CRIME STORY, NATIONAL LITERATURE AND EDUARD FIKER (ON SITUATION CONCERNING GENRE IN THE CZECH CULTURE OF THE 30-TIETH AND 40-TIETH IN THE 20TH CENTURY) (Czech title - below)

• Authors: Janacek Pavel
• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

(Title in Czech - 'Detektivka, narodni literatura a Eduard Fiker (K situaci zanru v ceske kulture tricatych a ctyricatych let 20. stoleti)'). The first fifteen novels by Eduard Fiker, the author of detective and adventurous fictions, published between 1933 - 1936 contained stories from England, Africa and Northern America. His detective stories with Czech characters acting in the Czech environment appeared only in 1937. From the end of the 50-tieth of the 20th century in literary scholarly circle a legend has been known, according to it Fiker wrote in the beginning of the 30-tieth several novels so called 'Czech' (that means with the theme coming from the Czech environment). Publisher refused to publish those novels. They made him start his career as a writer by accomplishing novels based on non-Czech material - 'English' detective stories. The paper is an analysis of the mentioned legend in the context of contemporary Czech literary communication of the 20-tieth - 30-tieth. It results in opinion that with high probability the legend was created ex post. And it was constructed in the way that author had to respond private publishers, who because of their individual commercial interests restricted development of the national literature, its progress. The myths like that became in the period of Stalinism a part of socialist literary culture. View, on the reviews reflecting early Fiker's novels, shows different logical paradigms typical for the ideal of national literature in Czech culture in that time. Some of the reviewers (mainly those connected with the printed media of conservative political and cultural orientation) made objections that the first novels are not thematically originated in the Czech lands. They challenged him to receive romantically positivistic ideal of national literature. The others did not share that opinion and they did not see it as a problem or mistake that the novels are not from domestic environment. They found weaknesses of the novels mostly in the area of supranational aesthetics of the genre. There were two equally accepted ideals of the detective story in the half of the 30-tieth of the 20th c: nationally unique novels and those ones meeting internationally standards of quality. As the thesis of the study shows after the 1935 the two tracks option is replaced by the exclusiveness of the ideal of national literature. It is a result of the intimidation from the side of the Nazi Germany in the turn of the 30-tieth a 40-tieth. The process culminated in the second half of the 50-tieth after the period of Stalinism, in which the national component appears as the leading stimulus in the socialist literature being newly constructed. In more general ranks the story of early novels of Eduard Fiker is an illustration of transformation of the Czech literary culture in 1930 - 1960.

Keywords

EN

CRIME; CZECH CULTURE; CZECH LITERATURE; DETECTIVE STORY; FIKER EDUARD

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovenská literatúra (Slovak Literature)
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 56
• Issue: 5-6
• Pages: 438-450
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Janacek Pavel

• Pavel Janacek, Ustav slovenskej literatury SAV, Konventna 13, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovak Republic; www.uslit.sav.sk/slovlit.htm

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

10SKAAAA08564