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Czech and Slovak journalism, which began with the revolutionary press of 1848 and 1849, became a dominant force in cultural and political life, after a brief repressive period in the 1850s. This study traces the evolution of modern Czechoslovak journalism from 1848 to February 1948, when the Communist party's rise to power forced a change in its orientation and mission. The first section deals specifically with the establishment of press traditions, and with growth and activism until the end of the First Republic in 1938. The second section focuses on the Communist party press, its origins, and the conflicts which arose from its given task, to reorient the nation toward a new political and socioeconomic course. Journalism is shown to have been an important weapon, utilized by an activist intelligentsia in the struggle against tyranny, absolute rule, and suppression of basic human rights. (JM)

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Campus novel, traditionally seen as a genre of English and American literature, has recently also gained attention in non-Anglophone literary traditions. The article focuses on campus fiction written in Slovak, Czech, Polish, and Ukrainian after 1989. It provides a brief introduction to the terminology and classification of the campus novel within the Anglo-American literary tradition, offering a perspective on Central European campus fiction through this lens. It traces its genre hybridity and the dominant genres with which it is associated, such as satire, social detective fiction, historical detective fiction, metafiction, biography, and the Bildungsroman. It also indicates the historical periods in which the genre is set and the traits of the professor as protagonist. While campus satire is a shared feature of Slovak, Czech, Polish, and Ukrainian literature in response to political change, each national literature emphasizes themes unique to its own literary and cultural traditions. These include the founding of Polish universities, identity and the reassessment of Ukrainian professors’ lives, the ironic treatment of the communist era in Czech and Slovak literature, and metafiction in Slovak literature.

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.

Copyright of Bohemistyka is the property of Instytut Filologii Slowianskiej Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of the paper is a comparative analysis of selected aspects of the singular styles of the historical epics Sárka by Jaroslav Vrchlický (1853-1912) and Ctirad Julius Zeyer (1841-1901); classical authors of Czech literature from the so-called Lumira generation of the second half of the 19th century. The juxtaposition of thema- tically similar texts allowed for a more pronounced identification of the characteristic features of the singular styles of both poets, possibly the specificity of their historical and mythic epic poetry, ideally the stylistic dominance of the authorial styles of Jaroslav Vrchlický and Julius Zeyer in mutual comparison. In order to achieve the set objectives, the methods of comparative and mathematical stylistics were used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an innovative model of poetics (or isms, styles, etc.) in Czech prose in the latter half of the long 19th century. It gives an overview of seven indivi- dualized and mutually distinct poetics, including ideal, analytical, and psychological realisms, Parnassism, naturalism, impressionism, and decadence. The individual poetics do not represent periods, but exist in parallel, allowing confrontations and in- tersections either within the author's work or in a specific text, as in the model of Czech literature developed by Dalibor Tureček in the past decade. They are always set in the context of European literature and supported by many illustrative examples. The model is not only typological, but also assumes a diachronic perspective, which can be developed in future scholarly work on the history of Czech literature. The aim is to create a system that can potentially be applied not only to Czech fiction, but possibly also to poetry or drama, in other periods and literatures. Part Two of the article concentrates on psychological realism, Parnassism, naturalism, impressio- nism, and decadence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 article presents a select survey of the rendering of personal names in translation into English from European languages with different scripts from the turn of the twentieth century to the early twenty-first century. Works of prose fiction were chosen from Czech and Icelandic, which use characters that are not part of the English alphabet. Their original publication dates are from the middle of the nineteenth to the late twentieth century, with translations trailing by years or even decades. The authors of the original works were very well known and in some cases Nobel Prize laureates. This gives assurance that their works attracted good translators and, in some cases, multiple translators. The hypothesis was that over the course of more than a century, there has been a growing tendency to respect the original spellings of personal names in translations – that is, to employ the source language’s script, even when the literary works belong to relatively peripheral European cultures. The explanations for this include increased cultural contacts, the expansion of what has traditionally been called world literature, and internet resources.

