Nowadays, i.e. in 2000, few research workers in the Czech Republic, approximately 15, are systematically concerned with the problems of history of Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia or Baltic region as in their major field. About ten more are active in post-graduate education at university schools (but how many will stay in the field?). Are they all too few, or too many for a small nation of 10 million, with its relatively small community of historians? We must consider that the whole historian public in Czechia amounts to 600 to 700 persons, also including active archivists, grammar school history teachers and others. Historians qualified in Russian studies may represent about 3 per cent of the number.

Chronological view on the Russian history research topics

The earliest period was covered, above all, by Pavel Bocek (in Brno), Dana Pickova (in Prague), and Jin Prochazka (in Ostrava). P. Bocek focused his attention on the role of religion and Russian church in constituting the Russian state at the turn of 15 th and 16th centuries [4-7]. As for the topics, he overlapped with the writings of Jan B. Lasek, the church historian, and a team of specialists in Byzantine studies who did research into the historical roots of Russian civilization in the respective context [8].

Within the later period, the main interest was focused on the problems of Russian crises at the turn of 19th and 20th centuries [9]. As R.Vlcek pointed out repeatedly in his presentations, the history of the Russian empire as a complex of countries and nations has virtually not been studied in Czechia, where more attention has been paid to Ukrainian or Baltic affairs [10-13].

Within the 20th century history, the focus of specialist interest is particularly on the history of Russia (while extremely little on that of Ukraine and Byelorussia), namely the period of 19171939. Though just for basic information, we nevertheless include writings on Czech-Russian (or Czechoslovak-Soviet) relations, Russian exile in Czechoslovakia etc. as well.

Russia / Soviet Union 1917-1939

Regretfully, the researchers did not concentrate very much on the political affairs in Russia in 1917, development of political parties and - in close connection with the above - problems of nations [14-19].

The period after 1917 is researched most frequently of all - with nearly one fourth of all publications, if those on the exile are included. The war period and the 19th century Russia follow the lead, and only then, at a great, even surprising distance, the post-war history of the USSR.

In that period, both internal and international aspects of the development of the USSR. By far the greatest attention has been paid to particular aspects of stalinization of the USSR, especially political ones, such as the question of stability of the system or Stalin's purges in the army in 1930s.

Less interest has been taken in economic development, whether - traditionally - industrial or agricultural development, or re-interpretation of the collectivization. New views and concepts have been presented concerning the questions of connections between economy and politics, mainly in military politics and organization of defense industry. This means studies making use of the newly open Russian archives. Similarly, studied for the first time in Czechia were the questions of the role of the armed forces in stabilization of the government in the USSR, especially in the region of the Central Asia, as well as the constitution of the Red Army, dispute about its concept and its place within the fight for power in the USSR, especially in late 1920s [20].

Few studies were concerned with the economic history of the Soviet Union, question of forced industrialization and collectivization [21-24].

Of international aspects, the topics in question are the foreign intervention in 1918-1921, the Soviet foreign policy, co-operation of the Red Army with the Reichswehr in 1920s and the Soviet- German treaty of 1939 [25-31].

An attempt of research into some selected aspects has been made by the Institute of History staff within the grant project The army as a tool of state integration of the USSR (1923-1941), led by B. Litera [32].

Some attention has been paid to the fate of Baltic countries [33-40] between the World Wars, sovietization of the territories annexed in 1939-1940, Soviet agression against Poland, and Soviet- Finnish War [41-50]. No attention at all has been paid to such international affairs as the problems of the Comintern, the relation of Soviet leaders to the Comintern and to the revolution in China, and hardly any attention to the question of the Civil War