An outspoken opponent of pro-Russian, authoritarian, and far-right streams in contemporary Czech society, Martin C. Putna received a great deal of media attention when he ironically dedicated the ...Czech edition of Russ–Ukraine–Russia to Miloš Zeman—the pro-Russian president of the Czech Republic. This sense of irony, combined with an extraordinary breadth of scholarly knowledge, infuses Putna’s book.Examining key points in Russian cultural and spiritual history, Russ–Ukraine–Russia is essential reading for those wishing to understand the current state of Russia and Ukraine—the so-called heir to an “alternative Russia." Putna uses literary and artistic works to offer a rich analysis of Russia as a cultural and religious phenomenon: tracing its development from the arrival of the Greeks in prehistoric Crimea to its invasion by “little green men" in 2014; explaining the cultural importance in Russ of the Vikings as well as Pussy Riot; exploring central Russian figures from St. Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin.Unique in its postcolonial perspective, this is not merely a history of Russia or of Russian religion. This book presents Russia as a complex mesh of national, religious, and cultural (especially countercultural) traditions—with strong German, Mongol, Jewish, Catholic, Polish, and Lithuanian influences—a force responsible for creating what we identify as Eastern Europe.
This study charts the generation producing Czech Catholic literature that came onto the scene after 1945. Between 1945 and 1948 it enjoyed a relatively conflict-free reception from the older Catholic ...generation and contemporaries outside the Catholic milieu. It had access to the Vyšehrad journal and the support of Catholic critics from the older generation. This generation more or less accepted the chief landmarks of postwar Catholic culture in Vyšehrad: the Slav orientation, the positive attitude towards socialism and the generational turnover. Two members of this generation aspired to the position of leader and spokesman: Ivan Slavík in Prague and Zdeněk Rotrekl in Brno. However, after 1948 this generation was excluded from literature and its members experienced various twists and turns in life and literature (prison, various shades of the “grey zone”, various forms of collaboration with dissidents and in the case of Josef Jelen even “conversion’’ to normalization literature). As a literary historian, Ivan Slavík has attempted to reconstruct this generation retrospectively and to also include such figures on the fringes as Ivan Diviš and Ladislav Novák. On the other hand Zdeněk Rotrekl is also engaged in literary history, but he focuses more on reconstructing the older Catholic generation rather than his own generation. Hence in this respect we might refer to a “Slavík generation”. As a result this generation appears to be neglected in all the reconstructions and rehabilitations, as it is overshadowed by the older “classic” Catholic generation and the intellectually bolder generation of Catholic-oriented dissident authors.
The religious thought of Václav Havel is examined in the context of Czech and American intellectual and spiritual traditions. The line begins with the worldview canonized by T. G. Masaryk. Masaryk ...drew inspiration from the American tradition of religious thought, rooted in the Enlightenment deistic interpretation of Christianity, embodied in Unitarianism. It was this line of thought that was passed down to Václav Havel by his father V. M. Havel. Masaryk’s “Unitarian” style of thinking about religion was developed by Havel in his Letters to Olga. During the 1970s, this influence merges with another intellectual stream, the “Kampademia” group. This line of thought combines Patočka’s tradition of phenomenology with new philosophical approaches to Catholicism and stimulated by the American “New Science”. According to Masaryk’s “enlightened” and “Unitarian” tradition, old religion, expressed with the aid of rituals, was to be surpassed and replaced by a “scientific” and “progressive” religion. For the tradition of Kampademia, on the other hand, it is this old religion, with its myths and rituals, that should be revived. Thus, Havel takes seriously the basis of all ancient spiritual traditions—Christian, Jewish, “heathen,” hermetic. It is in this public and symbolic appeal to “old” religious traditions before the eyes of a secular Czech society, this readiness to learn from the experiences of other traditions, and the declared humility to not attempt a synthesis of these traditions (as according to “classic” New Age) that Havel’s primary contribution to the spiritual thought of the present can be found.
ANTIKA V DÍLE IVANA JELÍNKA PUTNA, MARTIN C.