The study deals with the relationship between the leading representative of the Bohemian studies in Russia L.N. Budagová, D.Sc. (1932–2022) and the Czech town of Sobotka and to the local festival of language, speech and literature called Šrámek´s Sobotka (Šrámkova Sobotka). Based on an analysis of available sources and literature, it follows the core of the relationship defined by the years 1975–2022. Budagová got to know about the annual festival during an excursion and then she was invited to appear. Between the years 1977 and 2010, she prepared twelve lectures focused on the Czech and Russian literature, the Czech-Russian literary and cultural relations and Russian cultural realities. Her lectures and other texts about the festival are summarized in the book O literatuře and kultuře (Texty pro Šrámkovu Sobotku), published in 2012. Her next book written in Czech Z mého života s českou literaturou (Výbor z česky publikovaných prací) was published in 2021 thanks to a local initiative. It involves twenty works written between the years 1973 and 2020. Furthermore, the study deals with her articles published in the journal Zpravodaj Šrámkovy Sobotky and it analyses short articles, which were published about her there, as well. She received the Sobotka Town Award in 2012 (for a promotion of the town and the Czech culture). There is an entry regarding Budagova in the local lexicon Kdo je kdo v dějinách Sobotecka a Dolnobousovska (published in 2015). Moreover, the study includes basic information about the town and the festival for the better context and it incorporates memories of the author, as well.

The main aim of the paper is to highlight the relationship between Christianity and homosexuality based on selected fiction texts by Czech writers and poets (Zeyer, Fuks, Kuběna, Georgiev). The selected authors represent different historical periods and different currents of opinion. We are convinced that the theoretical part provides a suitable methodological basis for the part of the paper in which we discuss homosexual motives in selected works of the mentioned authors. To sum up, we can state that the explicit expression of homoerotic and other motives is only relevant today; in artistic narratives dating back to the 19th and 20th centuries, these symbols are expressed in a hidden way, and it is up to each recipient to decide whether and to what extent they see them in these narratives. Zeyer could not fully express himself; he was forced to use hidden symbols to be who he felt he was, at least in his works. Kuběna, in the context of the 1970s, treats the topic of homosexuality very openly, he is not afraid of being condemned by society. Fuks´ works are characterized by a considerable degree of autobiography. Despite Georgiev´s clear rejection of faith, a believing homosexual appears more than once in his work. In this paper we try to fill a certain gap in the field of comparative research in works of art and poems by authors who in some way tended to homosexuality because within the Czech context, we have encountered this area of scholarly articles sporadically.

This paper strives to illuminate the forebodings of AI and automatization's impact on society in two neglected Czech treasures unavailable in English, Čestmír Vejdělek's Návrat z ráje [Return from Paradise] (1961) and Jiří Marek's Blažený Věk [The Blessed Age] (1967). The study aims to illustrate science fiction's prescience and part of Czech SF's path after Čapek, while challenging the notion that "the utopian society is a subject, perhaps even the only subject that is inaccessible to literature" (Hans Magnus Enzensberger). For these dystopian texts engage readers to imagine the positive alternative to the portrayed societies, rather than explicitly evoking eutopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines modern knowledge about non-human primates in Czech travel narratives concerning Africa and biological journals from the late nineteenth century to the end of the interwar period. Particular attention is given to the way discourse on primates and anthropological discourse mutually influenced each other. Inspired by the intersection of human -- animal studies, critical race theory, and gender studies, the paper emphasizes the anthropomorphizing character of biological discourse and popular travel narratives. At the time, presentations of primates created a specific anthropological resource and, in addition, helped to naturalize the dominant racial and gender ideologies. In the context of the Austrian--Hungarian and Czechoslovakian relative inability to obtain colonial possessions in the way western powers did, the representations of anthropomorphized non-human primates can also be interpreted as a specific field where Czech colonial fantasies about dominance were expressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is devoted to the issue of the mythologisation of the space of Olšany Cemetery performed by Daniela Hodrová in her trilogy Trýznivé město (City of Torment). The article consists of two parts: the first one is a theoretical introduction about the concepts of myth, cemetery and maze, and the cultural connection between them. The second part contains an analysis of Olšany Cemetery as presented in the trilogy. Hodrová depicts the cemetery as a kind of mythical space which has the nature of a maze, where the living and the dead both share the fate of being prisoners.

