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In honor of the 2018 centennial of Czech independence, philosopher of law Jiří Přibán and award-winning Czech journalist Karel Hvížďala took the opportunity to examine key moments in Czech history from the ninth century to the twenty-first. Covering such a broad span of time allowed them to look into the past and question how Czechs have viewed their history at different points—and what that means for the Czech present and future. As contemporary politics drift closer towards totalitarianism, historiography from scholars and thinkers who experienced twentieth-century totalitarian regimes is more important than ever. In their spirited dialogue, Hvížďala and Přibán raise and explore these crucial issues, sharing subjects normally reserved for university seminars with the broader public.

More than a century after the publication of Czech politician Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk’s study The Czech Question, Czech politics—instead of the nation’s historical struggle for survival and independence—has become a pragmatic question of democratic constitutionalism and civility. Originally published in major Czech newspapers, these essays on contemporary European politics demonstrate that this new understanding involves both technical questions of power making and critical questions of its meaning. Democracy, Přibáň shows, is the process of permanent self-correction. It possesses both the capacity to respond to unexpected problems and crises and intrinsic tensions between principled arguments and everyday administrative processes. Defending constitutionalism, therefore, draws on principles of civil rights and freedoms, limited government, and representative democracy, the validity and persuasive force of which are at stake not only in the Czech Republic, but also in the post-national European Union and our global society at large.