Tři listy o sovětské literatuře Alfreda Ljudvigoviče Bema : ruský fenomén a střední Evropa
| Title in English | Three Letters on Soviet Literature by Alfred Bem : the Russian Phenomenon and Central Europe |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Střední Evropa včera a dnes : proměny koncepcí II |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Keywords | Alfred Bem as a Central European; three letters on Soviet literature (1933); the future of Russian literature; the character of Soviet and emigrant literature; Bem and Vrzal on the 20th century Russian literature |
| Description | The author of the present study analyzes three letters on Soviet literature from a Russian émigré living in Prague, but publishing in various emigrant newspapers and journals Alfred Bem (1886-1945?) in whose conception the moderate approach of a Central European has been reflected. The founder of the Prague Dostoevsky Society, specialist in the works of Pushkin, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, demonstrates the decay of Soviet literature at the beginning of the 1930s, but, at the same time, its popularity in the world, the fact Russian literature ceased to be the world literature, but was being translated all the time and remained popular. The reason is – due to the author – its relation to the present time, its currentness and its depiction of everyday life. The author of the present study adds his critical commentary from the position of the other cultural experience and also from the point of view of contemporary knowledge revising some of Bem's assertions accentuating the fact that Russian literature in the world was being spread gradually and subjectively not only thanks to its artistic level, but mainly as a source of the cognition of Russia; this concerns both Russian classical and Soviet literature. The author also demonstrates how national literatures alternate in the world literary canon in temporal waves. |