Search results

1

Bioetický valčík

100%

Bacchini F.

Filosofický časopis (Philosophical Journal)

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2009

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vol. 57

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issue 1

111-123

EN

In Milan Kundera’s novel Farewell Waltz we come across a doctor who is immoral: indifferent, negligent of privacy, manipulative. He is only loyal and available towards his male friends; since his patients are all women (he works in a centre for the treatment of female infertility), we can presume that this is a case of misogyny. However, the truth is deeper. The doctor slides into immorality when he indulges in generalisation, which makes him pay no attention to single individuals but to an abstraction called “humanity”. Only when, thanks to friendship, he regains a particularising outlook, he becomes morally unexceptionable again. Kundera warns us against generalising medicine and describes the apparent paradox of a doctor who does not respect his patients when treating them and making them happy, and instead respects them when he exposes them to the risk of death or asks unreasonable, unconventional favours of them.

2

Ironiczna bezdomność Bohumila Hrabala a tłumiona tęsknota za domem Milana Kundery

87%

Češka J.

Porównania

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2012

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vol. 11

87-99

EN

By means of using the topic of sentiment, the contrast between the writing of Milan Kundera and Bohumil Hrabal is shown. All the typically acknowledged characteristics are reversed. Although Kundera is assigned a label of a cynical, unromantic and antisentimental author and Hrabal is often classified as an author of sensitive understanding, it is through the topic of the home that the reversed can be shown. The arguments can be found on the level of écriture: Kundera’s writing is distinctive, semantically detailed and possesses internal focalisation. These characteristics allow him to enter the topic of condemnation, renegation and the polarisation of the alternative between the home and the foreign. Each of the authors proposes a different answer to the question on homelessness: Hrabal uses the figure of cynically accepted homelessness whereas Kundera a suppressed sentiment which emanates with homelessness.

PL

Posługując się tematyką sentymentu odsłaniamy kontrast między pisarstwem Milana Kundery i Bohumila Hrabala, przy czym odwracamy powszechnie przyjęte charakterystyki. Chociaż Kunderze przyczepia się etykietkę autora cynicznego, nieromantycznego, antysentymentalnego, Hrabal zaś bywa klasyfikowany jako autor wrażliwego zrozumienia, to jednak przez tematykę domu można pokazać, że jest właściwie odwrotnie. Argumenty znajdujemy na poziomie écriture: Pisanie Kundery odznacza się dystynktywnością, znaczeniowym dookreśleniem i specyficzną wewnętrzną fokalizacją. Tymi rysami wpisuje się w tematykę potępienia, renegacji, polaryzacji alternatywy dom – obczyzna. Każdy z autorów proponuje inną odpowiedź na pytanie o tęsknotę za domem: Hrabal stosuje figurę cynicznie akceptowanej bezdomności, podczas gdy u Kundery znajdujemy tłumiony sentyment, z którego wywiera tęsknota za domem.

3

Žert: pohled na totalitní režim

85%

Abarca L. M.

Svět literatury – Časopis pro novodobé literatury (World of Literature – Journal for Modern Literatures)

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2018

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vol. 58

149-154

EN

The purpose of this article is to discuss the totalitarian experience of a human being through the study of The Joke, the first novel by the Czech writer Milan Kundera, written in 1965. Although the work allows us to approach the phenomenon of Soviet totalitarianism through the historical scenario in which the characters develop, alluding without any doubt to the apogee and decay of the Soviet regime in Czechoslovakia, this paper intents to place totalitarianism as a tendency contained in the modern individual. That is, the representation of totalitarianism as an existential situation.

4

Jak nie należy czytać Milana Kundery? (Z Europą Środkową w tle)

80%

Hellich A.

