Monographs covering this period are, sadly, scarce; there is a translation of Strobinger's work on Marshal Tukhachevsky [51]. Larger monographic works only began to appear by the end of 1999 (or beginning of 2000), which is - for this study - beyond the period in discussion.

No one did any systematic research into the problems of the Caucasian region, Central Asia, Russian Far East, everyday life in Stalin's USSR, and social problems connected with the processes of modernization, such as the intensive alphabetization and urbanization, including pathological social phenomena, e.g. delinquency or suicides.

Similar, i.e. hardly any attention was paid to the problem of Soviet modernist art, which especially in 1920s was immensely attractive for left-wing artists throughout the world.

No detailed research was done into the demographic development in the USSR, famine casualties, its structure, reaction of the Soviet leaders etc. Virtually beyond the scope of research stayed the question of nations, e.g. Soviet Jews and Germans, and persecuted social groups. Regional topics were, understandably, chosen for research purely at random.

Now, let's concentrate on such a widely and internationally discussed topic as:

Problems of Stalinism, or Soviet totalitarianism, and its victims

Totalitarianism was systematically studied by Zd. Sladek [52-54], V. Veber [55] of the older generation, E. Voracek [56] of the middle-age generation and, especially in particular book reviews, by some of the younger generation as well. The very genesis of Stalin's cult was researched by E. Vlcek, M. Tejchman but also V. Veber [57; 58].

No substantial discussion was held yet, however, nor serious attempts to compare Stalinism (or communism) with nazism were made, though in other countries the discussion is very keen and - understandably - ideologically influenced. On the occasion of publishing of The Black Book of Communism, the French institute for research in social sciences (CeFReS) organized an afternoon discussion with the authors at the beginning of 1999. A number of both favourable and critical points of view were expressed; among others, M. Reiman took a restrained attitude. Somewhat later, he was actually the only Czech historian to express - in the most precise and detailed way - a complex view of the problem of totalitarianism [59]. Though V. Veber gave a concise characteristic of totalitarianism in the introduction to the book Za svobodu a demokracii (For Freedom and Democracy) [60], his text lacks in M. Reiman's systematic attitude and provides a somewhat non differentiating picture in the comparison of bolshevism and nazism (also compare the recent research and discussion in Germany).

Relatively little research on the base of archive documents was done into particular topics within the above described scope, such as the questions of GULAG camps, Stalin's purges in the party and in the army (1937), their social consequences, contemporary communist propaganda etc.

However, it must be taken into account that - though a considerable number of documents have been published - one has to "stick at it" in Russian archives first when researching any of the above. This is very demanding as it requires quite a lot of both money and patience. Consequently, too few Czech historians studied documents in Russian archives in 1990s, and their stays were, in general, too short.

Russian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian exile

In the period in question, the study of Russian and Ukrainian exile in Czechoslovakia between the World Wars (and the allied questions) deserves to be given a most prominent and

exceptional place. It represents more than a tenth of the total publication output. Between February 1948 and November 1989, there was virtually no chance to introduce those questions in public at all in Czechoslovakia. Tremendous sources of documents, not yet fully explored, must be mentioned here, as well as the rich funds of books located in the Slavonic Library, personal archives left by testaments in the National Museum, and still undervalued particular funds of the State Central Archive in Prague. Anyway, after a flow of studies and papers on a scope of various particular aspects of the problem, some other publications followed, above all conference proceedings, or collective publications based on specific grant projects to explore particular aspects of life of the exile [61; 62]. In these publications, scores of specialists took part, including a considerable number of those from abroad.

The topics covered ranged from the immigrants' arrival in Czechoslovakia to their activities, political movements and - somewhat less - intellectual tendencies within the exile. As Czechoslovakia received, above all, the intellectual, democratically oriented йlite of the exile (politicians, historians, lawyers, philosophers, sociologists, economists), more in-depth research should have been done in the area. Regretfully, Czech historians have not present a monograph on the topic so far, though a number of studies have been published [63]. Some systematic research was done in particular studies by