Pavel Machonin

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Pavel Machonin (born June 6, 1927 in Prostějov , † July 14, 2008 in Prague ) was a Czechoslovak and Czech sociologist. He is counted among the most important Czechoslovak sociologists after he initiated the renewal of this discipline in Czechoslovakia from the mid-1960s after almost 20 years of communist suppression of sociology.

Machonin's best-known work is the book Československá společnost , published in 1969 . Sociologická analýza sociální stratifikace (Czechoslovak society. Sociological analysis of social stratification). Theoretical work has been going on since 1964 after a preparatory conference on the “social structure of socialist society” took place. Machonin received the support of the party for his project and was able to join the research projects of Ota Šik , Zdeněk Mlynář and Radovan Richta among the most prominent preparers of the Prague Spring reform program . After the crackdown on the Prague Spring, he was banned from working and was no longer allowed to give lectures. He only returned to academic life after 1989.

Life

During the war, Pavel Machonin was assigned to the so-called total deployment in the Reich . Immediately after the end of the war, he joined the communist party in 1945 . As a young communist activist, he participated in the political cleansing of the 1950s, particularly in the universities. He was also active as a "political educator" in the army. From 1945 to 1946 he studied at the former "Vysoká škola politická a sociální" (Political and Social University) in Prague.

Machonin, who belonged to the founding generation of Czechoslovak sociologists, was sidelined after the breakdown of the Prague Spring in 1968 and had to stop working as a sociologist in 1970. He worked in a sports company and for a long time in a poultry industry. He was only able to work as a sociologist again in 1989.

Pavel Machonin was the brother of the architect Vladimír Machonin and the publicist and translator Sergei Machonin .

Career as a sociologist

Development of the sociological institutions

After the last students of sociology from the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in Prague finished their studies in 1950 , sociology was banned as a civic science in Czechoslovakia. Only 15 years later, with the substantial active participation of Pavel Machonin, was she able to experience a rebirth.

Machonin was active in the Ústav sociálně politických věd UK (Institute of Socio-Political Sciences at Charles University), which was founded in 1957 , and has been responsible for its management since 1962 and which he then became director in 1967. Under Machonin's leadership, the institute experienced (as was later received) a clear "sociologization"; The focus was on the conception of a Marxist sociology, which should be based on the knowledge and tendencies of the western sociology of the time.

The clearest testimony to the renewal of sociology in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, however, was the establishment of Sociologický ústav ČSAV (Institute for Sociology of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences) on January 1, 1965 and the subsequent institutional development of sociology in general. Within the framework of a scientific college, Pavel Machonin essentially headed a preparatory commission that also worked out the most important documents of the institute's program. The Executive Board of the Academy approved the establishment of the institute in June 1964. Machonin was director of the institute from 1967 to 1969. At the same time, the renowned (bilingual) journal Sociologický časopis / Sociological Review was launched in 1965 , and Machonin worked on its editorial staff for a long time.

After the institute headed by Machonin (Ústav sociálně politických věd UK) closed on November 20, 1969 and he was called up as director of the Sociologický ústav ČSAV , Machonin was unwilling to withdraw his research results. He was no longer allowed to work as a sociologist, he was not only expelled from the Communist Party, he was also included in a “list of the enemies of socialism” and banned from his profession . Only after 1989 was he able to work in the newly founded Sociologický ústav AV ČR (Sociological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic).

Theoretical work

In addition to his organizational skills, which are described as excellent, machonine as a sociologist was also a driving force in the efforts to reform the political system that eventually led to the upheavals known as the Prague Spring in 1967/1968 . The research project led by Machonin on the social structure of Czechoslovak society developed into the largest empirical enterprise in Czechoslovak sociology in the 1960s. Theoretical work on the project goes back to 1964, when a preparatory conference was held in Hrazany ( Sociálnístructa socialistické společnosti [Social structure of a socialist society]). Machonin managed to win the support of the KPTsch for his project. His team was - alongside the research projects of Ota Šik (economic reform ), Zdeněk Mlynář (reform of the political system) and Radovan Richta (scientific and technological revolution) - among the most prominent preparers of the Prague Spring reform program.

