"Spirits that I've cited ... ?"

Josette Baer is adjunct professor of political theory with a focus on Central and Eastern European political thought at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Zurich (UZH), Switzerland. She has published several books and peer-reviewed studies about Czechoslovak, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Russian, and Macedonian political thought and politics.

"Baer presents Clementis' private and social life not only from the viewpoint of Slovak politics and society, but also from a wider European and Central European perspective. She delves into the ideological context and political thought of the leftist intellectuals, the so-called generation of the 'older' or pre-war Communists. She analyzes the intellectual and political failure of this generation that was bewitched by the new and secular religion of Marxism and Lenin's Russian Revolution. Their blind and unremitting belief in a more just world robbed them of critical and independent thinking and, eventually, they became the victims of their belief. Clementis' sacrifice was the greatest: In 1952, he was condemned to death in the Stalinist show trial of former top Party members that would decimate the leading figures in the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Baer presents the portrait of a Slovak politician who played a significant role in the modern history of Slovakia and post-war Czechoslovakia. She draws Clementis from his regional and national environment and puts the Slovak politician and Czechoslovak foreign minister (1948-1950) into a wider global framework."-Vlasta Jaksicsová, Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences