Astronomers behind the Iron Curtain: The First Postwar Generation in Czechoslovakia

0581931 - MÚA 2024 RIV CZ eng B - Monography
Pavlíček, Tomáš W. - Hyklová, P. - Šolc, M.
Astronomers behind the Iron Curtain: The First Postwar Generation in Czechoslovakia.
Prague: MatfyzPress, 2024. 285 s. ISBN 978-80-7378-464-5; ISBN 978-80-7378-507-9
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA19-20678S
Institutional support: RVO:67985921
Keywords : Czechoslovakia * history of astronomy * Cold War
OECD category: History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)
https://matfyzpress.cz/cz/e-shop/e-knihy/astronomers-behind-the-iron-curtain-the-first-postwar-generation-in-czechoslovakia-ke-stazeni-zdarma-v-detailu-produktu-9788073785079

The formation of the first postwar generation of astronomers in Czechoslovakia was specific with regard to the war experience. The uncertainty of life and the future profession created a bitter mental legacy which, together with the efforts to catch up with the surrounding scientific world and the lost years of a scholarly career, represents the factors that co-created the Cold War. This book asks how, from this postwar legacy, students of astronomy in Czechoslovakia become experts in demand on international platforms. Mostly they became researchers in the Astronomical Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The Iron Curtain did not have the strict east-west opposition. Czechoslovak astronomy participated in the UN debates about space law and had a number of excellent results (e.g. chronometry, solar physics, radio astronomy, network for photographing bolides, research of the high atmosphere, the Galaxy and stellar astronomy). Indeed, after astronauts from the USA and the USSR, the Czechoslovak cosmonaut Vladimír Remek was the next person in space thanks to the programme Interkosmos. On the topic of the interconnectedness of the East and West, the authors ask how balanced the two-way foreign cooperation was when several NASA astronauts visited Prague. The innovative contribution of the book is supported by fragments from interviews with experts of this generation, from the oldest one, Luboš Perek, to the youngest, Jiří Grygar. Using the oral history method, the authors evaluate their life stories, networking, gender aspect, and circulation of knowledge.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0352014