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Start Over Creator Soukup, Daniel

2. Rebelanti, tuláci a cikáni - domestikace jinakosti v Hálkově venkovské próze

Creator:
Soukup, Daniel
Format:
bez média and svazek
Type:
model:article and TEXT
Language:
Czech
Description:
This article is concerned with the representation of Gypsies in ‘Bajrama’ (1858), an early short story by Vítězslav Hálek, contrasting it with other of his prose works which portray Bohemian village life. It is hoped that this contextual approach might lead to a subtler interpretation of the Gypsy characters in ‘Bajrama’ than a critical deconstruction of the ‘Gypsy stereotype’ would yield. Critics have noted the importance of the Romantic triad music–nature–love (typical also of the literary portrayal of the Gypsy) in Hálek’s works. What has received less attention is the communal dimension of his portrayal of the erotic. Although several pairs of Hálek’s ideal lovers spend some time alone in the wild, this period of their life is always temporary. Especially in Hálek’s late prose works (‘Na statku a v chaloupce’, ‘Na vejminku’, and ‘Pod pustým kopcem’), the narrative culminates in the creation of a model home (one of Hálek’s central concepts), which becomes also the social and symbolic centre of the village community. It is therefore difficult to agree with F. X. Šalda’s view that Hálek is ‘in favour of complete freedom, almost an anarchist’. In fact, Hálek’s ostensible radicalism masks a Weltanschauung which has a good deal in common with the traditional patriarchal ideal. With its predictable plot (making use of the eternal triangle) and its stereotypical elements in the representation of the Gypsies, the short story ‘Bajrama’ might not appear remarkable in itself. Nevertheless, this tragic story of a Bohemian village lad, Jeník, with the Gypsy girl, Bajrama, differs in many respects from the depiction of love in other works by Hálek. For one thing, the Gypsies are not associated with either of Hálek’s usual idealistic conceptualizations of nature (‘ubiquitous music’ and the ‘unchanging laws’). Instead, Hálek has them embody the morally dubious notions of homelessness and wildness. More important, Jeník remains hopelessly torn between his desire to retain his prominent position in the Bohemian village community and his desperate passion for the sinister otherness of Bajrama. This dilemma reaches its narrative conclusion (both Jeník and Bajrama are killed by the girl’s Gypsy lover, Salem), but at the existential level, it cannot be resolved. Beneath the conventional tragic plot of ‘Bajrama’, one therefore finds traces of a genuine ethical and psychological tragedy: a fatal rift between erotic desire and an acceptable ideal of love.
Rights:
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ and policy:public

3. Šimon Abeles. Zrození barokní legendy

Creator:
Soukup, Daniel
Format:
bez média and svazek
Type:
model:article and TEXT
Language:
Czech
Description:
In 1694 Lazar Abeles, a Prague Jew, was accused of murdering his son, Shimon, who had wanted to be baptized. The murder qualifi ed as a crime stemming from ‘hatred for the Christian faith’ (ex odio fi dei). The inhabitants of Prague became fascinated by the case, and as more journalists wrote about the boy’s death tensions between Christians and Jews rose too. Contemporaneous works describe Shimon as a martyr and a new saint, though he had never offi cially converted to Christianity. The case was widely recorded, including in three documents that represent special types of hagiographic literature. The fi rst is the anonymous Czech treatise Inqvisitorní Process (Inquisitorial Proceedings, 1696), a collection of legal, government, and Church records of the Roman Catholic Inquisition. The second is a Latin account by the Jesuit Johannes Eder, Virilis Constantia (Manly Constancy, 1696), a classic hagiographic text. The last is Agnus inter Haedos (A Lamb among the Goats, 1738), a Latin -Czech school play, which was put on at the Jesuit seminary in the New Town, Prague, by grammar -school pupils. In these texts the narrative of Shimon Abeles is adapted to the image of a new martyr by repeated formulas, fi gures of speech, tropes, and topoi. These literary elements were common both to medieval literature and to early modern writing. Analysis of hagiographic commonplaces may show us how the Baroque legend came into being and was then transformed in hagiographic literature because of religious interests. They also reveal stereotypes of Jews, the roots of modern antisemitism.
Rights:
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ and policy:public

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