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The shifting critical reception of Petra Soukupová’s prose works in the context of the debate over the “literary mainstream” This study examines the way Petra Soukupová’s works of fiction have been reviewed by literary critics from the beginning of her career up until her latest book. While she was seen as an innovative writer after her first books came out, she has subsequently been seen as the key representative of what is known as the “literary mainstream”. Although the discussion over this literary mainstream has been going on among Czech literary critics for several years now, no consensus has been reached over the definition of this label. Hence this study first looks at the concept of the literary maintstream and then examines how it has influenced the critical reception of Petra Soukupová’s fiction.

This article presents the hitherto unknown letters the Czech writer Egon Hostovský (1908–1973) wrote to the Norwegian writer, critic, essayist, editor and translator Sigurd Hoel (1890–1960). These letters date from 1949–1956 and are preserved in the National Library of Norway in Oslo. Not only do they provide interesting information about Hostovský’s efforts to publish his works in Scandinavia, but they also testify to a close friendship between the two writers. The article also presents two letters by Graham Greene (1904–1991) which are also preserved in the file containing Hostovský’s letters in the Norwegian National Library. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study describes the origin and development of the friendship between the literary scholar Jan Mukařovský (1891-1975) and the writer Vladislav Vančura (1891-1942). Mukařovský's interpretations of Vančura's literary works are the main focus of the study. Both Mukařovský's published works and texts that were never published (e.g. university lectures) are analysed. On the basis of archival research, the author of the study proves that Mukařovský analysed Vančura's work much earlier than he published his first-ever work on Vančura in 1934. In the course of the 1940s to 1960s, Mukařovský published many texts on Vančura in which he remembered Vančura as a friend, poet, Communist and anti-fascist activist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on three recent publications dealing with broadside ballads in the Czech lands. These include a publication from regional museum collections and two exhibition catalogues. It presents the various ways of comprehending this interdisciplinary phenomenon and current research trends (research into the materiality of the prints, reflection on the musical component, multilingualism and the like). It also presents terminological considerations and reflects on the broadside ballad as part of 18th and 19th century popular culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the issues of introducing web resources into subject literary bibliographies. This issue is at first analyzed on the general level as the methodological challenge of online sources systematic introduction into the context of managing current bibliography and then case studies follow targeted on specific problems of internet material bibliography treatment. Firstly one discusses the issues related to bibliographical processing of online documents (web pages, online journals, etc.), which are in complex and variable relations to those available in print. An attention is paid to the methodological issues, in particular providing criteria of web resources selection. The need for archivization of bibliographically processed materials which we assess as the crucial element of any systematic bibliographical processing of Internet materials will be also highlighted. In the following part study presents the preliminarily classification of the new specific genres of internet content: blogs and literary forums. Firstly the Polish literary blogosphere is analysed and preliminarily typology of this document type is introduced. Later a phenomenon of literary forums is taken into consideration. Based on an example of poetry forum Nieszuflada.pl more detailed quantitative analysis of this resource type is given and issues of authorship attribution in the digital environment are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with the hitherto little known correspondence between writers Jakub Deml (1878-1961) and Jaroslav Durych (1886-1962), which has only been partially researched. This is an extensive collection of correspondence of importance to both writers, which took place over two periods (1906-1909 anda1916-1959). The letters from the first period document both their translation collaboration with the old Imperial publisher Josef Florian and their own work, as well as their opinions on the contemporary literary and social scene. However, they also record the first substantial disputes between the two writers, primarily involving their different conceptions of Catholic faith and their view of poet Otokar Březina. During the second period Deml and Durych exchanged mail more intensively around the late 1910s and the early 1920s. This study presents their collaboration on Deml's Šlépěje (Footprints) and summarizes the reasons for its termination. The final part focuses on the sharp controversy provoked by Deml's book Mé svědectví o Otokaru Březinovi (My Testimony on Otokar Březina, 1931). Both