His most famous work is the study Československá společnost. Sociologická analýza sociální stratifikace (Czechoslovak Society. The Sociological Analysis of Social Stratification) from 1969, where this research was evaluated and which after twenty years of communist suppression of sociology meant its renewal in Czechoslovakia. The book became a symbol of the Prague Spring in sociology. The aim of his work was, among other things, to deal with the Stalinist version of the class model of society, which, even under socialism, reckoned that the decisive factor for social differentiation would be ownership of the means of production. Machonin put forward the thesis that the importance of the class division is dwindling in socialism and, on the contrary, a multi-dimensional social differentiation applies.

Machonin's meaning

Machonin is considered to be one of the most important and leading figures in Czechoslovak sociology of the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. He had a lot of recognition for the institutional set-up of Czechoslovak sociology in the 1960s. Institutionally, he was her central figure along with Miloš Kaláb and Jaroslav Klofáč . Machonin was also involved in establishing world-class research standards in Czechoslovak sociology. Machonin and his team created a remarkable analysis of the data on the social structure of Czechoslovak society; he himself contributed to these studies with a daring interpretation of the social events of the time as a conflict between two socio-political programs.

After 1989 Machonin worked on a project that looked at the social stratification and mobility of Czechoslovak society after the peaceful revolution. Gradually, however, he dealt with the problems of post-communist transformation, modernization and social history. As one of the few sociologists he tried to design an alternative model of the changes in post-communist society.

Machonins comes off quite well compared to his colleague Richta. First of all, it is generally stated that Machonin's proposals for social reorganization and changes in the social structure, as he submitted them in the time of the Prague Spring and before, were a lot more radical than Richta's. In particular, machonine is credited with his behavior during the period of so-called normalization after the smashing of the Prague Springs. Richta was appointed director of the new, " normalized " Ústav pro filosofii a sociologii ČSAV (Institute for Philosophy and Sociology of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences) as early as 1970, which was held against him after 1989: "It was a human failure of these personalities", the sociologist and historian Milan Petrusek assesses the role of Richta and others. Machonin, however, refused to cooperate with the regime, was banned from working and was entered on the notorious “evidence list”.

Fonts

In selection:

  • Cesty k beztřídní společnosti: Třídní vztahy v období výstavby socialismu a komunismu , SNPL, Prague 1961
  • Československá společnost, sociologická analýza sociální stratifikace , Epocha, Bratislava 1969
  • Czechoslovakia 1918–1992: A Laboratory for Social Change , St. Martin's Press, New York 1996, 266 pages, ISBN 0-312-12693-X u. a. (in cooperation with Jaroslav Krejčí)
  • Ekonomické a společenské změny v české společnosti po roce 1989 , Karolinum, Prague 2000, 273 pages, ISBN 80-246-0119-2 (together with Lubomír Mlčoch and Milan Sojka)
  • Sociální Struktura Československa v předvečer Pražského jara 1968 , Charles University, Prague 1992
  • Strategy sociální transformace a jejich úspěšnost v parlamentních volbách 1996 , Doplněk, Brno 1996 (together with P. Šťastnová, A. Kroupa and A. Glasová)
  • Sociální transformace a modernizace: K výstavbě teorie společenských změn v evropských postkomunistických zemích , Sociologické nakladatelství, Prague 1997
  • Vývoj sociálnístructy v české společnosti 1988–1999 , Sociologický ústav AV ČR, Prague 2000 (together with L. Gatnar and M. Tuček)

literature

  • Ernest Gellner: The Pluralist Anti-Levellers of Prague , in: Government and Opposition , 7/1972, Cambridge University Press, pp. 20–37, online at: JSTOR 44483697
  • Zdeněk Strmiska, Blanka Vaváková: La strati fi cation sociale de la société socialiste. A propos du livre de Pavel Machonin , in: Revue française de sociologie , 2/1972, online at: persee.fr / ... , pages 213-257 (there is a link to the PDF version with a German summary)

