The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
This discussion contribution highlights the issues of the importance of a critique of archival primary sources and the necessity to uphold established rules of oral research for the period of contemporary post-war history. The author responds here to a book on professors and students of the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University in Prague in the years of the so-called “normalisation”, i.e. the period of personnel purges following the Soviet military occupation of Czechoslovakia until the Velvet Revolution of 1989. The author points out that the archival materials originating from the activities of either the organs of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia or Communist state security services cannot be used as a reliable illustration of events at that time unless a strict critique and contextual placement are applied. In addition, oral historical research has to work with eye-witness accounts bearing in mind their complexity and not to adopt merely a selective methodology.