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Rural Czech Jews in Vojtěch Rakous's Short Stories
Kuřeová, Petra ; Holý, Jiří (advisor) ; Balík, Štěpán (referee)
The thesis deals with the image of rural Jewish society in the fictional world of proses of Vojtěch Rakous, a Czech Jewish author publishing at the turn of the 20th century. Its aim is to explore the "new type of Jew" that enriched Czech literature, and to characterise several prominent types of Jews' literary characters in Rakous's stories. It focuses on the issue of the Jewish minority's coexistence with the mainstream society, and on the author's original depiction of rural Jewish characters. It also deals with the specific quality of the author's poetics (Rakous as an autodidact, autobiographic nature, author's relation to his own Jewishness, idyllic character of the depicted world, the genre of humorous short story). The thesis also contains a brief outline of the types of Jews' literary characters in Czech literature of the period in question. Considering Rakous's ties to the Czech Jewish movement, the thesis addresses this context as well.
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The Phenomenon of a Jew in Polish and Czech Language and in Polish and Czech Jewish Anecdotes in the Context of Literature of the First Half 20th Century
BALÍK, Štěpán
To describe the phenomenon of a Jew in Czech and Polish language and Czech and Polish Jewish anecdotes in both national literatures I apply the tools of cognitive linguistics. I am depicting the stereotype of a Jew according to three crucial oppositions on which my theoretical framework is based. The world of ?us? is positive, characterized as a human, useful and catholic one. The world of ?them? is negative, depicted as animal, redundant and non-catholic one. Vocabulary (especially idiomatic expressions) and examples quoted from literary fiction (especially Jewish anecdotes), which are connected to the inner and outer picture of a Jew, show an ethnic stereotype in a Polish and Czech naive linguistic picture of the world. In a comparative view, the differences and parallels between Polish and Czech perspective are more evident. To stress my conclusions, I use demographic, cultural and historical data as well as examples in literature which are closely linked. However, I intend neither to describe the development of the vocabulary nor to summarize dictionary meanings; I am focusing on shifts in pictures of Jews (partly in comparison with picture of the Romany). Examples which are taken out of dictionaries, secondary literature and fiction are ? if possible ? verified by contemporary memory, e. g. the memory of present Czech and Polish people in this field. I will not use the term ?antisemitism?, which is often used in a secondary literature, instead, inspired by both cognitive linguistics and ethnology I use ?ethnocentrism?.
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