Event: Kateřina Čapková (Prague): From National History to Inclusive History

This event is part of the joint Leibniz ScienceCampus and Graduate School Research Colloquium. This session is organized by the speakers of the LSC Margins of Memory Research Network, Volha Bartash and Tatiana Klepikova.

Abstract | History textbooks in individual European countries tend to focus on the history of people who speak a particular language and who share a religion. They recount these groups' efforts to establish independent national politics and a state of their own. However, when researching the history of Jews, Roma, Sinti, or refugees, historians often find contradictions between their research results and established interpretations of national history. Using two examples from Czech history, I will demonstrate how the national narrative distorts the perception of different communities and society as a whole. This makes it difficult to identify the causes of contemporary phenomena and processes. In conclusion, I will present the concept of an inclusive interpretation of history as a potential alternative.

Bio | Kateřina Čapková is a historian of East Central Europe at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, who specializes in modern Jewish history, history of Roma and Sinti, and refugee studies. Her Czechs, Germans, Jews? won the Outstanding Academic Title Award from Choice magazine in 2012. Together with Hillel J. Kieval, she edited Prague and Beyond (2022), a history of Jews of the Bohemian lands, also published in German, Hebrew, and Czech. Čapková also heads the Prague Center for Romani Histories (www.romanihistories.org (external link, opens in a new window)). Since 2025, she has been the principal investigator of the Advanced ERC grant Inclusive History of East-Central Europe.