Przegląd Humanistyczny

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2015

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vol. 59(2 (449))

75-84

PL

The purpose of this study is to consider whether it is appropriate to talk about the writing style of the Central Europe as a separate artistic construction. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, when the former Soviet states became part of the western community, Central European society ceased to exist so that the whole project has become an anachronism. One can see it on the example of Kundera’s post-Cold War novels which definitely do not represent the Central European style. It does not mean, however, that one is unable to find a link between Kundera’s The Joke and Immortality. Features such as anti-essentialism, aphoristic and intellectual style, narrative games, ambiguity and irony are appropriate not only for Kundera, but also for other authors of modern novel – with or without Central European citizenship – like Cervantes, Sterne, Broch, Gombrowicz, K. Brandys, Pamuk, etc.

5

Milan Kundera: La fête de l’insignifiance

71%

Prokop D.

Svět literatury – Časopis pro novodobé literatury (World of Literature – Journal for Modern Literatures)

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2016

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vol. 54

107-115

EN

The book-review of Milan Kundera’s last novel of, The Festival of Insignificance (French version 2014, English 2015) describes at first its plot and characters, further it analyses its structure and its types of narration, it endeavors to find its different possible meanings and values (of its form and contents, plot). In the end it attempts to interpret the total sense of its ambiguous subject of insignificance.

6

Kunderovy romány psané ve Francii

71%

Haman A.

Svět literatury – Časopis pro novodobé literatury (World of Literature – Journal for Modern Literatures)

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2016

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vol. 53

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issue 26

56-61

EN

The contribution characterises the poetics of the last four novels written by Milan Kundera (Slowness, Identity, Ignorance, The Festival of Insignificance). Despite certain differences the author of the essay particularly pays attention to elements in which “the French series” follows the poetics of the novels written in Czech (existential theme, sarcastic humour etc.)

7

Sur les traces de Franz Kafka dans l’œuvre de Milan Kundera

71%

Žehrová L.

Svět literatury – Časopis pro novodobé literatury (World of Literature – Journal for Modern Literatures)

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2015

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vol. Special Issue: Le monde de la litérrature

141-148

EN

Franz Kafka is undoubtebly an important part of the literary canon of the Central Europe and especially of the canon formed by Milan Kundera in his works. Kundera considers Kafka to be one of his principal masters. He sees Kafka as an antecendent of surrealism and existencialism. According to his collection of essays The Art of the Novel, Kafka is the prototype of the ideal author who invites us to cross the border of the probable showing us the world from the other side. Thus, we can observe the human existence in different and better way. By showing this, he fills up the main task of every novelist. The contribution will analyze the alludes of Kafka in the work of Kundera and will try to describe their character and explain how Kundera works with examples of Kafka and his work in his own books.

8

Emoční zakotvení poetiky Milana Kundery

71%

Češka J.

Slovo a slovesnost: časopis pro otázky teorie a kultury jazyka (Slovo a slovesnost: A journal for the theory of language and language cultivation)

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2020

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vol. 81

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issue 2

126-144

EN

This study aims to highlight the emotional foundation of the poetics of Milan Kundera, a topic often overlooked as a result of the exaggerated emphasis placed on the intellectual aspect of Kundera’s novels. It is evident here that we can infer Kundera’s poetics from three sources – lyricism, his dramatic work (plays, the construction of dramatic conflict, the function of on-stage speech) and essay writing. The study therefore focuses on rehabilitating the lyrical inspiration generally considered to have been surpassed at the moment of Kundera’s transition from poetry to novel writing. Here it is possible to demonstrate that not only Kundera’s poetic work, but also his specific grasp of the lyrical principle, is present in his later novels. I characterize Milan Kundera as a writer with a distinctive emotional insight, regardless of whether this is a genuine authorial quality or merely an ability evoked within the world of the novel. That is, in the analysis of Kundera’s work, we cannot insist upon any further interpretation.

9

Polskie doświadczenie historyczne a słowiańska perspektywa literacka Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej (Czesław Miłosz, Milan Kundera, Danilo Kiš)

71%

Grigorova M.

