In the past two decades, new approaches have emerged in Cold War research, which have chosen a different viewpoint on this conflict of over 40 years, whose impacts still have significant influence on the character and development of our modern world. The earlier developed international history, transnational history or global history was joined by the New Cold War History, which in its methods uses documents from former Eastern Bloc and other socialist countries. With these documents, some aspects of the Cold War conflict are being re-assessed and re-interpreted. This makes it very different from the older approaches that portrayed the Cold War almost exclusively through the lens of the bipolar relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, in which the other actors did not play a significant part.
The Cold War Research Group (CWRG) is based on the above-mentioned trends in current research of the Cold War and focuses on different level of relations between the socialist countries and their foreign policy in a global perspective of the Cold War. Special emphasis is placed on activities of Czechoslovakia in the “Third World” using newly declassified documents from Czech and other Eastern European archives. CWRG was founded in 2017 as a part of the Institute for the Study of Strategic Regions – Charles University platform for excellent transdisciplinary research topics related to the global interconnectedness of the contemporary world. The CWRG is also closely interconnected with the Institute of World History (Charles University).
Head of the CWRG: Jan Koura, Ph.D.
Deputee: Mikuláš Pešta, Ph.D.
Members: Ondřej Vojtěchovský, Ph.D. (Institute of World History CU FA), Jiří Hudeček, Ph.D. (Institute of Sinology CU FA), Jiří Pondělíček (Institute of Northamerican History, FSS CU), PhDr. Boris Mosković (Institute of World History CU FA), Mgr. Marta Lopatková (Department of Asian Studies CU FA), Mgr. Barbora Nováková (Department of Asian Studies), Mgr. Matyáš Borovský (Institute of World History CU FA), Mgr. Jakub Mazanec (Institute of World History CU FA), Mgr. Maroš Timko (Centre for Ibero-American Studies CU FA)
Outside of CU FA, the folowing researchers regularly contribute to the programme of CWRG: Frank Gerits (Utrecht University), Natalia Telepneva (University of Strathclyde), Daniela Richterova (Brunel Univeristy) a Robert A. Waters (Ohio Northern University).
Web-site: https://cwrg.ff.cuni.cz/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CWRGPrague
Most important contributions by CWRG for 2018-2020:
- Koura, J., Rozdělený ostrov. Studená válka a „kyperská otázka“ v letech 1960-1974, Praha: Epocha 2019
- Koura, J.– Waters, R. jr., “Africanos” versus “Africanitos”. The Soviet-Czechoslovak Competition to Protect the Cuban Revolution, in: International History Review, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2019.1692892
- Koura, J – Waters, R. A., “They are as businesslike on that side of the Iron Curtain as they are on this”: Czechoslovakia’s relations with British Guiana, in: Muehlenbeck, Philip – Telepneva, Natalia (eds.), Warsaw Pact Intervention in the Third World: Aid and Influence in the Cold War, London: I. B. Tauris 2018, s. 74–94
- Mosković, B., Partija kao arena za sukobljavanje. Hrvatska i konfrontacije između čelnih jugoslavenskih komunista krajem 1980-ih godina, in: I. Duda (ed.), Komunisti i komunističke partije: politike, akcije, debate, Zagreb 2019, s. 61–82.
- Pešta, M., Sanctuary, Armoury, and Prison: Switzerland and the Role of Swiss Anarchists as Intermediaries in the European Terrorist Network in the 1970s, in: Central European History 52:4 (December 2019), https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008938919000864
- Pešta, M., O ozbrojeném boji v západní Evropě. Italský a německý levicový terorismus sedmdesátých let v transnacionální perspektivě, Praha: Fontes 2018
- Richterová, D., Pešta, M., Telpneva, N., Banking on Military Assistance: Czechoslovakia’s Struggle for Influence and Profit in the Third World 1955–1968, in: International History Review, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2020.1763422
- Vojtěchovský, O., Jugoslavija i Čehoslovačka u doba kasnog socijalizma, 1969–1989. Ključni dogadjaji i problemi u saradnji i uzajamna vidjenja, in: Michal Hrušík (ed.), Istorija odnosa izmedju Čehoslovačke i Jugoslavije. Konferencija čeških, slovačkih i srpskih istoričara. Zbornik stručnih radova. Ambasada Republike Slovačke u Republici Srbiji, Beograd 2018
Grants
- In 2020, the PRIMUS grant of the Charles University „African and Middle Eastern Elites Educated in former Socialist Countries: Studies, Trajectories, and Mindsets“, was assigned to dr. Constantin Katsakioris. The three-year project will be realized at the Institute of World History from January 2021 and CWRG members Jan Koura, Mikuláš Pešta a Jakub Mazanec will also be part of the team, as the project is closele related to the research group.