writers publicly engaged in these polemics on the pages of their own publicity platforms, resulting in the end of their friendship for a long time. They did not resume their correspondence until almost twenty years later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study observes the process whereby the Czech cultural scene was redefined during the first few months of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. In an attempt to protect Czech culture and to preserve the autonomy of Czech institutions as proclaimed by the German occupiers, society deliberately undertook centralization and self-regulatory measures. The National Partnership (Národní souručenství), which 97% of the male population joined during spring 1939, was initiated as part of its internal policy by the Cultural Council, which had had programmatic continuity since November 1938. Under the "new conditions" it was meant to become the autonomous, proactive working and advisory centre for the National Partnership's cultural and educational work. Although it had taken part in the organization of such spontaneous demonstrations as the second burial of Karel Hynek Mácha, it was soon arranging a number of promotional events in an attempt to centralize, control and regulate the cultural scene. In its cultural and political discourse it highlighted the topoi of the good Czech book, which became a symbol of resistance and a means for preserving national identity. The most successful promotional event used by the Cultural Council to take control of the entire spectrum of artistic and cultural life within the Protectorate was the December Czech Book Month organized in towns and rural areas. The preparations were strictly centralized and controlled, and it was only possible to exhibit books previously listed by the Cultural Council. "A good Czech book" became a cult object, on the basis of which Protectorate society was newly defined, legitimizing it in the face of overbearing German culture and bolstering its resistance. The event also resulted in economic assistance to the graphic and book industries, while redefining the Czech literary scene and the totalitarization of Czech society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the issues surrounding postwar reflections of Protectorate literature and its changing image as formed in individual periods by the Czech literary public and by literary and cultural historians. This is based on postwar efforts to degrade Protectorate literary output as a non-systemic anomaly brought about by foreign pressure and to redraw it to include previously unpublished output that was written despite the restrictions of the regime. However, it also points out that the literary figures, schools and groups that were denounced as collaborationist by the Syndicate of Writers had formed a part of domestic discourse since at least the 1930s. Hence the punishment of particular individuals was also a verdict on a particular school of thought on society and culture. Thus the condemnation of Catholics, members of the Activists groups and those left-wing intellectuals who tended towards realism had a common denominator: it rejected any vision of the restoration of a binding Order, stemming either from a faith in God, a return to national traditions or a vision of Communism. The opposite was a defence of liberal democracy and associated relativism, as well as experimentation with modern and avant-garde art. The second part of the study follows the way this initial position altered after the arrival of the Communists, who shared a conviction with the Nazis that a new order could be forced upon the world. This exposition aims to show that postwar programmatic limitations on ideological opponents masked the fact that the 1950s spontaneously adopted much from the Protectorate, as well as to point out the coincidences and analogies at the level of literary life and poetics. The most significant proof of this was their endeavour to entirely invalidate opponents and their similar preference for conventional and didactic forms of art. The third section of this paper focuses on the subsequent political relaxation and the attempts at that time to rehabilitate at least some Protectorate artistic activities. It deals with the issue of the avant-garde, whose confrontation with the totalitarianism of the occupiers and the artistic conventions of the era were implicitly interpreted as a challenge that can also be associated with the artistic and social role of creative work at that time. However, it also follows the ongoing attempts to rehabilitate Catholic authors, either with the return of individuals or after 1989 with the defence of Catholicism as a standard school of thought. However, it sees a stumbling block in the issue of whether Catholic activities after Munich and during the occupation can be defended in the context of contemporary political and philosophical pluralism. The final section focuses on the post-1989 reevaluation, that is, whereas the postwar decade was dominated by a clear-cut polarity in values between 'us and them', i.e. the Czechs and the Germans, the victims and the culprits, during the post-November period there was more of a tendency to see 'us' as co-offenders, hence the previously rather neglected issue of Czech antisemitism has been foregrounded, as well as e.g. the restriction on 'trash literature' (read