Zeszyty Cyrylo-Metodiańskie

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2020

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vol. 9

EN

The text presents the literary reflections of Cz. Milosz, M. Kundera and D. Kis on Central and East-Central Europe in the light of comparative Slavic analysis. Their views are positioned as phases and aspects in the development of the concept of the region in question. The main focus falls on the dialogue between key texts and concepts of the above-mentioned writers on the subject, including their biographies, émigré and dissident contexts, their historical and cultural awareness. At the center of the comparative interpretation are Czesław Miłosz’s views in relation to Polish historical experience regarding the heritage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

PL

W artykule omówiono refleksje literackie Cz. Milosza, M. Kundery i D. Kiša o Europie Środkowej i Środkowo-Wschodniej w świetle porównawczej analizy slawistycznej. Ich poglądy przedstawiono jako fazy i aspekty w rozwoju koncepcji o omawianym regionie. W opracowaniu położono nacisk na dialog między kluczowymi tekstami i konceptami wymienionych pisarzy na postawiony temat, z uwzględnieniem ich biografii, sytuacji emigranckich i dysydenckich oraz historycznej i kulturowej świadomości twórców. Poglądy Czesława Miłosza umieszczono w centrum interpretacji komparatystycznej w odniesieniu do polskiego doświadczenia historycznego oraz dziedzictwa Dawnej Rzeczypospolitej.

10

Literatura a stáří

70%

Češka J.

Slavica Wratislaviensia

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2016

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vol. 163

623-631

EN

This contribution is focused on the specific reflection of the theme (aging) in Milan Kundera’s and Bohumil Hrabal’s work. During the reflection on their poetics and pursuit of its evolving, we can see to what extent the aging (or youth) is a function of literature. Literature and life are distinguished by the opposite characteristics which lead us to consideration that literature provides anchor for life. Literature is eternal youth of irrecoverably disappearing life.

CS

Témou príspevku je špecifické zmocňovanie sa tématiky staroby u Milana Kunderu aBohumila Hrabala. Pri reflexii ich poetiky a pri sledovaní ich vývoja sa ukazuje, nakoľko je staroba (či mladosť) funkciou literatúry. Literatúra a život sa vyznačujú opačnými charakteristikami, ktoré nás privádzajú k úvahám, že práve literatúra poskytuje životu ukotvenie. Literatúra je večnou mladosťou nenávratne miznúceho života.

11

Počátky recepce Kunderova díla ve Francii

70%

Suchomelová L.

Svět literatury – Časopis pro novodobé literatury (World of Literature – Journal for Modern Literatures)

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2018

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vol. 58

123-140

EN

The article describes the reception of the since it’s beginning in 1957 until his resettlement to France in 1975. Its text largely attends to the reception of the novel The Joke which opened the door into French literary world for Kundera not only for it’s unexceptionable qualities but also because of the circumstances of it’s publication. The article also displays the beginning of political interpretation of Kundera’s books which he will try to shake of himslef in following decades. The article shows the popularity of Kundera’s work in France in the beginning of the 70’s when he is perceived as a dissident, a witness to the life behind the iron curtain and at the same time as the point of reference for almost every mention about Czechoslovak culture. Except for The Joke, the article is also dedicated to the reception of The Owners of the Keys, Laughable Loves or the novel Life is Elsewhere.

12

Ve službách románu. Mario Vargas Llosa a Milan Kundera

70%

Poláková D.

Svět literatury – Časopis pro novodobé literatury (World of Literature – Journal for Modern Literatures)

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2018

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vol. 58

141-148

EN

Mario Vargas Llosa and Milan Kundera are eminent novelists and literary theorists and critics. They both acknowledge their debt to Miguel de Cervantes, whose Don Quixote they consider not only the first modern novel, but a symbol of Western civilization. The article focuses on their conception of the novel, the role of fiction and humor, and the possible death of the novel.

