Czech Culture Research Articles

„Aš myliu ir gerbiu visą Čekijos tautą“. Elzės Ožeškienės čekofilinės veiklos pėdsakai, pagrįsti laiškais Edvardui Jelinekui

The article, based on Eliza Orzeszkowa’s letters to Edvard Jelínek from 1881–1896, pre­sents the relationship between the two writers. They were guided by the common idea of vzajemnosti, i.e. promoting cultural activities among the Slavs, aimed at bringing nations together. In this regard, Orzeszkowa undertook many initiatives in cooperation with the Czech writer. The first was an attempt to publish in Polish the work The Fall and Rebirth of the Czech Nation, presenting the history of the Czechs. On the pages of the letters, the project of publishing an anthology works by famous Czech poets and prose writers translated by Czesław Jankowski, Bronisław Teodor Grabowski, Władysław Bełza and Wilhelmina Zyndram-Kościałkowska was discussed. The income from the sale of the publication was planned to be used to rebuild the National Theater in Prague (Národní divadlo), which burned down in 1881. The writer also organized a fundraising for this purpose at the “Orzeszkowa i S-ka” bookstore in Vilnius. The last undertaking was the intention to publish Orzeszkowa’s memories from her stay in Prague – it was to familiarize the reader with Czech culture. Even though some of the discussed plans were already advanced, they were not implemented, mainly due to tsarist decrees. This correspondence is therefore a valuable trace of the Polish–Czech cooperation between writers. The quoted fragments of Orzeszkowa’s letters to Jelínek are in the National Literature Museum in Prague (Památník Národního Písemnictví). They have not been released yet.

Revolt against standard language: requirements for language of literature and Jan Zábrana’s stories

Abstract The language of literary texts is a complex and multiform phenomenon. One of the problems connected with it is the employment of non-standard linguistic varieties. This paper focuses on the especial situation in Czech culture in the 1950s. In that decade, literary critics and linguists strictly required the use of Standard Czech and the restriction of non-standard varieties in literary texts. On the other hand, various inedited works were written the language of which was based on the so-called Common Czech, colloquialisms and slangs. The main part of the paper describes the language of stories by Jan Zábrana (from the years 1954 to 1957) in relation to the official requirements. Zábrana’s stories (published posthumously in the 1990s) represent a radical denying of these requirements. Zábrana depicts spontaneous and informal spoken communication that differs from the idea of cultivated standard expression. Both the figures and the narrator consistently use nonstandard linguistic means and colloquial lexicon (including vulgarisms).

Paratexte, ohne die es keine Literatur gäbe. Zur Rezeption des Werkes von Paul Celan und der Funktion von Paratexten in der totalitären Tschechoslowakei (1948–1989)

The reception of literature written in German in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War was (and still is) in a hybrid position, oscillating between aversion to historical events that still resonate in Czech culture and society, and interest due to intensive cultural contacts and exchange projects between Germany and the Czech Republic. The reception of works by Paul Celan was all the more complicated because Jewish issues were by and large considered undesirable by the communist regime. The regime was officially only anti-Zionist, but de facto, as is well known, this meant anti-Semitic. In this article, attention is drawn to a neglected aspect of the surprising history of the reception of Celan’s poems in Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1989 (with a brief excursion into the period 1990–2020) – namely, the “mediating function” of paratexts in the totalitarian regime. The first part briefly presents a definition of the term “paratext” and outlines the function of this type of text (taking into account the specific situation in which literature found itself in socialist Czechoslovakia). The following part illustrates the “mediating function” of paratexts in the Czechoslovak and the Czech editions of Celan’s poems.

Factor Validity and Generic Reliability of the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire in the Czech Population.

The Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCDQ) is widely used as a brief parent questionnaire designed to screen for motor coordination in children, aged 5 to 15 years. There is no validated version of the DCDQ for the Central Europe, which could help for first catch of children with motor difficulties, whose amount has been seriously raised. In addition, the World Health Organization recommends the cross-cultural validation of existing instruments, for Loir costs and time consuming, and the availability of instruments in several languages enables therapists to use validated tools with non-English speaking clients. The aim of this study was to validate the DCDQ in the Czech culture in a population of Czech parents whose children were aged six to ten. Using data from 651 Czech parents of children (six to ten years; 7.8 ± 0.8 years), confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were used. The goodness-of-fit indices CFI = 0.94, TLI = 0.93, and RMSEA = 0.08 supported the original three-factor model of the DCDQ. In addition, the factor loadings of each question discovered in Czech DCDQ were non-significantly different from the original DCDQ. Furthermore, we also found strong between factor correlation; general coordination and control movement r = 0.87 probably measure the same underlying construct. Even though this is in conformity with original DCDQ structure, we suggest that responses in these two DCDQ factors might have violated the local independency and, therefore, could bias the final score. The generic reliability of the individual factors was acceptable and ranged from McDonald ω 0.83-0.88. Results from this study suggest that cross-validated version of the original DCDQ can be considered as sufficiently valid and reliable clinical screening tool for children who have coordination challenges for Czech children aged six to ten.

Экспансия камерности. Мультфильм Зденека Милера «Кротик в городе» как сатира на общество Чехословакии времен нормализации

Forty years ago, in 1982, the Czechoslovak cartoon The Little Mole in the City was released. The story of Little Mole and his friends (Hedgehog and Hare) who find themselves in a metropolis may be considered the most famous episode about Little Mole, a beloved character of Czech culture. This story is also well known in Russia, not only as a cartoon but also as a book. The tale has been reprinted in several editions in the Russian language. Z. Miler’s cartoon appeals both to the immediate realities of the times and to the broader context of Czech culture of popular laughter. A character, vulnerable and sometimes light-minded (e.g. Švejk, Jára Cimrman, characters in Menzel’s films) confronts a vast and unfriendly reality and sometimes faces real trouble (e.g. war in J. Hašek’s novel). The character’s grand purpose is not to overcome circumstances or turn the world upside down, but to preserve himself. The story of Little Mole blends smoothly into this cultural code. The episode The Little Mole in the City was created in the waning days of Czechoslovak socialism. Behind the outer, touching and fascinating plot of the characters’ urban odyssey, one can discern a rather poignant satire on the social order of those times. The author of the article tries to understand how the creators of the cartoon expose the foolish and senseless bureaucracy, narrow-minded officials, cruelty and the suffocating nature of the times, but most importantly, how they teach to maintain inner freedom in an unfree country.

Jonathan Bolton, Worlds of Dissent: Charter 77, The Plastic People of the Universe, and Czech Culture under Communism

Recenze.

The Phenomenon of Karel Kryl, The Poet with the Guitar, in the Czech Culture

The article describes the work of Karel Kryl (1944–1994), a Czech singer-songwriter and poet. Author’s musical poetry as a cultural phenomenon is considered. From the mid-1960s (“The Happy Age of Literature”) he performed songs of his own composition, based on the traditions of Czech artists of the interwar period J. Werich, J. Voskovec, J. Ježek, and the poetry of P. Bezruč. Kryl, belonging to the first generation of the Czech folk, was heavily influenced by Bob Dylan and the American tradition of song poetry. He expanded the popular song genre and became a legendary voice of protest and the voice of his people. He earned fame after August 1968, when he wrote the song “Bratříčku zavírej vrátka” (“Keep the Gate Closed, Little Brother”) in one night. The Poet with a Guitar spent twenty years in Germany. His life path was not easy both in the emigration as well as upon his returning back home, since he could not accept the new reality after the Velvet Revolution. He had a hard time enduring the division of Czechoslovakia into two states and therefore faced misunderstanding. An eternal dissident and a rebel, Kryl went down in history as an original poet who used a variety of means of artistic expression and complex metaphors. He became a symbol of the Czech music and poetic culture in the second half of the 20th century. His significance for the Czech Republic is comparable to that of V. Vysotsky and A. Galich for Russia. There are many studies about Kryl in Czechia but the scale and facets of his talent, his prophetic visions, and the individual style of his creative manner deserve attention and are waiting to be discovered in Russia.

L.N. Budagova and “Šrámkova Sobotka”

The study deals with the relationship between the leading representative of the Bohemian studies in Russia L.N. Budagova, 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. Budagova got to know about the annual festival during an excursion and then she was invited to appear. Be-tween 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 writ-ten 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.

