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Marginal literature at the edge of the law. On the dispute over "trash and obscenity" (not only) during the First Republic
Pavlíček, Tomáš
This study is concerned with the problem of the law against "trash literature" and pornography in the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938). It also focuses on the situation in Germany and the processes that influenced ideas regarding the necessity of similar legal norms. They are to be found in the expanding range on offer of popular literature, critical reflection on differences between popular and elite literature and the activity of the adult education movement. In Germany a large number of the books mentioned above was banned. However, in the Czech milieu no specific law was passed against "trash literature" and pornography. Part of the so-called small press law (1933) with relevant instructions was not implemented. The difference in the results of the process in Germany and Czechoslovakia were connected with the distribution of power inside and outside the literary field and the relationship of this field to the political field.
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Czech literature in the first half of the 19th century between state and national censorship
Kusáková, Lenka
Czech literature and literary life in the first half of the 19th century were considerably affected by the censorship wielded by Austrian state power and its legal and organizational system, as well as by the Czech patriotic elite itself, which by using the tactics of prior censorship on Czech books and journals, attempted to avoid conflicts with the Hapsburg throne and thus to protect the space that had been gained to cultivate the Czech language, literature and science. This paper analyses several cases of such national censorship.
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Dobrovský's Czech prosody in the context of contemporary poetry studies
Dobiáš, Dalibor
The reform of Czech verse by Slavist Josef Dobrovský (Böhmische Prosodie, 1795) represents a milestone in new Czech prosody. The focus of this work is placed on the interpretation of relevant poetological discourse of the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century and on processes, by which the new Czech prosody formed, in relation to older local literature of the 18th century and the current European context. In this way, the ideas, ambiguities and even paradoxes in his writings on prosody portrait J. Dobrovský not only as an original and important thinker who influenced modern Czech poetry, but also as a person who intensively reflected and interpreted contemporary Central European literary and social discourse. As a contrast to J. Dobrovský’s "adaptational" reform, the submitted work presents the literary and poetological work by Václav Stach and Stach's early romantic historicism.
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The three lives of a selfless confident - the story of Antonín Vlach, publisher in exile
Přibáň, Michal
This study deals with the life story of Antonín Vlach (1905-1997), a remarkable, but also controversial, personality on the Czech anti-communist exile literary scene 1948-1968. The author aims to enhance and complete Vlach's portrait which he sketched in his book Prvních dvacet let (The First Twenty Years, 2008), mapping the development of the literary monthly Sklizeň (The Harvest), published by Antonín Vlach in Hamburg from 1953 to 1969. In the present study, the author comes up with hitherto unpublished facts about Vlach's activities in exile before and after the period of Sklizeň and tries to rectify inaccuracies and mystifications published about Antonín Vlach in exile periodicals at various times; he gives evidence of Vlach's collaboration with the Nazis during the Protectorate (1939-1945) and also of his attempt to cooperate with the communist secret police in 1983.
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Forbidden drama - an attempt to define unofficial 1948-1989 drama
Jungmannová, Lenka
This paper attempts to delimit the field of unofficial Czech drama from 1948 to 1989 in two ways. The first part focuses on the content and the formal charateristics of forbidden dramas in individual decades and also provides an overview of production at home and in exile. The second part is devoted to determining the core plays of each period; it also highlights the problematic nature of defining their borders (in the case of specific authors and works).
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The subject of suppressed literature in Humoristické listy (1863-1873)
Hemelíková, Blanka
This study deals with censorship and humorous magazines in the latter half of the 19th century. We attempt to show the representation of censorship and the satirical struggle with the censors, using the example of Humoristické listy, in 1863-1873. We find protests against censorship and the ambivalent effect of censorship. Methodologically we are inspired by new research and its views on "the latitude in deciding how to maintain some free space for the individual at the side of the authors and how to assert the state's control at the side of the censors", and on "the limits of state censorship".
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Czech literature at the Interface and Periphery: Fourth Congress of World Czech Literary Studies: Other Czech Literature (?)