13

Šedá zóna mezi záměrem a činem aneb pár úvah o paradoxnosti lidských plánů v prozaické tvorbě Milana Kundery

70%

Janiec-Nyttrai A.

Slavia Occidentalis

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2016

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issue 73/2

33-44

PL

The aim of the study is to offer a slightly different view of Milan Kundera’s prose and to recall the issues of memory and human activities as the subjects of constant interpretation and reinterpretation. Last but not least, the article examines human identity and the freedom of human decision-making. In the study, the theory of cultural oblivion is used as a strategy for building our own identity and subjectivity. Notably, since the 1960s, Kundera has dealt with these issues, which later became the subject of memory studies. Kundera has overtaken the memory boom which was highly popular for some years. Another important issue analysed in the study is the question of responsibility for one’s own deeds, worlds, actions and the issue of the possibility of dialogue between people. All these issues are examined on the basis of Kundera’s novels.

14

Kafka: visionario del totalitarismo

70%

Espejo M.

Svět literatury – Časopis pro novodobé literatury (World of Literature – Journal for Modern Literatures)

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2023

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vol. 33

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issue Special Issue

145-156

EN

The article takes up the title that Milan Kundera used for his essay published in Mexico in 1980, after giving his lecture on Kafka. This article also underlines how some aspects of Kafka’s rich work continue to perfectly translate the image of that totalitarian world. Despite the collapse of the Soviet empire, this tendency refuses to leave the scene of our time. In Latin America, adherence to this trend continues to manifest itself in various countries. However, Kafka’s influence on Spanish-American literature is truly unquantifiable. The case of José Revueltas, with his brilliant novel Los días terrenales (1949), illustrates in a “Kafkaesque” way the meanders of the so-called socialist Revolution. For his part, the unavoidable Borges contributed a lot, since the 1930s, to make known, according to his terms, “another way of conceiving literature”, where Kafka has occupied a central place,

15

Üksinduse maastikud Milan Kundera, Bohumil Hrabali ja Mati Undi teostes: "Olemise talumatu kergus", "Liiga vali üksindus", "Sügisball"

61%

Lõhmus E. L.

Mäetagused

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2022

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vol. 83

253-274

EN

The feeling of loneliness, the topicality of which is gradually increasing in time, requires more and more different approaches for understanding it. Fiction is one of the possible ways to untangle this feeling in a versatile, poetic manner. The writer Milan Kundera in his novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, Bohumil Hrabal in his story “Too Loud a Solitude”, and Mati Unt in his novel “Autumn Ball” have discussed loneliness from different angles, which, put together, enable us to build up a broad picture of this controversial feeling. As the research method, close reading and text analysis were used. The article introduces the psychological concept of loneliness and its types and analyses the literary works based on American philosopher Rubin Gotesky’s classification of loneliness. The article aims to find out what types of loneliness are discussed in the books and in what way they are manifested. All the books analysed in the article present situations and trains of thoughts in which the presence of loneliness is clearly perceivable. However, the border between the different types of loneliness is somewhat blurred. All these works include situations in which both forced and existential loneliness are present. There are also cases of intertwining physical and voluntary loneliness, but these are not the only combinations. Kundera’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” presents the greatest number of philosophical ideas related to loneliness; in Hrabal’s story “Too Loud a Solitude” successive abandonments in human relationships can clearly be noticed, and in Unt’s “Autumn Ball” the urban space bursting with existential loneliness enforces itself at the very beginning, casting a shadow on all the characters and their performance. Each of these works refers to loneliness both in a positive and negative key and the characters are often controversial.

16

Wokół dwujęzyczności czeskich pisarzy emigracyjnych. Literatura jako transgresja

61%

Czaplińska J.

