Progressive traditions of the Czech sociology

At the present time, when the work in the branch of sociology has been renewed at our universities and institutes, it is proper to remind ourselves of the history of this empiric and theoretic science in our country. This seems desirable, among other reasons, because of the fact that there is no science in any country to develop regardless either of the development of the particular scientific discipline on a world scale or of its results in the respective country. As to the history of Czechoslovak sociology itself, we may assert that it attained an international standard and was appreciated in foreign literature. That is why our present sociology faces the task of resuming its progressive home traditions. To resume traditions, to acknowledge their validity in any science, consequently also in sociology, means, however, the necessity of realizing in which problems it is indispensable to exceed the traditions, which solutions it is possible and urgent to surpass. The problematics of the history of our sociology is of a rather wide range and heterogeneity. For this reason we shall merely concentrate on some questions concerning the relation of the present-day Marxist sociology and our former non-Marxist sociology in this paper, and on such sociologists whose work can be resumed with qualification and carried on at present.