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This study aims to better understand the authorial figure of Vladislav Vančura by reconstructing the critical and literary-historical image conveyed to us by the reception of the writer during his lifetime, starting with the writer's first short story collections and finishing with his Obrazy z dějin národa českého ('Images from the history of the Czech nation'). Loosely following on the theoretical bases of previous discussions, which in various ways conceptualize the effect of the 'name of the author' in relation to his work (Foucault, Bourdieu, Russian formalism, Mukařovský), this study examines Vančura's literary output through the lens of its author (as a constructed figure and category), especially in terms of the author function as it serves to form this output into a unified whole. It deals with changes in the name of the author mainly in relation to Vančura's reception. During the interwar period the critical reception captured the creative phenomenon of the writer in the course of his development, at a moment when his extreme style and language caused numerous controversies which grew into open polemics. While these revolved primarily around the issue of aesthetics (in the case of Pole orná a válečná and Poslední soud), they involved broader worldview and ideological issues (as with the novel Tři řeky). Vančura's persistent search for a narrative form repeatedly compelled critics and interpreters of his time to reassess the criteria and critical standards for literature. This study traces the transformations of the author's image in this context all through his life as it assumed countless 'faces', subverting the traditional assumption of coherence in Vančura's literary output that the concept of the author was meant to guarantee, and thus demonstrating -- given the failure of this concept to bring about such coherence -- how it is necessary to look instead for those places of incoherence, contradiction, and disparity. To this end, the study does not seek to cover the history of Vančura's reception in all its facets but to trace those significant moments when the image of the author and his work was transformed, challenging unequivocal interpretations and defying the interpretative stereotypes and schemes into which it has so often been confined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In my paper, I see hybridisation as the mixing of multiple, often disparate elements. This term is used in literary studies mainly in connection with postmodernism and its other features (intertextuality, fragmentation, eclecticism, etc.). In Slovak post-revolutionary prose, the boundaries between arts, media, types or genres are often crossed, and there is an increasing number of works that oscillate between non-fiction and fiction, biography and fiction, journalism (reportage) and fiction, popular and artistic literature, or between the arts (visual, film and literary arts). In my paper, I will discuss prose published in 2019-2020: Katarína Kucbelová's book Čepiec, Ivana Gibová's comic short story collection Eklektik Bastard, Veronika Šikulová's non-novel Tremolo ostinato, and Nataša Holinová's prose Prípad starej dámy, which each in a different way break the boundaries of genres or artistic literature. In particular, I will be interested in whether the hybridisation in the analysed prose works, i.e. whether an aesthetically effective form emerges through the crossing of practices from different fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study deals with Růžena Svobodová's prose work from the turn of the century. It views the novels Zamotaná vlákna (Tangled Threads, 1899), Milenky (Mistresses, 1902) and the collection of short stories Pěšinkami srdce (The Paths of the Heart, 1902) as aesthetic phenomena, through which it is to some extent possible to (re-)construct the literary debate going on at that time, its trends and its transformations. By interpreting these novels and short stories against the backdrop of our knowledge of the author's early works, as well as by comparing their journal and book versions, we aim to identify new elements in their content and form, which are essentially a manifestation of movements in the literary field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

František Listopad was a Czech poet, novelist, essayist, theatre and television director. In 2021, the Czech Republic together with the entire Portuguese-speaking world commemorated the centenary of his birth. In addition to his extensive work in several languages, he also played a crucial role in a historic revival of Czech-Portuguese cultural relations, for which we are indebted to him. Listopad was a man of three names and several homes. He was born in 1921 in Prague as Jiří Synek. He published his first short stories under this name. During World War II, he was persecuted for his Jewish origins. However, he avoided deportation to a Nazi camp, hid with friends and was active in the resistance as a member of the illegal organization “For Freedom” (Za svobodu). For reasons of secrecy, he changed his name to František Listopad. At the same time he also began to write poetry and literary reviews. After the war, he became a co-founder of the daily Mladá fronta. After initial enthusiasm, he began to criticize the communist regime, mainly for restricting human freedoms. In 1947, he was sent to Paris as an editor of the weekly Parallèle 50. After February 1948, he was ordered to come back to Czechoslovakia, but he did not return. In France, he focused mainly on writing essays and working for the emerging local television. In 1958, he moved to Portugal, where he lived until his death in 2017. Here he chose a different name – Jorge Listopad. Listopad considered Salazar’s authoritarian right-wing regime to be very restrictive, but much freer in many ways than Czechoslovakia of the time; for example, it did not prohibit citizens from travelling abroad. In Portugal, in addition to significant literary work, Listopad devoted himself mainly to theatrical productions. He also became a university teacher. He never moved back to his original homeland to stay there permanently, but after the 1989 Velvet Revolution he often travelled there. He presented his plays there and published collections of poems and short stories. In his literary and theatrical works, František Listopad often existentially reflected the life in three unfree systems: the period of Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, communism and Salazar’s dictatorship in Portugal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]