Dr. Michaela Lenčéšová

Michaela Lenčéšová is a historian at the Institute for Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. She studied European contemporary history at Charles University. Her research focuses on
the intellectual history of religion, nationalism, and fascism, especially on Slovak Catholic
thought in the twentieth century. She is currently focusing on the history of Catholic
modernism and Catholic human rights discourse. In the winter term of 2023, she will be a
junior fellow at the KFG in Munich.

Research Project

Between Particular Nationalism and Universal Human Rights: Štefan Polakovič and
Slovak Catholic Nationalism after the 1970s

Michaela Lenčéšová will explore the tension between particularism and universalism in
Slovak Catholic nationalism after the 1970s, using Štefan Polakovič’s work as a case study.
The Catholic philosopher Štefan Polakovič is considered one of the main ideologists of the
politics of Jozef Tiso and the wartime Slovak state. After 1945, he emigrated to Argentina,
where he continued to theorize Slovak nationalism on the basis of human rights discourse and
postcolonial critique. Michaela Lenčéšová’s project examines the emergence of this particular
human rights discourse, which was founded on the concept of the right of nations to self-
determination as a fundamental human right. Her research looks at the impact of the Latin
American intellectual context on Slovak Catholic thought and searches for other, similar cases
of former collaborators with fascism who emigrated to Latin America after the end of the
Second World War and linked human rights discourse with the right of nations to self-
determination.

Michaela Lenčéšová | The Concept of the Right to National Self-Determination as a Fundamental Human Right in Slovak Catholic Thinking After the 1970s as video and podcast on Wissenschaftsportal L.I.S.A.