Writing Underground

Writing Underground

Author: Martin Machovec

Publisher: Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press

Published: 2019-12-01

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 8024641259

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Výbor ze studií literárního historika a editora Martina Machovce, které vznikaly v posledních dvou dekádách (2000–2018), představuje celou řadu faset uvažování o fenoménu undergroundu. V jednotlivých studiích se zabývá zejména undergroundovou literaturou z okruhu I. M. Jirouse a rockové skupiny The Plastic People of the Universe, ale věnuje pozornost i širším souvislostem této literatury – jejím předchůdcům z 50. let (okruh Egona Bondyho a Ivo Vodseďálka), roli ve společenství Charty 77, vazbám na angloamerické prostředí nebo hudebním a scénickým realizacím a způsobu, jakým byly tyto texty v samizdatu šířeny. In this collection of writings produced between 2000 and 2018, the pioneering literary historian of the Czech underground, Martin Machovec, examines the multifarious nature of the underground phenomenon. After devoting considerable attention to the circle surrounding the band The Plastic People of the Universe and their manager, the poet Ivan M. Jirous, Machovec turns outward to examine the broader concept of the underground, comparing the Czech incarnation not only with the movements of its Central and Eastern European neighbors, but also with those in the world at large. In one essay, he reflects on the so-called Půlnoc Editions, which published illegal texts in the darkest days of the late forties and early fifties. In other essays, Machovec examines the relationship between illegal texts published at home (samizdat) and those smuggled out to be published abroad (tamizdat), as well as the range of literature that can be classified as samizdat, drawing attention to movements frequently overlooked by literary critics. In his final, previously unpublished essay, Machovec examines Jirous’s “Report on the Third Czech Musical Revival” not as a merely historical document, but as literature itself.


Essays on Architecture and City Planning

Essays on Architecture and City Planning

Author: Hermann Czech

Publisher: Park Publishing (WI)

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783038600206

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Hermann Czech belongs to the small group of architects that are equally prolific in theory and design. Over the course of six decades, he has created a much recognised body of built work and projects and also developed an architectural theory based on profound knowledge of philosophy and architectural history. His writings enable a clearer understanding of the built environment and thereby a sound basis for decisions affecting its future. Czech grapples with local and universal topics and spars with his colleague and fellow compatriot Hans Hollein. He analyses mannerism and calls attention to underestimated works of architecture. He delves as well into questions addressed by intellectuals and, like them, maintains an ambivalent relationship to modernism, and he makes a strong call to embrace reason over style. Czech also applies his profound knowledge of the works of Hegel, Kant, Wittgenstein, and Adorno to pressing architectural topics. Moreover, he recognises that architects often lack the basic framework necessary for meaningful discourse.


A Czech Dreambook

A Czech Dreambook

Author: Ludvík Vaculík

Publisher: Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press

Published: 2019-10-01

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 8024638525

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

It’s 1979 in Czechoslovakia, ten years into the crushing restoration of repressive communism known as normalization, and Ludvík Vaculík has writer’s block. It has been nearly a decade since he wrote his last novel, and even longer since he wrote the 1968 manifesto, "Two Thousand Words,” which the Soviet Union used as one of the pretexts for invading Czechoslovakia. On the advice of a friend, Vaculík begins to keep a diary: "a book about things, people and events.” Fifty-four weeks later, what Vaculík has written is a unique mixture of diary, dream journal, and outright fiction – an inverted roman à clef in which the author, his family, his mistresses, the secret police and leading figures of the Czech underground play major roles.


Essays on Czech Literature

Essays on Czech Literature

Author: René Wellek

Publisher: Hassell Street Press

Published: 2021-09-09

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 9781013878039

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.


Narrative Modes in Czech Literature

Narrative Modes in Czech Literature

Author: Lubomir Dolezel

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 1973-12-15

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 144263832X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this study of the study of the linguistic approach to narrative structures, the author examines the question of point of view in fiction, drawing examples from Czech literature. He applies the methods of structural linguistics and literary studies as developed by the Prague Linguistic School, and the modern methodology of semiotics and text theory. This approach, widely used in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in Europe, is not as well known as it should be in the English-speaking world. The essays may be read without any knowledge of the Czech language or Czech literary history. All Czech examples and materials are translated into English, preserving traits of the original texts which are relevant for structural analysis; the original Czech of all examples appears in an appendix. While the examples serve as documentation for theoretical statements, they also serve to familiarize the English-speaking reader with some of the major works of Czech fiction, especially those of Komenský (Comenius), Rais Ĉapek, Vanĉura, Pujmanová, Olbrachtm and Kundera. These works demonstrate the continuous bond between Czech fiction and European literary traditions, and offer original and profound insights into the cultural, social, and political experience of the Czech nation. Of particular interest to specialists in Slavic studies, general linguistics, poetics and text theory, and to students of general and comparative literature, Narrative Modes in Czech Literature deals with a significant problem of poetics and makes an original, constructive contribution to the theory of literature in the English language.


