| Popis: |
As opposed to German scholarship, the issue of municipal self-government and communal elites has not received much attention in Czech historiography. This represents a significant shortcoming: in the absence of an analysis of the mechanisms by which self-governing municipalities functioned, it is not possible to describe the constitution of modem civil society in the nineteenth century, including the development of national relations. This article provides an overview of relevant German and Austrian literature, proposes a methodology of research in the Czech environment, including an analysis of the use-fulness of individual types of archival sources, and offers preliminary results of the reviewers' research on the cities of Moravská Ostrava and Brno. Close attention is paid to the social-professional composition of communal elites, national and religious development, municipal economies with regard to communal companies, and the process of creating a modem state administration. |
