Czech Literature of the 2nd half of the 20th Century

The course, dealing with Czech literature in the period from the end of the Second World War to the present, is aimed at knowing and understanding the fundamental rules of literary development of this period. It therefore chronologically monitors individual stages, artistic directions and groups or modifications of literary genres.
In this way, attention is focused on the variability of the system of aesthetic values and norms recognized and enforced by members of individual literary generations, which concretely affects the image of literary life. The aim is also to explain the limited and ideologically controlled existence of literature and art in the totalitarian regime, or to focus on various phenomena concerning literary life, censorship and self-censorship. In this regard, due attention will be paid to the creation of three parallel circles of communication - official literature, samizdat and exile literature. A significantly different situation arises with the fall of the Iron Curtain, when the literature begins to be influenced by previously unknown or taboo currents and tendencies, primarily postmodern. The basic theses are supported with the interpretation of selected literary texts, as well as their reception by the literary critics in the selected period.

Lecture topics:
1. Reflection of the Second World War in Czech literature.
2. Poetry of everyday life - Group 42 and literary group called “Květňáci”.
3. Socialist realism, novels about building socialism.
4. Changes in the genre of the historical novel.
5. Absurd and model drama.
6. Genre diversification of literature in the 1960s.
7. The period of normalization in Czech history and the problem of three communication circles.
8. Samizdat and underground.
9. Tendencies in Czech literature after 1989.
10. Signs of the postmodernism.
11. Authentic and imaginative prose.
12. Typology of poetry after the November 1989.