Ondřej Haváč

Ondřej Haváč, PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University Brno, the Czech Republic.

I am a PhD Candidate in History at the Department of History of Masaryk University in Brno as well as a high school teacher at Kurim Vocational School. Before I was chosen by the Wirth Institute as a recipient of the Czech Doctoral Fellowship I had been teaching History and English language at the vocational school for 2 years.

After graduating with a degree in History and Upper Secondary School Teacher Training in 2012, I started my doctoral studies at Masaryk University. My specialisation is the 20th century European history and the Czech post-Prague spring exile. My dissertation, entitled The Comparison of Czech post-Prague Spring Exile in Austria and Switzerland, compares a level of integration and changes in a national identity of Czech refugees who came to Austria and Switzerland after 1968.

From 2012 to 2014, I received several scholarships (Freemovers, the Dean´s Scholarship of the Faculty of Arts, the Scholarship of the Department of History of Masaryk University) to conduct field research in Austria and Switzerland. During this time I collaborated with various institutions such as Austrian Department of Contemporary History of the University of Vienna (Institute für Zeitgeschichte), Czech Oral History Association and various Czech exile organisations, both in Austria and Switzerland.

I used a method of oral history to record 34 semi-structured interviews with members of the Czech exile, who had been living beyond borders of their homeland, Czechoslovakia, for more than 40 years. The research question was how these people, living almost 50 years in Austria and Switzerland, construct their national identity in their life stories.

I am a member of Czech Oral History Assotiation as well as a member of Historia Europeana which is a civil association of PhD Candidates in Brno. Since 2012 we have organised, in conjuction with Masaryk University and the Czech Academy of Sciences, 4 academic international conferences called Rethinking 20th Century Europe and published 3 collective monographs. I took a part in various international conferences across Europe (for instance in London, Lodz or Ostrava).

In my non-academic life, I have been one of the coordinators of mental wellbeing courses in Brno and one of the camp leaders of children summer camps in Beskydy Mountains for more than 5 years. I love playing basketball and guitar.

Contact

E-mail: havac@ualberta.ca
Telephone: 780-492-6390
Address:
University of Alberta
Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies
Suite 300 F
Arts & Convocation Hall
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada T6G 2E6