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The paper studies the personality of Anna Lauermannová-Mikschová, founder of the first literary salon in the Czech lands, who was also actively involved in creating Czech feminist movement. She published her work under the name Felix Téver. Her Šťastný u břehů Tibery (Happy at the Banks of the Tiber River) looks back at the happiest years of her life spent in Italy (Rome) where she found a shelter from her unlucky marriage and illness. The work of Anna Lauermannová-Mikschová (aka Felix Téver) features a wide variety, including short stories, novels, theatre plays, as well as sketches, reflections and, last but not least, memories. Her diaries significantly contribute to the depiction of temporary Czech society. Indeed, she had been highly impressed by Italy, as was also her friend and prominent Czech writer Julius Zeyer (she even wrote a preface to Mr. Zeyer’s Italian edition of Jan Maria Plojhar novel). In fact, Italy offered her a rich source of inspiration for her short stories and novels. This paper looks closely at the motives she earned during her stay in Italy between 1886 and 1888 and used them later on in her work. These motives are studied not only from the point of view of their interpretation but also confrontation with temporary social standards and conventions from gender perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In English speaking countries, several literary monographs and dictionaries about cult fiction were published in the last decades. In our postmodern times, this seems to be quite an inspiring topic because it deals with constant tension between "high brow" literary values usually recommended by state education systems on the one hand, and spontaneous need to overcome these somewhat petrified systems of thinking about artistic values on the other hand. This effort is usually supported by independent intellectuals and artists who do not expect any praise from state and cultural establishment. In the first part of the essay, main ways of defining are discussed according to British and American sources, and in the following part, they will be compared with cult fiction as it is less exactly understood in Central European literatures. It is not difficult to imagine that a dictionary of Central European cult literature could be created, too. In existing cult fiction dictionaries mentioned above, only several names of Central European authors are included. Yet, the phenomenon of cult literature exists in this entirely different cultural milieu and has the characteristic features of local alternative (or independent) culture. In Czech literary context, numerous representatives of cult literature have probably something in common with literary underground after WWII and some of its predecessors, extraordinary poets and novelists (usually not mentioned in school textbooks), can be also taken into consideration. Milan Kundera and his novels can serve to us as a typical example of a highly appreciated Western intellectual who can be extremely provocative and therefore for a certain kind of readers hardly bearable. That is the main reason why he is included in English monographs and dictionaries of cult fiction. However, in the Czech Republic, he definitely is not a cult writer - for many, mostly political reasons. On the other hand, it is quite evident that English ways of defining cult fiction can (and probably should) be used in Central European context because they could help us to understand why certain authors are more admired, or even adored by reading public than the authors who are paid special attention by traditional literary criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jáchym Topol (born 1962) is a Czech poet, novelist and rock musician whose literary works have been translated to more than ten languages up to now. He comes from a well-known Czech literary family (e. g. Karel Schulz, Josef Topol), started his career as a Czech "angry young man" and a representative of Czech underground culture in the 1980s. After 1989 he began to write novels which are rooted in the underground way of expression but at the same time are discussed as samples of typically postmodern prose. Especially his novels successfully address broad international audience because they very often deal with the theme of an outsider who tries to find his way of survival in the war or post-war situation. The war theme appears in early poetic works by Jáchym Topol, but the war is neither in his poems nor in his later prosaic fiction primarily understood as a result of political failure. Basically, it is described as something eternally present, and mankind mostly fails in trying to get rid of this kind of evil. There is no strict division between Topol's poetry (very often using epic narrative techniques) and his prose fiction (with numerous lyrical passages). In both these types of artistic expression, Topol prefers a mythological understanding of time and space, and this allows him to describe the influence of WWII and the Cold War on the human mind in a more general meaning and to overcome rather narrow political and historical clichés so often repeated in public discourses. Topol's description of post-war (post bellum) absurdities is strongly moving and provokes readers by stressing the fact that wars have never disappeared from the world history - that every post bellum means a new ante bellum at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Igor Hajek belongs among the personalities who played an essential role in presenting Czech literature abroad. The paper aims to illustrate his work reflecting his viewpoint of two important books by Josef Skvorecky, namely The Cowards, a novel capturing the atmosphere of the last days of the Second World War, and The End of the Nylon Age, a novella set in the world of the fading glory of the post-war Czechoslovak democracy, and shows the clash of two worlds, which is Skvorecky's favourite topic. Hajek's original, resourceful, and objective reflection of Czech literature helped to form an opinion of foreign readers on Czech literary production within the period and development contexts, thus promoting Czech literature abroad. Igor Hajek wrote for English-speaking readers and approached them by comparing Czech authors with wellknown English writing authors. Therefore, he did not only present the interpretations of the fundamental works of Czech literature, but he put these works into the world context. The article presents these comparisons and deals with the search for a point of contact, interesting parallels and inspiration sources, including jazz music and the beat generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article aims to clarify a rather new term, not well-known in the Czech literature so far - spiritual intelligence - and tries to express its relationship to the market society and social status of its members. The modern society, which is focused on money, success and social prestige above all, often neglects other values, however, which reflects in the society later again, maybe in the form of a economical crisis or as common problems. The purpose of the article is to think about these phenomena. This paper examines also possible changes that the society expects in the near future. The changes are not only in the economic and social spheres of our society, but also in its spiritual components. The article in its introductory passages and chapters outlines possible causes of society-wide transformation, which is probably linked to reducing the role of the strong state and a considerable asymmetry of the public and the private sectors, which certainly carries some potential risks and it puts high pretensions on every human being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]