Zpráva o korespondenci dramatika Havla s nakladatelem Škvoreckým

Josef Škvorecký and Václav Havel were among the most renowned figures of Czech culture of the second half of the 20th century. Nevertheless, their mutual relations developed when Škvorecký already lived in exile in Toronto and Havel faced Communist repressions as a spokesman of the Charta 77. When they began to cooperate on an exile edition of Havel’s plays in 1976, they had to overcome not only the obvious complications caused by the Communist regime but also the embarrassment at Havel’s parodic depiction in the character of the playwright Hejl in Škvorecký’s novel The Miracle Game (1972). Over the years, Havel gained more and more credit and respect from Škvorecký. The study presented is based on their mutual correspondence from the years 1976–1989. Primarily, it deals with their professional cooperation, yet it offers a more general perspective as well. The reader is thus given an insight into the publishing practice of the Škvoreckýs as well as into Havel’s civic and political strategies that made him an informal authority not only in dissent but also in exile.

Русская литература в чешской периодике 1920-х гг. (газета «Литерарни новины»)

The study deals with the perception of Russian literature by the Czech literary newspaper Literární Noviny in the 1920s. Being part of the left cultural bloc, the periodical paid much attention to Russian literature in general and to the modern literary process in Russia in particular. On the pages of the newspaper on this topic, controversy has repeatedly unfolded, including with Russian emigrants living in Prague (about the role of Russian and Soviet literature for Czech culture, about M. Gorky, about Soviet ditties, etc.). Of the classics, the greatest attention is paid to L. N. Tolstoy, who was presented as the inspirer of the Russian revolution, then to F. M. Dostoevsky, A. S. Pushkin and others, with an emphasis on the complex relationship of writers with the authorities. When referring to modern literature, unlike most left-wing publications, the newspaper's critics speak favorably not only about Soviet authors, but also about emigrants — these are the materials about I. G. Ehrenburg, especially concerning his interest in Czechoslovakia and its culture. The main Soviet author for the editorial board of the newspaper was M. Gorky, whose work was highly valued in the context of proletarian literature and considered as a role model for Czech writers. All things considered, against the general background of left-wing publications, Literární Noviny are distinguished by their tolerance towards ideological opponents, and therefore a wide variety of materials on Russian literature and its translations, despite the obvious general pro-revolutionary pathos.

Sen o českých březích: první anglické antologie české poezie v 19. století jako cyklické mystifikace

The article analyses the nature of the interest of English authors in Slavic (and specifically Czech) culture between the end of the 18th century to 1850. This period saw the publication of two translated anthologies of Czech poetry: Bowring’s Cheskian Anthology (1832) and Wratislaw’s Lyra Czecho‑slovanská. Bohemian Poems, Ancient and Modern (1849). The structure, form of translation and the reception of both anthologies demonstrate not only the mystification nature of the ‘Czech canon’ presented in them, but also reflect the deep internal instability of the values of Czech culture in the heyday of the Czech National Revival and in the period soon after.

The linguistic and cultural experiences of Portuguese Erasmus+ students during their stay in Ostrava: Challenges and opportunities

The study investigates the linguistic and cultural experiences of Erasmus+ students from Portugal at the University of Ostrava in the Czech Republic. Special attention is paid to the chal- lenges encountered by the students in both communication and coping with cultural differences, as well as to their language needs, ways of communicating, attitudes towards the Czech culture, and the role of English in communication. The research tool was a questionnaire covering a number of questions related to the purpose of the study. As the results show, while the intercultural experience was generally enriching and the participants appreciated some interesting aspects of the Czech culture, they were particularly disappointed by the limited number of Czechs able to speak English and some of the academic teachers’ low levels of language proficiency in English. In fact, this is not limited to the lack of language skills, as communication problems can also lead to the perception of the interlocutor as unpleasant and unhelpful.

