed, Karel Pichlík and Václav Kural, in a construction workers' trailer in a forest outside Prague. He was also a signatory to Charter 77 . After the Velvet Revolution he was given the opportunity to work as a historian again. He set up the Institute for International Studies at the newly founded Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University and headed it for several years. He was also one of the initiators and for many years chairman of the Czech section of the German-Czech Commission of Historians .

Thematically, Křen dealt with the First Czechoslovak Republic , the Communist Party and the Second World War . He specialized in particular on the German-Czech relations. He published several books on these subjects. This is how his book, published in 1986, became conflictní společenství. Češi a Němci 1780–1918 published ten years later after a translation by Peter Heumos into German under the title The Conflict Community : Czechs and Germans 1780–1918 . He has also held several visiting professorships in Germany; From 1983 to 1984 he was at the University of Bremen , from 1990 to 1991 in Berlin and 1998 in Marburg.

He was awarded the Goethe Medal in 1996 for his achievements, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2000 and the Czech Medal of Merit in 2002.

On April 7, 2020, Křen died at the age of 89 during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Czech Republic as a result of a SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Works (selection)

  • Československo v období odlivu poválečné revoluční vlny a upevňování panství buržoasie (1921–1923). (1956)
  • Československo v období dočasné a relativní stabilizace capitalismu (1924–1929). (1957)
  • Mnichovská zrada. (1958)
  • Jak se žilo na vesnici. (1958)
  • Do emigrace. Buržoazní zahraniční odboj 1938–1939. (1963)
  • Odsun Němců ve světle nových pramenů. (1967)
  • V emigraci. Západní zahraniční odboj 1939–1940. (1969)
  • Conflictní společenství. Češi a Němci 1780–1918 . (1986)
  • Integration or exclusion. Germans and Czechs 1890–1945. (1989)
  • Bílá místa v našich dějinách. (1990)
  • Historické proměny češství. (1992)
  • Obraz Němců Rakouska a Německa v české společnosti 19. a 20. století. (1998)
  • Dvě století střední Evropy. (2005)
  • History v pohybu . (2013)
  • Čtvrt století střední Evropy . (2019)

Web links

Commons : Jan Křen  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary by Jan Kren , SZ from April 11, 2020
  2. ↑ Barbara Breuer: When the sympathy broke , badische-zeitung.de , accessed on April 8, 2020
  3. ↑ Portrait: Jan Kren - Effort to Understand , radio.cz , accessed on April 8, 2020
  4. ↑ spiegel.de , spiegel.de , accessed on April 8, 2020
  5. ↑ Zemřel historik January Křen. S nemocí covid-19 se léčil v Nemocnici Na Bulovce , irozhlas.cz , accessed on April 7, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Křen, Jan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech historian
DATE OF BIRTH 22nd August 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague , Czech Republic
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 2020
Place of death Prague , Czech Republic