Jungmannová, Lenka ; Amelina, A. ; Baluch, J. ; Borovička, L. ; Brožová, Věra ; Corduas, S. ; Czaplińska, J. ; Czernikow, O. ; Češka, J. ; Dinzl-Rybářová, A. ; Dobiáš, Dalibor ; Fišer, Z. ; Goszczyńska, J. ; Gwóźdź‑Szewczenko, I. ; Harák, I, ; Hauck, R. ; Heftrich, U. ; Hemelíková, Blanka ; Holman, P. ; Holý, J. ; Hultsch, A. ; Inštitorisová, D. ; Ivačić, M. ; James, P. ; Janiec‑Nyitrai, A. ; Ježková, P. ; Komenda, P. ; Kosková, H. ; Kratochvil, A. ; Królak, J. ; Kuba, M. ; Kusáková, Lenka ; Lezhava, G. ; Linssen‑Hogenberg, A. F. ; Malinová, L. ; Matějková, V. ; Meyer, H. ; Mlsová, N. ; Müller, R. ; Nekula, M. ; Palij, O. ; Papoušek, V. ; Pavlíček, Tomáš ; Pilař, M. ; Přibáň, Michal ; Raßloff, U. ; Řezníková, L. ; Stolz‑Hladká, Z. ; Suchomel, M. ; Šubrtová, M. ; Tarajło‑Lipowska, Z. ; Tlustý, J. ; Vítová, L. ; Vörös, I. ; Zand, G.
Arranged every five years at the initiative of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Institute of Czech Literature, the congress brought together some 150 researchers from all over the world this year. Czech literature at the interface and the periphery deals with the personalities and forms involved in the occurrence of “otherness” in Czech literature: the boundaries of understanding “otherness”, problems of the emergence of “the other”, images of “the other” and the alternative cultural and geographical spaces of Czech literature. It looks in detail at authors who are neglected, not included or difficult to categorize, including Czechs beyond the borders. It also examines Czech-German, Czech-Austrian, Czech-Polish, Czech-Hungarian, Czech-Slovak and Czech-Jewish literary relations as well the “otherness” of particular works and characters, the context of Czech literature and translation, and the specifics of teaching Czech literature.
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Mapping out the discourses of Czech gender literary criticism
Matonoha, Jan
The paper aims to map out the state of art and the dynamics of discourses of Czech gender literary criticism and to provide a critical assessment of existing body of its work. While some blinds spots and low resolutions can be detected namely in terms of its under-theorised conceptual apparatuses it works with, in sum, the paper finds the field of gender literary criticism as a reasonably developing area.
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Czech literature from a gender perspective: Fourth Congress of World Czech Literary Studies: Other Czech Literature (?)
Matonoha, Jan ; Balázs, A. H. ; Deutschmann, P. ; Filipowicz, M. ; Fischerová, A. ; Gańczarczyk, G. M. ; Hoffmann, B. ; Hoffmannová, Jana ; Kalivodová, E. ; Kalnická, Z. ; Kos, S. ; Kynčlová, T. ; Lishaugen, R. ; Machala, L. ; Malevič, O. ; Moldanová, D. ; Penčeva, A. ; Poročkina, I. ; Scheinostová, A. ; Sokol, E. ; Součková, M. ; Thomas, A. ; Volková, B. ; Wutsdorff, I. ; Zachová, A.
Arranged every 5 years at the initiative of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Institute of Czech Literature, the congress brought together some 150 researchers this year. The presented set of studies primarily attempts not merely to repeat other discussions on the subject of women (or men) in literature, but with the aid of gender analysis and critical interpretation to more systematically consider the literary text as a space for subject self‑comprehension and the formation of gender(ed) identities, as well as to comment on the opportunities, dilemmas and debts of Czech literary research in the context of gender thought. This collection thus offers a broad range of theoretical and thematic approaches, from a critical reading of the canon, gynocriticism and the archeology of women’s literary tradition through cross‑dressing in National Revival drama, queer reading of the socialist realist novel, the gender evaluation of contemporary Czech literature and many other topics.
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A case of an "authentic" novel
Kudlová, Klára
This study presents first of all a theoretical argument, showing that all “authentic” literature is actually based on a double game of images. While the fictional images seemingly refer to the actual world, they can actually refer only to the so-called emblems. (These emblems are shared images, created in the public consciousness by various non-fictional texts and pieces of information, and there they represent actually existing persons, texts, events, etc.) The second part of the study draws comparisons between two specific cases of an “authentic” novel, namely The Armies of the Night (1968) by Norman Mailer and Rok kohouta (The year of the Rooster, 2008) by Tereza Boučková, paying special attention to the latter. It appears that while Mailer’s “authentic” novel behaves as an intertextual one, Boučková’s work functions – especially with respect to the informational emblems – as a “hypertext”.
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