Karel Bartošek (30 June 1930 – 9 July 2004) was a Czech-French historian.

Life

Karel Bartošek was born on 30 June 1930 in

Skuteč Skuteč (; ) is a town in Chrudim District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 5,100 inhabitants. Administrative division Skuteč consists of 13 municipal parts (in brackets population according to the 2021 census): *Skut ...

. He came from a working-class family, joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia as a young man and wrote several very tendentious pro-Communist books, most notably The Americans in Western Bohemia (1953), which dealt with the "rampage and anti-popular activities" of American soldiers (described as occupiers) in

Plzeň Plzeň (), also known in English and German as Pilsen (), is a city in the Czech Republic. It is the Statutory city (Czech Republic), fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 188,000 inhabitants. It is located about west of P ...

and the surrounding area after the liberation of the region. He studied history at the Faculty of Philosophy of Charles University, became a professor there and was a member of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences from 1960 to 1970. His professional work focused mainly on modern Czech history. However, he gradually broke with orthodox communism. He was prominently involved in the Prague Spring of 1968, was expelled from the Communist Party, worked as an auxiliary worker at ''Vodní stavby'' and was imprisoned for six months in 1972. In 1977, he became a signatory of

Charter 77 Charter 77 (''Charta 77'' in Czech language, Czech and Slovak language, Slovak) was an informal civic initiative in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members ...

. In 1982, after the StB sent a coffin home to his family saying he was dead, he emigrated to France, where he joined the CNRS. The following year he was stripped of his Czechoslovak citizenship. In France, he was a research fellow at the Institute for Contemporary History in Paris until 1996. In 1999, he co-authored ''

The Black Book of Communism ''The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression'' is a 1997 book by Stéphane Courtois, Andrzej Paczkowski, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Margolin, and several other European academics documenting a history of political repression by com ...

'', which attempts to summarize the various crimes (murder, deportation, torture, etc.) committed by the authorities of communist states. He died on 9 July 2004 in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

Publications

* ''Les sociétés, la guerre et la paix de 1911 à 1946 : Europe, Russie puis URSS, Japon, États-Unis'', with Hélène Fréchet, François Boulet and Gilbert Badia. * ''Les Aveux des archives. Prague-Paris-Prague, 1948–1968'', Ed. du Seuil, Paris, 1996.

Collections

*Edited by

Stéphane Courtois Stéphane Courtois (; born 25 November 1947) is a French historian and university professor, a director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), professor at the Catholic Institute of Higher Studies (ICES) in La ...

, ''

'',

Éditions Robert Laffont Éditions Robert Laffont () is a book publishing company in France founded in 1941 by (1916–2010). Its publications are distributed in almost all francophone countries, but mainly in France, Canada and in Belgium. Imprints belonging to Édit ...

, Paris, 1997 . *Edited by Stéphane Courtois, ''Le jour se lève : l'héritage du totalitarisme en Europe, 1953-2005'',

Mayenne Mayenne ( ) is a landlocked department in northwest France named after the river Mayenne. Mayenne is part of the administrative region of Pays de la Loire and is surrounded by the departments of Manche, Orne, Sarthe, Maine-et-Loire, and Il ...

Éditions du Rocher The Éditions du Rocher is a publishing house based in Monaco Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a Sovereign state, sovereign city-state and European microstates, microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the R ...

, coll. « Démocratie ou totalitarisme », 2006, 493 p. () * Les sociétés, la guerre et la paix de 1911 à 1946: Europe, Russie puis URSS, Japon, États-Unis,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bartosek, Karel 1930 births 2004 deaths People from Skuteč Czech historians Historians of France Charter 77 signatories