The question of the formation of a new type of creator-demiurge in the conditions of culture at the turn of the 19th—20th centuries is considered. Particular attention is paid to the personality of the Czech artist Josef Váchal. The relevance of the study is determined by several factors: firstly, the recent increased interest in Czech literature in Russia and, at the same time, its insufficient representation both in the book market and in the scientific community; secondly, the lack of Russian-language criticism directly devoted to the work and the author’s figure of J. Váchal. Describing the cultural and historical environment in which the creative personality of the artist was formed, the authors of the article refer both to the general European context and directly to the Czech language. It has been established that the work of J. Váchal has a deep connection with the history of his country. In particular, the artist’s reaction to certain moods prevailing in Czech society at that time explains his passion for baroque aesthetics, the cornerstone of his poetics. In addition, Váchal’s biography largely determined the themes and form of his works, so understanding him as a specific personality of the 19th-20th centuries contributes to a more detailed analysis of his work.

The article deals with the role of Jan Hus in utopian constructions of the Czech interwar literature. During this period, a “wave of utopianism” was observed in the Czech Republic, it was utopia (both negative and positive) that became an extremely convenient means for understanding the complex of problems of the young Czechoslovak republic, and at that time the national element was preferred over the social one, which is also characteristic of the Slavic utopia in general. The overwhelming majority of the of utopian works at that time was written by the authors of the second and third-rate, but it is with them the national question comes to the fore, and the simpler and more primitive from an artistic point of view the texts of such authors were, the more clearly they express collective Czech national stereotypes. In such works, Jan Hus appears as a pillar of national culture. First of all, in terms of spirituality, as an inspirer for the construction of a peaceful and just life, where the Czechs finally find their place as a people, tarnished by suffering, and secondly, as an inspirer for military exploits. The greatness of his figure for the Czechs is so massive that it accelerates the utopian fantasies of Czech authors to world (at least cultural) hegemony or helps the world cope with its main enemy — the Germans. The article analyzes the following novels: “Telephone conversation of a Czech with an inhabitant of the planet Mars” (1918) by J. Mičan, “Death of Mankind” (1928) by J. Akana, “Red Vertigo” (1921) by A.M. Tichý, “Yellows against Whites” (1925) V. O. Lučan, “The Millennium of King Matthias” (1931) J. Černoch.

Ecocriticism represents a trend of thought that has been gaining ground in the Czech academic milieu, and thinking about it raises a number of questions at the moment: whether there are any local analogues of ecocriticism, whether it makes sense to transfer the theory to the local context, and what the impact of such transfer could be. The main part of the article is devoted to the different phases of ecological consciousness in Czech literature and illustrates three of them with examples: the Romantic (Mácha, Erben, Furch), the early 20th century (Deml, Neumann) and the 1980s (Páral, Juliš). The conclusion of the article focuses on the question of the awareness of the state in these different phases and its inevitable incompleteness.

The article provides an innovative model of poetics (or isms, styles, etc.) in Czech prose in the latter half of the long 19th century. It gives an overview of seven individualized and mutually distinct poetics, including ideal, analytical, and psychological realisms, Parnassism, naturalism, impressionism, and decadence. The individual poetics do not represent periods, but exist in parallel, allowing confrontations and intersections either within the author's work or in a specific text, as in the model of Czech literature developed by Dalibor Tureček in the past decade. They are always set in the context of European literature and supported by many illustrative examples. The model is not only typological, but also assumes a diachronic perspective, which can be developed in future scholarly work on the history of Czech literature. The aim is to create a system that can potentially be applied not only to Czech fiction, but possibly also to poetry or drama, in other periods and literatures. Part One of the article concentrates on a general overview and on ideal and analytical realisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Slavica Litteraria is the property of Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Studia Romanistica is the property of University of Ostrava, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Fin-de-Siècle Europe appears in the prose of the Czech poet and writer Jiři Karasek from Lvovice (1871–1951) as a mystical space full of nostalgia and claustrophobia, which force the characters to experience the hereditary involvement of history. This is, for example, how the hero of the novel “Gothic Soul” (Czech: Gotická Duše) feels. The novel shows Prague at the turn of the century as a place where the past is more real than the present. The trilogy “Novels of the Three Magicians” (Czech: Romány tří mágů), inspired by the legends about European “sorcerers”, uses Vienna, Venice, and Prague as magic or decadent territories that affect the characters’ behaviour. Karasek creates urban images with decadent aesthetics by applying special features and techniques. Among them we can highlight the night atmosphere, intentional emphasis on the artificiality of the reality, and the description of the scene with the symbols of decline or decay. Such a subjective view from the eyes of a decadent character can open up a city from a unique perspective, making it possible to distinguish previously unseen details. The image of Prague in Karasek’s works is dual and ambivalent. On the one hand, it is an aesthetically artifi cial decadent Prague and on the other, a mystical, magical Prague. Venice by Karasek is also a decadent city where only the past is alive. With help of Karasek’s prose one can obtain the prism of decadent and “gothic” novels — rather rare and original for Czech literature genres. His works also give us the opportunity to experience the lost atmosphere of pre-war Europe.

