Václav Chaloupecký a budování historického semináře Univerzity Komenského

Václav Chaloupecký and the Establishment of the Historical Seminar at the Comenius University This study focuses on the Establishment of the Historical Seminar at the Comenius University in Bratislava during the time of the interwar Czechoslovak Republic. Its attempt is to cover the interpersonal relations that played an important role in the establishment of Slovak historical science on the academic ground. A key role in these events was played by Josef Pekař’s pupil Václav Chaloupecký. The entire process was characterised both by the unwillingness of Czech experts to permanently settle in Slovakia and by the gradually increasing ambitions of the upcoming Slovak elites, of whom − at least in the context of historiography − Daniel Rapant was the most important. The two decades during which a new centre of historical science was gradually established were marked by the creative initiative of the founders but also by the ministerial supervision of Milan Hodža. Tense relations between these three prominent personalities of Slovak scientific and public life (Chaloupecký, Rapant, Hodža) represent not only a key to analysis of the birth of a Slovak historical science but also an important element that can help us understand the fortunes of Czech-Slovak intercultural relations during the interwar period.