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Pakt

Stalin, Hitler a příběh jedné vražedné aliance 1939–1941

To be published: Q3 2025

The Pact. Stalin, Hitler and the Story of a Murderous Alliance 1939–1941. Hitler’s alliance with Stalin, known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, was not only a temporary armstice between the two totalitarian world powers but practically enabled the Nazi Germany to start the World War II by attacking Poland and simultaneously enabled the Stalinist Soviet Union to occupy the Baltic states and after the war with Finland a part of its territory, too. Thus during the first twenty-two months of the World War II the collaboration of the two dictators changed the political situation on the whole continent fundamentally.

Věk Rudých Mravenců

Tanya Pyankova

The Age of Red Ants. This title is the fourth novel of Taňa Pjankova. It tells a story about the so-called Holodomor period, i.e. Ukrainian famine, that took place between 1932 and 1933. The story follows three main characters – Dusya, Svyryd and Solya – whose fates are the result of almost three years of studying archival materials. As the author herself states, they are not fictitious characters. In addition to this three storylines, the author also handles the contrast between the dying traditional village and the Soviet system, interestingly working with the embodiment of Hunger as an allegorical figure.

Dvanáct Dnů

Příběh maďarského povstání 1956

Victor Sebestyen

Twelve Days. The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. The book is a day-by-day account of the defining moment of the Cold War – the inspiring but brutally crushed Hungarian Uprising. His book incorporates newly released official documents and archive material, family diaries, and eyewitness testimony. We witness the thrilling first days when – armed only with a few rifles, petrol bombs, and desperate courage – the people of Budapest rose up against their Soviet masters and nearly succeeded.

Autobiografie jednoho pařížského domu

Příběhy, osudy a deportace 1942–1944

Ruth Zylberman

The Autobiography of a Parisian House. Stories, Fates and Deportations 1942–1944. At number 209 rue Saint-Maurus in the 10th arrondissement of Paris there is an apartment building where families of craftsmen and workers, immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, have lived since the 1850s. Generations have grown up here, love and friendships have been forged and daily life has been regularly interrupted by the disasters and violence of the 20th century. Among others, nine Jewish children were deported from here in the 1940s. Their fates are the key to the author’s magnificent novel’s testimony about the memory of places and the invisible threads that connect the living and the dead.

Antikomunistické manifesty

Čtyři knihy, které formovaly studenou válku

John V. Fleming

The Anti-Communist Manifestos. Four Books that Shaped the Cold War. After retiring from Princeton University Professor Fleming devoted himself to his hobby, namely book-binding. Thus he came across a long-forgotten American bestseller: Out of the Night by Jan Valtin. Keeping to his lifelong specialization which is comparative literature and his credo that quality is best seen through comparison he compared this literary discovery of his with two best-known books of this genre and one completely unknown.

Co skrývá Jeruzalém

Pohřbená historie nejvíce znesvářeného města světa

Andrew Lawler

Under Jerusalem. The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City. The book traces the multilayered history of discovering the Jerusalem underground since mid-19^th century up to present. The account of archaeological achievements and their political, cultural and religious impact is written with historical insight and storytelling gift of an experienced journalist. The story of a city tangled on all civilization levels from religious zeal through nationalist and power interests all the way to geographic conditions is told in a most unbiased manner. In a historical depiction of war – both metaphorical and literal – over the spiritual heritage belonging not only to the Christian civilization the author takes no parts.

Kůže

Evgenia Nekrasova

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Skin. The novel written by the young Russian writer Evgenia Nekrasova is a story of two women, a black slave from the South of the U.S.A. and a Russian serf whose life stories overlap.

In the South of the U.S.A. a female slave is born and named Hope. Her mother tries to save her from the same fate as she herself has faced. However, they get separated and the new owner takes Hope away from America. Meanwhile in Russia a girl named Domna is born into a serf family and, being the youngest daughter, is cherished and spoilt. Than one day a carriage takes her away – her owner lost her in cards.

Hella

Alena Machoninová

Hella. The subtitle of the narrative essay debut by the Russian scholar and translator Alena Machoninová refers to the thematic basis of the narrative-essay, that is the life-story of Helena „Hella“ Frischer, a Czech Jewess who served as a model for the character of in the novel Moscow-Border by Jiří Weil. Allegedly, Hella had been executed along with her husband during the Great Terror under Stalin. However, a few years ago it turned out that after having served ten years at a labor camp in northern Russia Hella was set free and then lived in Moscow until her death in 1984. In 2017 her labor camp memoir came out in Czech.

Odnes můj žal

Katerina Gordeeva

Take My Grief Away. The book contains twenty-four raw and heartbreaking first-person accounts of harrowing war experiences, collected by Katerina Gordeeva, a prize-winning independent journalist who was named «a foreign agent» by Russian state officials in autumn 2022. Gordeeva interviews people at refugee centers in Russia and Europe after February 24^th, when the war in Ukraine began.

Apoštol Pavel, posel Božího království

Paula Fredriksen

Paul: The Pagan’s Apostle. The book provides an excellent study of the life and times of the apostle Paul. The renowned American historian presents a very reader-friendly and engaging follow-up to her previous work dealing with Saint Augustine, Jesus Christ as a historical personality, and the period of early Christianity in general.

Neviditelná moc

Mafie a stát v moderních evropských demokraciích

Jacques de Saint Victor

The Invisible Power. The Mafia and Democratic Society from the 19^th to the 20^th Century. The Mafia may have been born out of the ruins of the feudal system, but it only flourished with the rise of democracy and capitalism. It soon took root in Naples, Sicily and Calabria and owes its rise to the criminal pacts it made with some of the political and social elite—thus gradually building its invisible power and subverting the social order. The book by the renowned French legal historian, writer and literary critic Jaques de Saint Victor reconstructs the history of the mafias and their expansion on the European continent.

Rána

Oksana Vasyakina

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Wound. The prosaic debut by the poet Oksana Vasyakina is a documentary, autobiographic text which turns around the author’s journey with her mother’s ashes from the Volgograd region to her native Siberia.