Czeski horror literacki wobec wojny okupacji (przypadek Ladislava Fuksa i Jana Pelca)

• Authors: Pająk Patrycjusz

Title variants

EN

CZECH LITERARY HORROR IN RELATION TO WAR AND OCCUPATION (THE CASE OF LADISLAV FUKS AND JAN PELC)

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The horror genre is rarely used in a literary settlement with the period of Second World War. That is because horror is generally treated as a genre serving unrefined entertainment, which depends on showing the extreme anomalies and violating the cultural taboos. Aesthetical and axiological controversies aroused by the horror make this genre unsuitable for description of the very serious subject of war and occupation. The martyrologic and patriotic interpretation of this subject is usually meant to be the only proper one. Two Czech horrors break off this literary stereotype: Ladislav Fuks’s The Cremator (1967) and Jan Pelc’s ...and you can’t do that to me (1993). Their authors belong to different generations and they take different topics: holocaust and guerrilla warfare. However they have similar interest for human pathology, which intensifies under the influence of experience of collective violence. Both authors use the horror genre for demythologization of the martyrologic and patriotic picture of war and occupation. They prove that the horror can realize the literary ambitious settlement with the period of Second World War, because it helps to emphasise the element of irrational cruelty involved in the war and occupation experience.

Keywords

EN

literary horror; war

• Publisher: Committee on Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Pamiętnik Słowiański
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 61
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 69-82

Contributors

author

Pająk Patrycjusz

• Uniwersytet Warszawski, Wydział Polonistyki, Instytut Slawistyki Zachodniej i Południowej, ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28, 00-927 Warszawa