popular literature), which started under the Protectorate and continued thereafter. The primary emphasis on our own guilt shifts towards the direct connection between the cultural situation under the occupation and the subsequent situation, particularly after 1948. The overall ambition of this paper is to point out that an exposition of literature under the Protectorate should not be based on special-purpose semantic templates, but it should without bias examine the relationship between our current interpretational position and the original historical dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the ways the biblical story of John the Baptist's beheading took on a new significance during the latter half of the 19th century. The focus of interest was the figure of Salome, the daughter of Herodias, whose dance in front of the tetrarch Herod brought about John's death. Within the context of these works of world literature we shall follow the changes in the image of Salome in Czech literature, as our attention focuses on works representing various artistic schools. By examining works by such canonical authors as Jaroslav Vrchlický, Jiří Karásek ze Lvovic, Karel Hlaváček and Julius Zeyer, as well as less well-known writers, we shall attempt to present the various approaches to the biblical story, bearing in mind the realization of individual characters, the selection of the story segment that is stressed in the work, and the characteristic perspective whose use may affect the interpretation of the story and the figure of the dancer herself. By means of Algirdas Julien Greimas's pair of actants (i.e. subject and object) we can distinguish the role played by Salome in individual narratives. We shall attempt to specify the basic trio of forms - Salome in the role of object, subject and absent within the narrative - in order to be able to depict the primary realizations of the character of Herodias's daughter that are possible in art. Within the context of these distinctions, Salome emerges not only as a mute intermediary for her mother or a femme fatale, but also in less frequent forms in which the extent of the mother's influence on her dancing daughter is of substantial importance, as is Salome's realization in the form of a fille fatale, who does not even need the notorious dance to achieve her fatefulness and her influence on the tetrarch Herod. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The end of the 1870S and 1880S saw a development stage in 19th century Czech literature which used to be traditionally characterized as the Lumir-Ruch generation stage. This primarily involved poetic work represented by prominent authors who were the principal contributors to the literary journals Ruch and Lumír, which from the end of the 1860s and the first half of the 1870s focused on the main figures from this generation: Sládek, Čech, Vrchlický and Zeyer. A more recent view of this stage was opened up by an anthology from Moravian Bohemist Jaromír Fryčer, which came out under the title Neznámý Parnas - Unknown Parnassus (1988). It analysed the work of French poets who in the latter half of the i86os appeared in the Parnasse contemporain journal and took up a critical stance towards Romantic poetry, due to its excessive formal and intellectual laxity, confronting it with the formal order and intellectual sophistication of their artistic works, as well as aesthetic discipline. In the Czech context these stylistic features attracted the attention of several younger poets and prose writers, who began to place emphasis in their work on aesthetic factors, which manifested themselves in an effort to achieve refinement in artistic form and intellectual depth and to expand artistic imagery. No matter how much their work differed (e.g. as regards their approach to subject matter- hence the traditional difference between the "nationalists" and "cosmopolitans"), common features can be found among them that are characteristic of them all (e.g. a stress on an aesthetic approach to form and material), presenting the opportunity to include them all under the common term Parnassianism. From a literary history standpoint it describes a particular transition stage that opened the way to modernism - symbolism, decadence and Secession. The term "Parnassianism" is used in Czech criticism of the period, particularly by F. X. Salda. With the loss of a demand for a specific aesthetic standpoint over time it acquired a pejorative sense and came to be understood as a formally stilted stylistic artism, and a byword for outmodedness. It is sometimes identified without justification with neo-Romanticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with the characteristic features of Čep's style and their functions at the moment the author retreats into the anonymity of writing and distorts their primary form. The study is based on the detective story, one part of which Jan Čep writes at the behest of the publisher Bedřich Fučík as part of his promotional activities. An analysis of the author's narrative techniques shows how Čep simultaneously abandons and confirms the formal and idea-based element of his writing, as anonymity enables him to confrontationally hone several of his views regarding the criticism of pragmatism and liberalism at that time. At the same time ongoing analysis of his positions and motives indicates that the apparent