Transcultural Synopsis of Czech Literatures of the “Long” 19th Century

The project aims to create a synoptic overview of the development of the literatures of the Czech lands in the “long 19th century” in their interaction, conflictual relations and intermingling. Inspired by the cultural science approaches of Bedřich Loewenstein and Andreas Reckwitz, it aims to present literature as an instrument of emancipation and crisis of the (“bourgeois”) subject as a universal project in the specific local conditions of the Czech lands. Taking into account its multilingualism as well as regional and confessional specificities, it traces how “literature” (separated from “writing”) becomes a space for the self-creation and realization of a modern subject based on (aesthetic) autonomy, nationality, history and language. At the same time, we consider the national definition of literature that took place in the period under review as a reaction to the increasing autonomization (and simultaneous disciplining) of the subject. The project team also pays particular attention to theatre culture and the aestheticizing interest in “vernacular” vernacular, and the various contradictions and ambivalences within these tendencies. The emphasis on historical dynamics should not, however, lead to a reduction of literature to “ideas”; the project perceives its “workings” only when it views it in the richness of its forms. The intended synopsis should therefore combine a chronological approach with an emphasis on specific “nodal points”, on the semantic events within the texts in which these processes occur.