Bláha, Obrdlík and Eubank: The Contacts between Brno and American Sociologists against the Backdrop of Interwar International Sociology
Abstract
This paper examines the relations of the interwar sociologists in Brno with their American colleagues and international sociology in general. It describes the international contacts of Inocenc Arnošt Bláha and Antonín Obrdlík in the 1930s with a special focus on the professional and personal liaison between these two and American sociologist Earle Edward Eubank.
These contacts are subsequently located within an imperfect, but genuine homology that existed between Czech sociology on the one hand and American and international sociology on the other. Previous research has shown that inside the international sociology of the 1930s, which centred around the Institut International de Sociologie (IIS), the eclectic French sociologists who controlled the IIS allied with American detractors of scientism, whereas their principal opponents, the Durkheimians, were close to the sociologists at the University of Chicago.
In terms of their international networks and their substantive positions, Bláha's Brno group was part of the anti-scientist alliance, whereas the sociologists in Prague displayed an affinity for the Chicago School in particular. To substantiate this claim, the paper shows that the American networks of Obrdlík and Otakar Machotka (Prague), both Rockefeller fellows and later exiles in the US, were highly consistent with the observed divisions in American and international sociology.