playfulness of the text conceals within itself a different form of irreconcilable position and a confirmation of Čep's conception of the aesthetic purpose of a literary text, a conception which determines Čep's position among the authors of modern literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with Vladimír Macura, who went down in the history of Czech literature as a literary scholar and prose writer, i.e. primarily as the author of the book monograph Znamení zrodu (Signs of Birth), which fundamentally transformed Czech perceptions of the National Revival, and as the creator of a number of prose works, particularly the tetralogy of historical novels Ten, který bude (He Who Will Be). However, material housed at the Museum of Czech Literature shows that Macura was literarily active from his early childhood and became involved in Czech literature from the time of his secondary school studies in Ostrava, not only as a talented poet, but also as the co-founder of a completely original artistic school called Ismism. Hence the aim of this study is to document his early work from the first half of the 1960s and to indicate just where Macura is already „himself" at that time and also which features in his later literary activities are rooted in his human and psychological disposition, which does not fundamentally change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This series of articles spotlights the Retrospective Bibliography of Czech Literature 1770-1945, the most valuable collection of material being kept and worked on at the ASCR Institute of Czech Literature. Over almost sixty years, 525 journal and newspaper titles published in Czech or German on the territory of the Czech lands were excerpted for it, this large-scale excerption range covering not only reflections and studies of Czech literature, as in the case of subsequent bibliographical bases for Czech literary studies for the period from the latter half of the 2oth century to the present, but also fiction reprints including translations, while in addition to Czech literature, texts from the literatures of other nations were also excerpted, as well as texts from associated subjects, particularly journalism, history, theatre, drama studies and the like. Thanks to its size (almost 1.7 million excerpt cards) and chronological range (1770-1945; with follow-on bases up to the present), as well as its elaborate processing methodology, it is hard to find an equivalent among Czech specialist bibliographies or literary studies bibliographies in neighbouring countries. The three articles published in Česká literatura (3/2013), are meant to present the Retrospective Bibliography and its recently completed digitization project in greater detail to the specialist public. The initial article by Daniel Řehák presents the Retrospective Bibliography as a card catalogue, both from historical and methodological standpoints, while the subsequent text by Vojtěch Malínek focuses on presenting its digitized form in the RETROBI system, stressing its capacity for use by the professional public, and the final article by Eliška Davidová briefly presents the literary studies article bibliography situation in neighbouring countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to present the literary studies community amongst others with the current state of the national retrospective bibliography and related issues, and to initiate a debate on the subject. The introduction defines the term „national retrospective bibliography“ and subsequently presents a comparative of European retrospective bibliographies, their electronic processing and the provision of access to them, with particular attention being paid to Central Europe. Attention then focuses on the Czech national retrospective bibliography, its structure (i.e. its division into separate individual projects) and in particular its current technical and methodological issues, for which a definition is attempted and a possible solution is offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with the transformation that Czech literature and literary culture have undergone as new media and communications technologies (particularly the internet) have come onto the scene and proliferated since the latter half of the 1990s. The study comes together with a contrasting analysis of the relations between the 1920s Czech literary avant-garde and film, the new media of its era. The methodological framework for the study is the concept of remediation as presented by Jay David Bolter and adapted by the author of the study for the requirements of literary history research. The material that is reviewed is structured in terms of two key spheres, the first being formed by the Czech internet environment itself, giving rise to new possibilities and opportunities for creative work, as well as the presentation and reflection of literary texts (hypertexts structures, literary forums and blogs), while the second sphere is formed by texts published in traditional printed form, but which clearly refer at the compositional, genre and thematic levels to the new digital technologies and media (the blog novel, e-mail novel and text-message poems). In conclusion the study defines three basic ways in which Czech literature interacts with the internet (for artistic, distributive and marketing use). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]