The article proposes a hypothesis that traditional imagological concepts are no longer sufficient for interpreting the current and recent “imagological situation”. The authors argue that given the significant changes in the geopolitical ordering of the world in the post-imperial period, it is necessary to expand and internally categorize the terms to capture a more nuanced way of looking at the “other”. The article provides a summary of existing approaches and suggests innovations, particularly in making a careful distinction between the self-image of the internal and external, and the disaggregation of the “meta-image” into several layers. The authors point out that imagological research needs to consider that the ethnic identity of the recipient is not unambiguous, which problematizes the interrelation of “us” and “them”. Additionally, in post-imperialism, there is an unravelling of the former bipolar perception. The authors trace the image in the context of concepts such as image, stereotype, and brand. The essay aims to analyse the manifestations of the emerging neo-imperialism, which returns to the traditional contrasting delineation of “our” and “the foreign”. It also examines the factor of evaluation and the question of fictionality. The effectiveness of the new approaches is demonstrated in a Russian-Czech comparative analysis of selected novels by Vladimir Sorokin and Jáchym Topol. The authors perceive the current geopolitical processes as an opportunity for improving the imagological methodology and imagology as an effective tool for interpreting the contemporary world.

Copyright of Ostium is the property of Ostium and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study deals with the thematisation of Jewishness in the inter-war prose writing of four authors from assimilated Jewish families: Richard Weiner (born 1884), František Langer (born 1888), Karel Poláček (born 1892) and Egon Hostovský (born 1908). Whereas the prose of the last-named author has received considerable attention in contemporary literary history, in the case of the remaining authors their Jewishness remains on the periphery of scholarly interest, or is mentioned in works of a synthetic character. A detailed reading of the work of all three prose writers reveals that for them Jewish culture did not represent an essential literary theme, and indeed they barely mentioned it whatsoever. An exception relates to the abundant references to anti-Semitism in Karel Poláček’s cycle of novels about the provincial town, which can be explained among other factors by the aggravated political situation in the second half of the 1930s.

In the Czech culture of the turn of the 20th century we can see the phenomenon of the orientalising of the Jewish populace, in which the archetype of the beautiful Jewess (la belle Juive) occupied a significant and somewhat different position. This study examines types of depiction of the beautiful Jewess in travelogues and fictional literature, and divides these tendencies into three types. The beautiful Jewess is construed by means of biblical similes and antecedents, while these often concern heavily eroticised representations that are not based on a biblical template but rather arise out of the imagination of the authors of the 19th century. The erotic subtext plays a fundamental role also in the case of the second tendency, though here the primary precursor is not a biblical figure or narrative, but the fictional character in the story rather represents a unique existence, without direct and determining intertextual ties. This type of beautiful Jewess is characterised by a significant borderline role between the Orient and the Occident, and at the same time in the narratives she also occupies the role of a tragic figure. The final tendency is to conceive the beautiful Jewess negatively, in which the narrative accentuates her use of her beauty in order to pursue her own selfish interests. Among other factors, the study examines modes of the orientalising of beautiful Jewesses, and reflects upon whether they concern positive or negative representations.

