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André Gide: Return from the U.S.S.R.; Afterthougths on the U.S.S.R. Confrontation of the individualist with the collectivist utopia
Petkevič, Daniel ; Voldřichová - Beránková, Eva (advisor) ; Jamek, Václav (referee) ; Pohorský, Aleš (referee)
The French writer André Gide (1869-1951) was a representative of the individualist stream in society and literature at the end of the nineteenth and in the first half of the twentieth century. This diploma work examines the circumstances of the writer's involvement in the question of communism in the thirties of the twentieth century, which led to his visit of the Soviet Union in summer 1936 and to his writing two revealing testimonies. Gide's Soviet episode is considered from the perspective of his individualism, which is treated in the first part of this work. It depicts both the basic influences and inspirations that had impact on Gide's individualist spirit and its manifestation in the author's life, creation and in his art and social criticism. The second part focuses on the matter of Gide's communist alignment. It shows the main reasons for his sympathy with the communist ideas, which progressively developed into their association in the early thirties of the twentieth century. In this period of incertitude due to deep social and economic crisis, which gave rise to emerging totalities, Gide felt the need of a political alignment. He was blind in his belief that the implementation of his social ideals was conceivable in the Soviet Union, which succesfully attacked the Western intellectuals with a...
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Economic Impact of Multilingualism in the EU
Petkevič, Daniel ; Cihelková, Eva (advisor) ; Bič, Josef (referee)
The objective of the thesis is to analyse the questions of multilingualism in the EU from a large range of aspects, in particular from the one associated with its economic impact. The thesis aims to find answers to the questions concerning the necessity or uselessness of a large number of the EU official languages, the impact of multilingualism on its competitiveness and the future of multilingualism in the EU. The first chapter introduces the context of multilingualism in the EU from the administrative, political, juridical, historical and philological points of view. It also shows the development of the EU multilingualism policy. The most important second chapter focuses on the economic aspects of multilingualism in the EU. It analyses the controversial case of the unified European patent and its translations, the ELAN study exploring the effects of insufficient foreign language skills in enterprise on European economy and lastly the report of the Business Forum on multilingualism considering the impact of language skills on business and employment in the EU. The third chapter depicts the main goals of the actual EU strategy for multilingualism in a broader, not only economic context. The fourth chapter is a practical study prepared by the author which presents opinions of 25 Czech specialists working with EU languages of the questions considered in the first three chapters. The thesis confirms the necessity of retaining the actual number of EU official langages, mainly for political reasons. It also points out the economic potential involved in the foreign languages which would -- under certain circumstances -- strenghten the competitiveness of the EU. In the future the multilingualism is expected to be retained and even more encouraged by the EU institutions, member states and by the private sector with the objective of a better utilization of its potential.
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