See also

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ The institute was founded in 1957 as Ústav pro výuku a vědeckou práci kateder marxismu-leninismu (Institute for Teaching and Scientific Work in Faculties for Marxism-Leninism), in 1964 in Ústav marxismu-leninismu pro vysoké školy UK (Institute for Marxism-Leninism at Charles University for universities) and finally renamed again in 1967 to Ústav sociálně politických věd UK (Institute of Sociopolitical Sciences at Charles University).
  2. ↑ a b At its meeting on January 8, 1971, the Central Committee of the CPC decided to introduce so-called directories for Jednotné centrální evidence (Uniform Central Evidence), with the long names Jednotná centrální evidence představitelů, exponentů a nositelů pravicového oportunistý, protchisraná-torýchý protisovětských kampaní a akcí (Uniform central record of representatives, exponents and supporters of right-wing opportunism, the organizers of anti-party, anti-socialist and anti-Soviet campaigns and actions), which was later also called the "List of Enemies of Socialism". In addition to Pavel Machonin, names such as Rudolf Battěk , Josef Bečvář , Miroslav Jodl , Erika Kadlecová , Jaroslav Klofáč , Emanuel Pecka , Josef Solař , Lubomír Sochor , Jiřina Šiklová and Jan Večeřa were entered here . Compare with Emanuel Pecka: Proces tzv. normalizace v české sociologii , online at: karolinum.cz/ , page 91, and Jana Šípová: Kdo byl Pavel Machonin , online at: cvvm.soc.cas.cz / ...

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Michael Voříšek: Machonin Pavel , curriculum vitae of the Sociologická encyklopedie (Sociological Encyclopedia) with a brief description of the research project 1965-1968, ed. from Sociologický ústav AV ČR (Sociological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), online at: encyklopedie.soc.cas.cz / ...
  2. ↑ a b Zesnul významný sociolog Pavel Machonin , Nekrolog of the Institute Sociologický ústav AV ČR (Sociological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), July 16, 2008, online at: soc.cas.cz / ... ; authorized English version of the text, online at: soc.cas.cz / ... ( untitled )
  3. ↑ a b c Zemřel přední český sociolog Pavel Machonin , Nekrolog of the news server Novinky.cz, July 15, 2008, online at: novinky.cz / ...
  4. ↑ a b c Jiří Večerník: In memoriam: Pavel Machonin, Eminent Czech Sociologist Has Died , in: Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review , 44/2008, pages 587-590 JSTOR 41132602
  5. ↑ a b Zdeněk R. Nešpor: Ústav sociálně politických věd UK (1957-1969) , keyword in the Sociologická encyklopedie (Sociological Encyclopedia), ed. from Sociologický ústav AV ČR (Sociological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), online at: encyklopedie.soc.cas.cz / ...
  6. ↑ Zdeněk R. Nešpor: Sociologický ústav AV ČR (1990-) , keyword in the Sociologická encyklopedie (Sociological Encyclopedia), ed. from Sociologický ústav AV ČR (Sociological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), online at: encyklopedie.soc.cas.cz / ...
  7. ↑ Zdeněk R. Nešpor: Sociologický ústav ČSAV (1965-1970) , keyword in the Sociologická encyklopedie (Sociological Encyclopedia), ed. from Sociologický ústav AV ČR (Sociological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), online at: encyklopedie.soc.cas.cz / ...
  8. ↑ Emanuel Pecka: Proces tzv. normalizace v české sociologii , in: Historická sociologie 1/2011, online at: karolinum.cz/ , page 91
  9. ↑ a b Jana Šípová: Kdo byl Pavel Machonin , in: Naše společnost 1/2008, online at: cvvm.soc.cas.cz / ...
  10. ↑ Michael Voříšek: Richta Radovan , keyword in Sociologická encyklopedie (Sociological Encyclopedia), ed. from Sociologický ústav AV ČR (Sociological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), online at: encyklopedie.soc.cas.cz / ...
  11. ↑ Miloslav Petrusek, article in: Česká sociologie v letech 1965–1989 , a discussion on the subject of Czech sociology 1965-1989 from May 27, 2003 with the participation of 16 sociologists, moderated by Oto Sedláček, in: Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review , 5 / 2004, pages 695-740 (here page 705), online at: sreview.soc.cas.cz / ...
personal data
SURNAME Machonine, Pavel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak and Czech sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Prostějov
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 2008
Place of death Prague