Philip Roth made no secret of his great admiration for the work of Franz Kafka, which ultimately brought him to Prague in the 1970s and fostered his interest in Czech culture. This contribution focuses on the reception of the personality and work of Franz Kafka in Philip Roth’s non-fiction writing. The first section focuses on Roth’s essential Kafkaesque essay ‘“I Always Wanted You to Admire My Fasting”; or Looking at Kafka’ from 1973, in which Roth combines an empathetic portrait of his favourite author with a counterfactual vision of Kafka’s life, in which the author of the Trial and the Castle did not die of tuberculosis and instead fled from the Holocaust to the United States, where he became Roth’s uncle. In the second section, based on Roth’s dialogue with Ivan Klíma from 1990, we document how Kafka serves Roth in his reflections on the position and role of the writer in society.

Was Ignác Cornova’s contribution to Czech-language literature only that of a historian? In the 1770s and 1780s he also happened to be the most acclaimed poet in Bohemia. Of the many reactions to Cornova’s work from German and Czech writers, this study focuses on Nábožné písně pro ka­tolického měšťana a sedláka k veřejným a domácím službám božím (Religious Songs for the Catholic Townsman and Countryman for Use in Public and Domestic Divine Service, 1791) by Václav Stach, with a verse dedication to Cornova. It emphasises that under the Habsburg monarchy the genre of religious songs and hymns was also a platform for forming a new readership and literary public, providing a ve- hicle for writers such as Michael Denis, Ignaz Cornova, Johann Peter Hofmann and Václav Stach himself for creative experimentation and a mutually beneficial communication of their work to the public. In this context, our study examines the conceptual and aesthetic links between Stach and the poetic models of Ignác Cornova.

The 1990s represented a decade marked by the fall of communism and the emergence of a free and capitalist society in Czechoslovakia (and its successor, the Czech Republic). With the passage of time, the motifs of the decade's memories begin to show in Czech prose; the literary representations of the memory of the 1990s can be usually found, among others, in the works of authors of the young generation who lived in the post-revolutionary period during their childhood or adolescence. In our study, through the analysis of excerpts from novels written by authors from this generation, we observed and characterized the different modes of this collective memory, in which nostalgia predominates, but social criticism and signs of trauma can be found as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article proposes a hypothesis that traditional imagological concepts are no longer sufficient for interpreting the current and recent "imagological situation". The authors argue that given the significant changes in the geopolitical ordering of the world in the post-imperial period, it is necessary to expand and internally categorize the terms to capture a more nuanced way of looking at the "other". The article provides a summary of existing approaches and suggests innovations, particularly in making a careful distinction between the self-image of the internal and external, and the disaggregation of the "meta-image" into several layers. The authors point out that imagological research needs to consider that the ethnic identity of the recipient is not unambiguous, which problematizes the interrelation of "us" and "them". Additionally, in post-imperialism, there is an unravelling of the former bipolar perception. The authors trace the image in the context of concepts such as image, stereotype, and brand. The essay aims to analyse the manifestations of the emerging neo-imperialism, which returns to the traditional contrasting delineation of "our" and "the foreign". It also examines the factor of evaluation and the question of fictionality. The effectiveness of the new approaches is demonstrated in a Russian-Czech comparative analysis of selected novels by Vladimir Sorokin and Jáchym Topol. The authors perceive the current geopolitical processes as an opportunity for improving the imagological methodology and imagology as an effective tool for interpreting the contemporary world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Slavica Wratislaviensia is the property of Wroclaw University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study analyses the reception of Petra Hůlová’s literary work in Poland with a focus on her publishers’ activities. The writer’s books have been published in two different publishing houses – W.A.B., one of the biggest fiction publishers in Poland, and Afera, small publishing house founded by bohemist and translator Julia Różewicz. The author of the paper – basing on the publishers’ strategies and the reviews of critics and readers – describes the influence of this transition on the perception of Petra Hůlová’s works in Poland and on the position of both writer and publisher in Polish literary field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cografya Fakültesi Dergisi DTCF Dergisi is the property of Ankara Universitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cografya Fakultesi (DTCF Dergisi) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bohemistyka is the property of Instytut Filologii Slowianskiej Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The annual conference “Slavic World: Community and Diversity” is a good platform for young researchers from different universities and research centers, both domestic and foreign, where they can share their scholarly achievements with colleagues and talk about their own vision of a particular problem related to the study of the diversity of the Slavic world. In 2021, the section “Literary Studies. The History of Culture” comprised three thematic blocks: “Cultural and Literary Relations”, “Poetics of Literature”, and “Literature and Art of Poland”. The moderators were Anetta F. Bagaeva, Natalia A. Lunkova, Evgeniia V. Shatko, and Denis G. Viren. The reports presented and their subsequent discussions are evidence of the lively interest of the scholar audience in the stated problems. Both the audience and the organisers expressed the hope that regardless of the online and in-person format of the conference, high-quality, international-level research on the literature and art of Slavic countries will continue.

