Abstrakt
The purposes of human education can be undoubtedly perceived as highly paradoxical in philosophical way of thinking, but we should take into account that a particular shape of educational process could be understood as a mirror of specific historical and cultural context. Thus we can accept a thesis explaining the birth of modern educational system in Central Europe with strong political motivation which was supported by the enlightened discourse of rationalism and absolutism.
However this effort showed its Janusian face, because it systematized the process of forming elites by emancipation of lower classes and creation of loyal bureaucracy, but also subordinated a man to the process of disciplination, which Foucault understood as a part of wider transformation of a human conception. All these considerations nevertheless do not deal with another key feature of modern educational process: shaping collective identity by uniform narration of national history.
The way how essential past events were read was an important tool of Czech society during the national resurrection for defining itself against German identity and for strengthening a myth about the unjust subjugation of peaceful Slavs. Allowing that there has always been a strong connection between collective identity and a shape of educational process it is necessary to ask whether it is this tendency preserved in contemporary Czech school system and to what extent we can claim that teaching history in the 21th century supports or weakens the national understanding of identity.
This paper therefore aims to reveal how official textbooks authorized by the Czech Ministry of Education interpret the controversial issue of Czech relationship with other national minorities during the 19th and 20th century and thus try to answer, whether they support one-sided national, or European contextual view.
