Abstract

In what kind of society did the Prague Spring 1968 take place? The nature of East European societies and the Soviet Union can be described in different terms—according to the theory underlying the empirical structure of facts or according to the meaning which we give to the facts, events and persons themselves. If we do not know the significance of historical phenomena, then we do not know in fact the phenomena themselves, and we read history as Petrushka did, when he read the individual letters without grasping of what he read. In other words, it depends upon the a priori theories, premises and postulates which we apply because without them the isolated facts are deprived of the context, significance and meaning, and are therefore ultimately meaningless.