Encyclopedia of the Essay

Encyclopedia of the Essay

Author: Tracy Chevalier

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-10-12

Total Pages: 1032

ISBN-13: 1135314101

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This groundbreaking new source of international scope defines the essay as nonfictional prose texts of between one and 50 pages in length. The more than 500 entries by 275 contributors include entries on nationalities, various categories of essays such as generic (such as sermons, aphorisms), individual major works, notable writers, and periodicals that created a market for essays, and particularly famous or significant essays. The preface details the historical development of the essay, and the alphabetically arranged entries usually include biographical sketch, nationality, era, selected writings list, additional readings, and anthologies


The Czech Republic and Economic Transition in Eastern Europe

The Czech Republic and Economic Transition in Eastern Europe

Author: Jan Svejnar

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2013-10-22

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 1483289230

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Czech Republic and Economic Transition in Eastern Europe is the first in-depth, comparative analysis of the Czech Republic's economic transition after the fall of the Communist bloc. Edited by Jan Svejnar,a principal architect of the Czech economic transformation and Economic Advisor to President Vaclav Havel, the book poses important questions about the Republic and its partners in Central and Eastern Europe. The thirty-five essayists describe the country's macroeconomic performance; its development of capital markets; the structure and performance of its industries; its unemployment, household behavior, and income distribution; and the environmental and health issues it faces.In this in-depth, comparative analysis of the Czech Republic's economic transition, an international team of thirty-five economists examine the Republic and its partners in Central and Eastern Europe. Important questions and issues permeate the essays. For example, prior to 1939 the Czech Republic possessed the most advanced economy in the region; is it capable of reestablishing its dominance? Relative to its neighbors, the Republic ranks especially high on some transition-related performance indicators but low on others. What economic effects are related to the 1993 dissolution of the Czech and Slovak governments? And what can be learned by comparing the economic outcomes of two countries that shared legal and institutional frameworks? Data describe the country's macroeconomic performance; its development of capital markets; the structure and performance of its industries; its unemployment, household behavior, and income distribution; and the environmental and health issues facing it. Its most important contributions are its clarifications of the transition process.The authors included in Transforming Czechoslovakia combine the best available data and techniques of economic analysis to assess the replacement of the inefficient but internally consistent central planning system with a more efficient market system. These authors, among whom are central European economic analysts, senior U.S. economists, and Czechoslovakian professors and economic researchers, discuss the country's macroeconomic performance; its development of capital markets; the structure and performance of its industries; its unemployment, household behavior, and income distribution; and the environmental and health issues facing it. The essays vary between presentations of history and policy and technical examinations of data. Together they offer the most comprehensive and detailed assessment of the country's economic transformation in print.This book is important because its essayists compile results and reach conclusions that are broad and credible. The empirical data were gathered on the ground and have been subjected to advanced methodologies, including game theory, industrial organization, and Granger-Sims causality.


The Curtain

The Curtain

Author: Milan Kundera

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2023-07-18

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 0063290936

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“An elegant, personalized integration of anecdote, analysis, scholarship, memory and speculation. . . . Not since Henry James, perhaps, has a fiction writer examined the process of writing with such insight, authority and range of reference and allusion.” —Russell Banks, New York Times Book Review “A magic curtain, woven of legends, hung before the world. Cervantes sent Don Quixote journeying and tore through the curtain. The world opened before the knight-errant in all the comical nakedness of its prose.” In this thought-provoking, endlessly enlightening, and entertaining essay on the art of the novel, renowned author Milan Kundera suggests that “the curtain” represents a ready-made perception of the world that each of us has—a pre-interpreted world. The job of the novelist, he argues, is to rip through the curtain and reveal what it hides. Here an incomparable literary artist cleverly sketches out his personal view of the history and value of the novel in Western civilization. In doing so, he celebrates a prose form that possesses the unique ability to transcend national and language boundaries in order to reveal some previously unknown aspect of human existence.