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2013

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vol. 17

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issue 2

111-122

EN

The article is devoted to three writers who changed the language of their prose after leaving their homeland Milan Kundera, Jan Novák i Libuše Moníková. The change of language is a kind of cultural conversion what entails numerous consequentions, causes „being between” two cultures. Reasons of choosing the second language for their work were different in every case and ecery author decided to use different strategy in relation to their native culture and the „new” one: in the case of Kundera we can speak of „being somwhere else”, in the case of Novák it could be named as „nostalgy” and in the case of Moníková her strategy can be called „mission”.

17

Pomlky“ románového vypravěče a „zapovězená“ řeč lidového vypravěče v románech Milana Kundery

57%

Galmiche X.

Svět literatury – Časopis pro novodobé literatury (World of Literature – Journal for Modern Literatures)

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2018

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vol. 58

115-122

EN

Milan Kundera poetics is based on a “world of the romantic fiction built on the personal speech of the narrator” (M. Chvatík). Nevertheless, it enters in contradiction with some essays of Kundera himself, who centers on the figure of the storyteller, active figure of the narrative “from Rabelais to Laurence Sterne” (“Speech of Jerusalem”, resumed in The Art of the Novel). Kundera seems to give for task to the modern narrator to resuscitate an atavistic, pre-rational genius, chairing in instinctual desire to tell. Thus there is a contradiction between the ambition of recovery of the lively word — the voice of the storyteller — by the modern novel, and the actual practice of the story adopted by Kundera. This article tries to describe this paradox through one of these mythical categories approached in a recurring way by Kundera: that of laughter.

18

Poslední román Milana Kundery jako reflexe, reinterpretace a pointa svébytné autorské poetiky : studie o slavnosti bezvýznamnosti

57%

Češka J.

Česká literatura (Czech Literature)

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2019

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vol. 67

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issue 2

170-187

EN

This study focuses on the last novel by Milan Kundera La fête de l’insignifiance (The Festival of Insignificance), which came out in Italian quite unexpectedly in 2013, two years after the „definitive“ completion of the author’s work in the prestige La Pléiade series. In this novel Milan Kundera moves resolutely beyond the horizon of his previous poetics, carrying on from his usual motifs, but not in order to repeat them, but quite the reverse, in order to redefine and re-encode them. This novel forms a kind of counterpoint to his previous work. This study focuses on the way the author reconceives his creative output in his last work: whether on the topic of mothers and their previous despotic relations with their sons, a reassessment of eroticism, the newly conceived role of laughter and an era defined as the age following the twilight of the joke, radicalized internal focalization, which no longer plays the role of a kind of semantic anchor and the like. As The Festival of Insignificance holds up a unique mirror to his previous work, we can follow him in the light of motifs from previous novels and prose works such as I, Mournful God, The Farewell Waltz, Jacques and his Master, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and Life is Elsewhere. Of course, what is also essential here is the newly defined literature as a space in which authors attempt to resist the watchful surveillance of nature (materialized and metaphysically anchored in the novel as the blind eye of the belly button). Kundera’s last novel is thus also treated as a discomforting interpretational challenge that can be answered with an integrative interpretational gesture that attempts to achieve refraction into various lines of meaning, where Milan Kundera’s last novel is dealt with as the vanishing point of his entire work.

19

Agon, los a może fatum? Milana Kundery zmagania z Europą Środkową

57%

Brodacka M.

Bohemistyka

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2021

|

issue 2

EN

Celem artykułu jest rekonstrukcja idei środkowoeuropejskiej w twórczości Mila- na Kundery. Analizie zostają poddane kluczowe dla tej kategorii utwory: Księga śmiechu i zapomnienia oraz Zachód porwany albo tragedia Europy Środkowej. Tekst ten stanowi próbę utworzenia Kunderowskiego słownika Europy Środkowej, dlatego poruszone zostają takie kategorie jak: los i fatum, pamięć i zapomnienie, teoria kozła ofiarnego oraz metaforyczna śmierć powieści. W artykule zostaje podkreślona klu- czowa rola kultury, jako budulca tożsamości środkowoeuropejskiej w opozycji do dominującego dyskursu historyczno-politycznego.

PL

The aim of the paper is to reconstruct the Central European idea in Milan Kundera’s work. The study analyses key works for the Central European category: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and The Stolen West or The Tragedy of Central Europe. This text is an attempt to create the Kundera’s dictionary of Central Europe, and therefore it addresses such categories as fate and fate, memory and forgetfulness, scapegoat theory and the metaphorical death of the novel. The article highlights the key role of culture as a matter of Central European identity in opposition to the dominant historical-political discourse.

20

Postkoloniální střední Evropa? Kunderův „unesený Západ“ v zrcadle postkoloniální kritiky

50%

Slačálek O.

Slovo a smysl - Word & Sense

|

2020

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vol. 17

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issue 2

105-130

EN

This article has a twofold aim: 1) to introduce four theoreticians who transfer concepts of postcolonial theory to the analysis of post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe; 2) to apply these concepts to the interpretative dialogue of Milan Kundera’s essay *e Tragedy of Central Europe (1983). Te article thus presents the main concepts of the Bulgarian historian Maria Todorova (Balkanism and its similarities with and diferences to Orientalism), American-Polish literary historian and Slavicist Ewa Tompson (surrogate hegemon, Sarmatism), Russian cultural theorist Madina Tlostanova (speaking from colonial wounds), and Hungarian sociologist Agnes Gagyi. In particular, the presentation of Todorova and Tompson is complemented by the presentation of the debates caused by their work (Diana Mishkova and Rastko Močnik in Todorova’s case, Stanley Bill, Jan Sowa, Claudia SnochowskaGonzalez in Thompson’s case) and conceptual alternatives (Maria Janion). The concepts of these authors are used to demonstrate how Kundera’s essay is based on his ignorance of both non-European world and European internal peripheries, how it homogenizes Central European experiences, how it replaces politics by culture, and how it contributes to conservative identitarian positions which are not shared by Kundera in his other writings. In conclusion, the article discusses the mutual ignorance of Central European discourse and postcolonial discourse, and the possibilities of dialogue. On the meta-level the article also poses the question of how dialogue between theories of literature and political theory can enrich both participants.

Refine search results

Bioetický valčík

Ironiczna bezdomność Bohumila Hrabala a tłumiona tęsknota za domem Milana Kundery

Žert: pohled na totalitní režim

Jak nie należy czytać Milana Kundery? (Z Europą Środkową w tle)

Milan Kundera: La fête de l’insignifiance

Kunderovy romány psané ve Francii

Sur les traces de Franz Kafka dans l’œuvre de Milan Kundera

Emoční zakotvení poetiky Milana Kundery

Polskie doświadczenie historyczne a słowiańska perspektywa literacka Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej (Czesław Miłosz, Milan Kundera, Danilo Kiš)

Literatura a stáří

Počátky recepce Kunderova díla ve Francii

Ve službách románu. Mario Vargas Llosa a Milan Kundera

Šedá zóna mezi záměrem a činem aneb pár úvah o paradoxnosti lidských plánů v prozaické tvorbě Milana Kundery

Kafka: visionario del totalitarismo

Üksinduse maastikud Milan Kundera, Bohumil Hrabali ja Mati Undi teostes: "Olemise talumatu kergus", "Liiga vali üksindus", "Sügisball"

Wokół dwujęzyczności czeskich pisarzy emigracyjnych. Literatura jako transgresja

Pomlky“ románového vypravěče a „zapovězená“ řeč lidového vypravěče v románech Milana Kundery

Poslední román Milana Kundery jako reflexe, reinterpretace a pointa svébytné autorské poetiky : studie o slavnosti bezvýznamnosti

Agon, los a może fatum? Milana Kundery zmagania z Europą Środkową

Postkoloniální střední Evropa? Kunderův „unesený Západ“ v zrcadle postkoloniální kritiky