Listy filologické,
01/2015, Letnik:
138, Številka:
3/4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Many Czech exile authors turn to ancient inspiration after 1948. The antiquity often serves as a projection of exile situation (Odysseus) or as pars pro toto of traditional European culture, ...perceived by the exile writers as their defense wall. Ivan Jelinek (1909-2002) moreover originally transformed ancient inspirations at motivic level. He sings praises of ancient godesses and heroines as archetypes of Virgin Mary. Sacred womb represents the central topos of Jelínek's comparison between Greek mythology, Catholicism and poetically transformed personal experience. Also, Jelínek calls his poems "odes", referring to the ancient genre celebrating sacred subjects. He applies this principle of ancient-Catholic comparison and this genre in numerous volumes, following his travels across the Mediterranean. Gradually, his poetry becomes a sort of "travelogue" in the tradition of Grand Tour. In the final phase of his literary work, the Catholic motifs recede. The antiquity, instead, continues to be used as poet's basic cultural matrix.
Erste Spuren einer Verarbeitung homosexueller Erfahrung finden sich in der tschechischen Literatur in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Zu dieser Zeit sublimieren die Autoren ihre Gefühle, ...verstecken sich hinter Masken und senden allenfalls verborgene Signale. Noch Otokar Březina, der wichtigste Autor des tschechischen Symbolismus, und der Expressionist und Surrealist Richard Weiner wählen diesen Weg. Einen anderen Weg beschritt erstmals Jiří Karásek ze Lvovic, der Homosexualität nicht mehr maskiert, sondern stilisiert, indem er sie in die Antike projiziert. Für den zeitgenössischen Lyriker Jiří Kubĕna sind die Antike und das Mittelalter keine Kulissen mehr, die es ermöglichen, das Unaussprechliche auszusprechen. Er thematisierte, wie auch Václav Jamek, bereits zu Zeiten des kommunistischen Regimes seine Homosexualität ganz offen. Erscheinen konnte beider Werk daher erst nach 1990, als auch eine literarisch eher zweifelhafte (Selbst)Befreiungsliteratur aufblühte. The first traces of processing the homosexual experience can be found in Czech literature in the second half of the 19th century. At that time, authors sublimated their feelings, hid behind masks, and sent at best hidden signals. Otokar Březina, the most important author of Czech symbolism, and the expressionist and surrealist Richard Weiner still chose this path. The first to take a different path was Jiří Karasek ze Lvovic, who no longer masked homosexuality, but stylized it by projecting it into Antiquity. For contemporary poet Jiří Kubĕna, Antiquity and the Middle Ages no longer provide the backdrop that made it possible to express the unspeakable. Like Václav Jamek, Kubĕna was already making his homosexuality a theme under the Communist regime. Therefore, their work could appear only after 1990, when a literature of (self-) liberation inferior in artistic terms was also flourishing.
The first modern edition of Baroque-era publication documenting the influence of Pietist religiousness in the milieu of Czech exiles. Christian Renatus Zinzendorf (1727–1752), the son of the founder ...of the renewed Unity of the Brethren movement, N. L. Zinzendorf, was an author of a series of songs taking the erotic mysticism of Jesus to the extreme. The Czech exile Zachariáš Jelínek (1714–1763) translated the collection into Czech for the use of the Unity of the Brethren based in Berlin. The edition presents the complete texts of this publication dating from 1758. The commentary hints at the typical characteristics of this religiousness, explains the circumstances of the origins of this almost completely unknown example of exile literature, and describes the principles of language in this edition.
This article offers an analysis of the diaries of Hungarian Painter László Mednyánszky. The diaries document how Mednyánszky’s visual creativity was influenced by a conundrum of his religious, ...philosophical and political views and also of his contradictory social and personal identities. Mednyánszky was (1) a Hungarian living in an ethnically Slovak neighbourhood; (2) an aristocrat reflecting the decadence of his class; (3) an adherent of alternative religiosity (theosophy); (4) a homosexual creating a personal myth of paranormal coexistence with his dead friend. Standing in this complex mental crossroads, Mednyánszky represents a unique case in his social and cultural environment. The only possible contextualization of personality and creativity, both artistic and religious, leads to the cultural anthropology of Edward Carpenter and to the trans-cultural archetype of “myths of divinised dead friends”.
Kronika a glosy Machovec, Martin; Urválková, Zuzana; Vytlačil, Lukáš M ...
Česká literatura,
2019, Letnik:
67, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Looking back at Petr Holman (17.4.1951 — 4.8.2019); In memory of Vlastimil Válek; King with a bad reputation; Brabec beyond order and Brabec for order, Brabec narrating and Brabec narrated: Brabec ...90; In the technological whirlwind: Workshop Digital Humanities; Information
