This article is an excerpt from the author’s Ph.D. dissertation ‘Karel Sabina epigon a tvůrce’ (Sabina as Original Writer and Imitator; Prague, 2007), which is concerned mainly with the belles-lettres of the poet, dramatist/librettist, novelist, and journalist Karel Sabina (1813–1877). The dissertation combines approaches from literary history, biography, and textual criticism, but its core approach is a detailed interpretation of his individual works, focusing on intertextuality, for example, Sabina’s essay on Karel Hynek Mácha (1810–1836) and Romantic motifs. The extract published here concerns two distinct areas of Sabina’s historical fiction: semi‑historical fiction from 1837–44 (Hrobník, Msta, Obrazy ze XIV. a XV. věku, and Čech), with an ostentatiously ahistorical treatment in the spirit of the melodramaticity of the gothic novel and earlier popular literature, and Sabina’s historical fiction from the 1860s (in particular, Hyacint), which helped to establish this kind of work in modern Czech belles-lettres, and also his adventure literature (Ruesswurm), anticipating some later forms as well. In the first type of writing the article considers Sabina’s remarkable tendency to run down eminent figures of Bohemian history, which in Obrazy is a treatment typical of the popular 1541 chronicle of Václav Hájek z L ibočan, and in Čech, using Jan František Beckovský’s 1700 version of the same chronicle. This tendency in the early Sabina was suppressed by the censor and condemned by people in the arts, like Karel Havlíček Borovský (1821–1856) and later critics as well, but it did not prevent these works from achieving popularity amongst contemporaneous readers. In Sabina’s historical fiction at its height the tendency appears to be the most remarkable approach to writing, aiming to unify fact and fiction in belles-lettres. The article also aims to contribute to the assessment of the value of these works and to provide new findings in textual criticism of the works of Sabina and Mácha.
The paper entitled 'Clash of the reality from the XIX and XXI century in František Novotný's novel Prsten of vévodkyně' attempts to show the strategies that the author uses reconstructing distant and recent past. The book is the first part from the series Kroniky karmínových kamenů, which aims to approach Czech history in a different way than it is presented in school textbooks. The author offers the reader two almost parallel stories. The character of this "new" history is an ex-secret service agent - Zdeněk Milbach, who travels through Czech history using the time machine (which is the portrait of Božena Němcová). There is also a story from the past describing the life of his ancestor Mühlbach. He similarly is a police secret agent who is following Němcová, just like Mülbach is following Alena Michálkova. It that way, Novotný proves that despite of the fact that the XIX century is already 'historical' period, it has a lot in common with recent history. In both periods the author stresses the events from the years 1848 and 1989, which, all the same, are milestones in the lives of both characters. This piece of work, that constitutes as hybrid combination of detective story and historical fantasy, is the example of revitalization of the subject of history in contemporary literature.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.