prof. Dr. phil. Rudolf Kučera, Ph.D.

Professor of Modern History at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, and Director of the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Since 2022,  a permanent visiting professor at the University of Konstanz and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Czech Science Foundation. In the past, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Vienna, as a Fellow at the Imre Kertész Kolleg in Jena, and as a Junior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Freiburg im Breisgau. His research focuses on the modern history of war, violence, labor, and protest, as well as the social and cultural history of Central and Eastern Europe from the 19th to the 20th century.
 

Modern History of Central Europe, First World War, Comparative and Transnational History

Monographs

Chapters in monographs

• Kučera R. (2019). Nástup mas. České země v letech 1880-1920. Dějiny Česka (pp. 190-215).
• Kučera R. (2023). Žít a přežít: život za frontovými liniemi. Dějiny města Zlína 2: moderní město (pp. 32-41).
• Böhler J., Konrád O., & Kučera R. (2021). Introduction. In the Shadow of the Great War : Physical Violence in East-Central Europe, 1917-1923 (pp. 1-10).

Articles

• Kučera R. (2016). Facing Marxist Orthodoxy: Western Marxism, The Making, and the Communist Historiographies of Czechoslovakia and Poland, 1948-1990. International Review of Social History, 61(1), 35-50. UT-WOS link
• Kučera R. (2015). Making Standards Work : Semantics of Economic Reform in Czechoslovakia, 1985-1992. Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History, 12(3), 427-447.
• Kučera R. (2016). Wobec dogmatizmu : Zachodni Marksizm, the Making of The English Working Class i komunysticzne historiografie w NRD, Czechoslowacji i Polsce 1948-1990. Stan Rzeczy. Teoria Spoleczna. Europa Srodkowo-Wschodnia, 2016(10), 144-166.
• Kučera R. (2022). At the End of the End of History: Czech Historiography and the Ukrainian-Russian War. Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, 71(4), 651-657.

Contributions in the conference proceedings

Team member:  Culture of Protest in the Czech Lands 1890–1938, Czech Science Foundation, 2025–2027.

Head of the Czech part of the research team: World War I Veterans in Austria and Czechoslovakia 1918-1938, Bilateral Austrian-Czech Research Project, Austrian Science Fund - Czech Research Foundation, 2017–2019.

Principal investigator: Violence in Central Europe During and in the Aftermath of the World War I. Austrian and Czech Lands in Comparison, Czech Science Foundation, 2014–2016.

Team member: Jenseits des Schützengrabens. Kriegserfahrungen der österreichisch-ungarischen Soldaten an der Ostfront des Ersten Weltkrieges, Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Kriegsfolgen-Forschung, FWF – der Österreichische Wissenschaftsfonds, 2012–2013.

Principal investigator: Work, Nation, Gender. Bohemian Labour 1914–1918, Czech Science Foundation, 2010–2012.

2023: Czech Academy of Sciences Award for outstanding results in research, experimental development and innovation (together with Ota Konrád)

2017: Author of the best book in Czechoslovak studies in the years 2015-2016, Czechoslovak Studies Association 

2015: Otto Wichterle Prize for outstanding scientists of the Czech Academy of Sciences under 35 years of age

2014: Author of the best Czech history book of 2013, Dějiny a Současnost magazine 2011: Jaroslav Krejčí Prize for outstanding achievements in the humanities under the age of 35