The article considers the role of historical fiction in Czech literature since the year 2000 and analyzes the depiction of history within the genre of family saga and novel chronicle based on the example of the first two volumes of Karin Lednická's intended trilogy Šikmý kostel (2020, 2021). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study deals with three book collections from the diaries of the Czech literary scholar and pedagogue Zdeněk Kožmín (1925-2007). The first book, Struktury (1995), contains his diary entries from 1975-1989, i.e. from the period of normalisation when he taught at a secondary school. The second book, entitled Obtisky (1998), covers the period 1990-1997. The study also includes a reflection on the reception of Kožmín's first two books by literary critics. The core of the study is the description and analysis of the third diary, which is titled Bubáčci. It contains Kožmín's diary entries from 1998-2002. The main thematic line of the book is Kožmín's coping with the illness and death of his wife Drahomíra, and his rendering of this reality oscillates between intimate confession and testimony. The study also deals with other themes that are important to Kožmín and related to his reflection on his old age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on cultural changes that the depiction of land cultivation in Czech ruralism literature (authors like Josef Knap, František Křelina, Václav Prokůpek, etc.) goes through in Modernism. It refers to the impact of political discourse and the influence of media – especially newspapers – at the time. The analysis points to the relevance of how traditionalist literature discourse incorporates modern approaches to agriculture and new modes of representation of the countryside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article deals with the history of Czech children’s and juvenile literature and its tradition in both national and European contexts. It examines foreign authors (French, German, Russian, English, American, and some others) and their works translated into Czech that played a significant role in the Czech literary scene. The rediscovery of Czech folklore in the 19th century coincides with the revival of the national culture and restitution of the language as reflected in fiction and poetry. The development of literature for children and youth owes much to translations. In the 19th century, Jules Verne was the must read for children and so was Antoine de Saint- Exupery in the 20th; his Little Prince has undergone multiple editions. The second part of the study examines contemporary children’s and juvenile literature by comparing the situation on the book market in France with that in Czech Republic. The analysis focuses on two novels for young people that present young characters who have to cope with different crises and help ill people they love (Céline Lavignette-Ammoun and Ivona Březinová). The essay’s conclusion, based on the polls among children and young people as well as on literary criticism, shows that neither the theme nor the approach of the authors or the preferences of the readers in the two countries considerably differ. This is due to the fact that juvenile literature knows no borders as it gives preference to the interplay of fantasy and imagination. What characterizes contemporary juvenile literature, however, is its openness to the hitherto tabooed themes as well as its interest in the relation between the sameness and the otherness.

Philip Roth made no secret of his great admiration for the work of Franz Kafka, which ultimately brought him to Prague in the 1970s and fostered his interest in Czech culture. This contribution focuses on the reception of the personality and work of Franz Kafka in Philip Roth's non-fiction writing. The first section focuses on Roth's essential Kafkaesque essay '"I Always Wanted You to Admire My Fasting"; or Looking at Kafka' from 1973, in which Roth combines an empathetic portrait of his favourite author with a counterfactual vision of Kafka's life, in which the author of the Trial and the Castle did not die of tuberculosis and instead fled from the Holocaust to the United States, where he became Roth's uncle. In the second section, based on Roth's dialogue with Ivan Klíma from 1990, we document how Kafka serves Roth in his reflections on the position and role of the writer in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]