"Bestie lidská se napájela nejsladší rozkoší…": Román Jaroslava Marii Váhy a meč jako mikrohistorický případ

• Authors: Lukáš Holeček

Title variants

EN

“The beast in man fed on the sweetest delight…”: Jaroslav Maria’s novel Sword and Scales as a microhistorical case

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

This study focuses on Jaroslav Maria’s novel Váhy a meč (Sword and Scales, 1928), which it analyses as a microhistorical case, viewing this work/text as an indicator of, and factor in, social events within a specific historical constellation (i.e. the period around 1928). Jaroslav Maria’s novels were very popular in the interwar period, even though they were negatively viewed from the aesthetic standpoint; their subject matter was the life of the various social classes, morality, justice and the judiciary. The novel Sword and Scales refers to actual court cases that were tried in Czechoslovakia, subversively presents and distorts some of the stereotypes of the era with its imagery (femininity, racial and social otherness — the topic of the Roma minority) and gets involved in political issues. This study examines the historical context and the contemporary reception of the novel and on this basis analyses the way in which the literary work has been socially utilized.

Keywords

CS

literární náměty; právo a morálka; soudnictví; trest smrti

EN

literary themes; law and morality; administration of justice; capital punishment

• Publisher: Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Česká literatura (Czech Literature)
• Year: 2024
• Volume: 72
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 133-159
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Lukáš Holeček

• Ústav pro českou literaturu AV ČR, v. v. i., Na Florenci 1420/3, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic