Historica. History and Related Sciences Review

Anonymous peer semiannual review issued with by the University of Ostrava, the Faculty of Arts (under redaction of the Department of history and the Centre for economic and social history).

History of the Journal

In 2010, the Anthology of History of the Ostrava higher-education workplace reached the fiftieth year of its existence. On its complicated path, it shared all of the institutional changes that it gradually went through. It foundation is related to the establishment of the Pedagogical Institute in Ostrava, which in 1959 built upon the earlier Higher Pedagogical School in Opava. In 1960, the first volume of the Anthology of the Work of the Pedagogical Institute in Ostrava was issued with the label of Social Science. The transformation of the focus of the workplace was related to the progressive specialisation of the workplace, which in the second volume in 1961 included "History-Language-Literature" and from the third volume "History and Geography". In total, five volumes were prepared under the editorship of Prof. Milan Myška, which contained 14 historical studies (321 pages of text). They are predominantly works of economic and social history with a focus on the latest history of the 19^th and 20^th century.

In 1964, the Pedagogical Institute in Ostrava was replaced by the independent Faculty of Education in Ostrava, which after a year's pause (1965) began to publish the Anthology of Work of the Faculty of Education in Ostrava (Czech acronym: SPPFO), whose Series C was reserved for the fields of history and geography. In 1966-1991, twenty-six volumes were issued with a total number of 2,876 pages of text. The orientation of the workplace on the study of the issue of the genesis and development of industrial areas was manifested in the emergence of a thematically focused series 'Studies on the Development of Industrial Areas' (a total of 11 volumes); the anthologies C-5 and C-6 in 1970 and 1971 with the title Historica and the thematic collation of C-2 in  1967, devoted to physical geography, deviated from this framework. Until 1971, the anthology was edited by Milan Myška, in 1972-1973 Miloň Dohnal, and from 1974 to 1991 Lumír Dokoupil.

In 1966, the series was started with a collection of studies on the development of the Ostrava industrial area for which the authorial collective won the Prize of the City of Ostrava. A component of the individual volumes of the anthology was also several studies translated into world languages. The majority of the studies and articles drew thematically from historical demography and from economic and social history with a focus on the problems of industrialisation, the genesis and development of industrial areas and the specificity of the Ostrava region.

With the creation of University of Ostrava, a part of which was also the Faculty of Arts of OU from the beginning, the previous SPPFO was replaced by the Anthology of the Work of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ostrava (Czech abbrev.: SPFFOU). In 1992, the introductory volume with the title Historica-Geographica in its traditional graphic layout came out, from 1993 the anthology was issued already with the title Historie/Historica in a new form. Its scientific editor (except for the volume 10/2003) was Milan Myška. By 2009, sixteen volumes were issued under this title with a total length of 3,583 pages. Besides studies, new sections - Discussion, Materials, Chronicle, in Vol. 15 also Prospects were included in the anthology from the 3rd volume. A total of 122 authors participated in the anthology, representing preeminent university workplaces of the Czech Republic but also abroad, the majority in Poland. In terms of the published studies, economic and social history dominate, besides the questions of protoindustrialization and industrialization the issue of minorities and the results of new research of the formation of civil society and ennoblement have been significantly used. With the orientation of the workplace on the study of cultural history and prosopography research, the share of studies with such foci increased. The greatest share of the works is devoted to the history of the 19th and 20th centuries, almost a fifth are on the Modern Period, a tenth on the Middle Ages.

A survey of the development of the anthology over the fifty years of its existence shows long-term research and publication continuity. The scientific activities of the Department of History of the Faculty of Arts of OU, engaged in grant tasks, domestic and international cooperation and the support of the leadership of the FA OU create auspicious prerequisites for the transformation of the anthology into the form of a periodically issued historical revue.

The journal, who 2010 changed its name to Historica: History and Related Sciences Review and new semi-annual periodicity, builds on the peer-reviewed anthology Historie/Historica (a part of the series Acta Facultatis Philosophicae Universitatis Ostraviensis), issued since 1993 through the care of the Department of History of the Faculty of Arts of Ostrava University. Studies, articles, materials and reports, whose authors have not been only members of the mentioned department but also colleagues from other universities domestic and foreign (most frequently Slovak and Polish), scientific and specialised workplaces etc. have been published in it. Indirect continuity leads to the historical series of the Anthology of the Faculty of Education in Ostrava (since 1964) and further to the social-science anthologies, which were issued by the former Ostrava Pedagogical Institute from 1961.

Updated: 31. 08. 2022