НЕВІДОМИЙ ДОКУМЕНТ ПРО ЧЕСЬКОГО ПИСЬМЕННИКА ПЕТРА КРШІЧКУ

The publication presents an unknown manuscript dedicated to the work of the Czech poet, translator and teacher Petr Ladislav Křička (1884-1949). Its author is the P. L. Křička’s wife Anna Křičková. The document, written at the request of the Ukrainian Czech language literature scientist, professor of Lviv University V.A. Motornyi, tells us about individual pages of the Czech writer’s life, the beginnings of his creative biography, memories of his study years at school and at the Sorbonne University of Paris, etc. A special place in this material is given to the role of P. L. Křička’s personal contacts with famous figures of Czech culture of the first half of the 20th century, their influence on his talent as a writer.

Wśród polityków i artystów. Topos Europy Środkowej w polityce kulturalnej Czech w latach 2004–2018

Artists and Politicians. Central Europe in Cultural Politics in the Czech Republic from 2004 to 2018 The purpose of this work was to examine the role that the subject of Central Europe plays in cultural politics in the Czech Republic. In the first part of this work, there are definitions of national identity, cultural politics and Central Europe. Moreover, there is information about institutions that are responsible for the development of the Czech culture. The second chapter is an analysis of the activity of Czech artists which is related to Central Europe and the states of the region. The last chapter is research about the participation of artistic events related to the region among those subsidized by the minister’s programs for the development of international cultural relations.

Post-Socialist Political Necromancy: Weaponization of Dead Bodies in Czech Culture Wars

Abstract This article contributes to discussions on culture wars, memory politics, and the politics of dead bodies. It uses the example of the annual celebration of the liberation of the city of Pilsen by the American army in 1945 to demonstrate the use of the concept of “political necromancy.” The Pilsen celebrations are one of the events during which participating politicians use fallen (or suffering) soldiers as an argument to support current political goals. Metaphorically, the politician as a necromancer brings the fallen back to life and sends them as an army of the dead to fight in culture wars and memory wars. The article focuses on introducing the different strategies used in this process (depersonalizing the fallen or creating a ghost hero) and shows how dead bodies and the appropriate use of memory politics are used to bolster foreign policy ties to the US and to lash out against Russia and communism.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders: Reawakening Czech Cultural Heritage Through the Psychoanalysis of New Wave Surrealism

By 1960, Freudian psychoanalysis was commonplace across Europe. Central to this were the concepts of the id, ego and superego – forces pertinent at both an individual and societal level. In an unhealthy subject, according to Freud, these three psychological components fall out of an ideal dynamic balance and must be restored by an intervening external agent. Freud’s theories particularly influenced art – especially the surrealism of the Czech New Wave film movement, which sought to restore the ideal psychological balance by stimulating radical reorganisations of society. A prime example of this is Jaromil Jireš’s film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970), which aimed to rebalance the unstable Czech social dynamic by provoking the audience to reconnect with their historic cultural values and synthesise these with the goals of Communism. This article analyses three key sequences that exemplify this objective: the first illustrates how Valerie (surrogate for the ego) initially vacillates, but ultimately aligns herself with symbols of Czech heritage (representing the id). The second sequence shows Valerie’s ill-fated appeasement strategy of completely aligning with the film’s antagonist (superego). The final sequence is a culmination of these themes, posing possibilities for a new Czech future created by the now activated viewer.

Revolutionary Kašpárek: The Life Cycle of the Radical Puppet

Throughout the Czech National Revival and the final years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the puppet stage served as a site of resistance, of advocacy for Czech sovereignty, and criticism of Germanic influences on Czech culture and everyday life. The undisputed star in these efforts was the puppet hero Kašpárek, the little Czech jester who uses his wits to defeat Austro-Hungarian petty bureaucrats, police officers, and other deputies of imperial authority in hundreds of puppet plays throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article explores How Kašpárek Laid Austria to Rest, a 1918 performance which saw Kašpárek’s role shift from one of resistance to one of revolution. In this play, performed in Pilsen (Plzeň) in the final weeks of the First World War, Kašpárek no longer faced off against Austrian officials, but rather met a much larger opponent, the two-headed imperial eagle, symbol of the empire itself. In this performance, Kašpárek does not need to outwit his opponent; he is a dominant force from the start. After beheading the eagle, the performance becomes a kind of funeral mass for the empire with Kašpárek serving as both priest and master of ceremonies, bringing a kind of jubilation to the usually somber context. In this discussion, I examine this turning point from the interconnected perspectives of social history and semiotics. This dual approach exposes both the developments and conditions that allow for this striking symbolic victory on the puppet stage,n but further an exploration of the ways the folk archetype of the jester and, by extension, a folk-based image of Czech national identity navigate radical political change.

Czech-German Collaborations at the Metropolitan Opera in the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract In the early twentieth century, New York’s Metropolitan Opera produced four works by Czech composers: Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride in 1909, Karel Weis’s The Polish Jew in 1921, Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa in 1924, and Jaromír Weinberger’s Schwanda the Bagpiper in 1931. American critics associated these productions with exoticized notions of Czech culture and Czech nationalism. Yet, as this article shows, the four American productions also illuminate the multiethnic and multicultural environment of the Czech lands in the late Habsburg and early Czechoslovak eras. The 1909 Bartered Bride featured the famous Czech soprano Ema Destinnová and was choreographed by Czech dancer Otakar Bartík, but it was also prepared by Gustav Mahler, who presented himself as a Bohemian national in connection with the production. Weis’s The Polish Jew held an ambiguous status as a national work in Prague because it was written to a German libretto and first performed at Prague’s German Theater. The Bartered Bride, Jenůfa, and Schwanda the Bagpiper, moreover, were performed in German translations. And both The Polish Jew and Jenůfa were directed by Artur Bodanzky, the chief conductor of German repertoire at the Met, whose career started at Prague’s German Theater. Thus in New York, Czech repertoire benefitted from personalities associated with German-Bohemian circles, whereas in early twentieth-century Prague, Czech and German-Bohemian collaborations were considered taboo.

Piwo i gospoda w kulturze czeskiej – polskie widzenie zjawiska

Beer and Local Pub in Czech Culture from a Polish PerspectiveThe article aims at outlining the most distinctive features of two elements of Czech national culture: beer and the places where it is customary consumed. Specifically, the text focuses on characteristics of the position which beer occupies among Czechs, as well as on a social dimension of the “traditional” provincial and village local pubs (specific ambience, a type of service, guests, etc.), which makes the article embedded in the cultural context. A special attention was paid to the restaurants located at the Czech railway stations, too. The analysis was carried out from the Polish perspective, that is why the article includes a range of references to the peculiarities of the Polish culture of drinking. Additionally, the observations were gathered during a number of visits the author paid in the Czech Republic. It all means that the selection of the phenomena presented in the text and the way they were valued might be different if some other national approach were employed here.

Lost in translation—the influence of language on infant sleep research

ObjectivesWe consider whether language shapes cultural interpretations of sleep in the family context using ethnographic data from the Czech Republic to explore one of the methods employed by Czech parents in helping their children aged 0-3 years to fall asleep. MethodsMulti-methodological ethnographic data were collected in the Czech Republic during 2015-2018 with supplemental online data obtained in 2020. This involved focus groups with 90 participants in mother-baby centers, and interviews with 30 families, supplemented with 468 online responses. ResultsIn the Czech Republic the use of parental presence with or without physical contact to help a child to fall asleep is a widespread practice. It is well-embedded within Czech culture and referred to by a widely known term: Uspávání. Parents expressed multiple motivations for using Uspávání to help their child sleep. DiscussionWithin much of the Anglophone sleep literature the practice of actively helping a child to fall asleep is perceived as problematic. A child who cannot fall asleep alone is considered to exhibit “behavioral insomnia of childhood,” and parents are advised to prevent this “sleep problem” by promoting self-soothing techniques in infancy. We suggest that as there is no English-language equivalent for the word Uspávání the concept it encapsulates is under-valued by sleep researchers, and the practice and its consequences are insufficiently researched. ConclusionsSome important variations in parental sleep practices that are embedded in everyday family systems lack English terminology; Uspávání is one such example. This may lead to researchers overlooking or rejecting the validity of such diverse family sleep practices. There is a need for more ethnographic research of sleep in the context of different cultural environments and family systems to explore how language constrains understanding of parent-child sleep.