The number of copies of Wyclif's Latin works that derive from Bohemia and are mostly preserved now in Prague and Vienna is familiar ground. The evidence for the scrutiny of those works is less frequently mentioned: very extensive indexes were provided in Bohemia for many of the longer works, together with a catalogue of 115 items by Wyclif, listing titles, incipits and explicits and the number of books and chapters for each. Even more remarkable are the copies of the writings of some of Wyclif's English followers, though some of these followers were in correspondence with Bohemian fellows, some of the texts narrate entirely English affairs that would seem of little interest so far away. The paper surveys these manuscripts and notes the questions that they raise. and Anne Hudson.
The study offers a basic overview of the manuscripts of the ars memorativa treatises in late medieval Czech lands. On the basis of the surviving evidence it is possible to prove that during the 15th century this ancient art (however suspicious and cumbersome it may seem today) was known and practiced here. It coexisted with general (often primarily medical) set of advices on efficient studying some of which openly criticize the art of memory for being too impractical. Besides copies of Italian and West European art of memory models, there is a number of these treatises and shorter treatments of the art composed in the Czech lands. Each of them includes specific features and innovations not encountered elsewhere. The manuscript context of ars memorativa shows that it was not seen as a part of rhetoric theory intended for a restricted number of intellectuals but as a means of storing and recuperating important information actively used especially by students and preachers. and Lucie Doležalová.
In this issue, we feature an interview with the president of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (AS CR), Prof. Jiří Drahoš. The interview focuses on funding science and research at AS CR and the methodology that has become the universal tool for distributing money to the whole Czech science as a whole. On the basis of this government-conceived tool, the institutional financial grant for the AS CR should be reduced by about 50 percent by 2012. and Marina Hužvárová.
V esejisticky pojaté reflexi si autor nejprve všímá některých inspiračních zdrojů a interpretačních rámců Sukovy knihy, které ho přivádějí k zamyšlení nad tématem absurdity socialistického světa jako konstituentu Havlovy dramatické tvorby i disidentské činnosti. V kostce řečeno, podle autora namísto absurdního divadla šedesátých let nastoupila antipolitika let takzvané normalizace. Charakterizuje poté antipolitiku jako konstrukci morálního světa v distanci vůči danému politickému řádu, poukazuje na její hlavní rysy a rozebírá její smysl na základě známého Havlova eseje Moc bezmocných. Sukovu knihu autor vnímá jako příběh o tom, jak se disidentské slovo stalo politickou mocí. Jiří Suk podle něj potvrzuje, že je nejlepším historikem havlovského disentu a konce husákovského komunismu. V knize odvedl solidní kus historické práce, opřené o důkladné studium pramenů, nezůstává ale stát u plochého pozitivismu, nýbrž hledá vhodné teoretické rámce pro historickou interpretaci. Výsledkem je pronikavé osvětlení nedávných českých dějin. Sukův důraz na historickou kontinuitu, která dává výkladu sjednocující perspektivu, ale zahlazuje podle autora některé dobové švy a rozpory. Zaprvé je tak opomenuta jistá Havlova distance v dobách disentu vůči západním demokraciím, ba dokonce vůči režimu liberální demokracie. Dále zůstalo podceněno Havlovo zdráhání, když v roce 1989 byla na pořadu dne politizace disentu. A zatřetí nebyl doceněn zlom v konceptu antipolitiky, který znamenala skutečnost, že se Havel stalo politickým vůdcem a v souboji o moc užíval způsobů reálpolitiky., b1_In this essay, the author first considers some of the sources of inspiration and interpretative frameworks of Suk’s book, which have led the author, Znoj, to consider the theme of the absurdity of the Socialist world as a component of Havel’s work as a dramatist and a dissident. In a nutshell, the author argues that the anti-politics of the Normalization period of the 1970s and 1980s took the place of the theatre of the absurd of the 1960s. He then describes anti-politics as the construction of a moral world that maintained a distance from the existing political order, and he points out its main features and analyses the meaning of that distance by considering Havel’s well-known essay, ‘The Power of the Powerless’ (1978). Suk’s book, according to the author, is the story of how the dissident’s word became political power. Suk, he argues, has thus demonstrated that he is the best historian of Havel’s dissidence and the end of the Communist regime led by Husák. This book is a solid historical work based on a thorough examination of the sources, but its author has gone beyond mere positivism; he has developed a suitable theoretical framework for historical interpretation. The result casts a penetrating light on recent Czech history. Suk’s emphasis on historical continuity gives the interpretation a unifying perspective while, according to the author, papering over some of the seams and smoothing out some of the conflicts of the period. First, Suk has omitted Havel’s distancing himself from Western democracies when he was a dissident, even his distancing himself from liberal democracy per se. Second, he has underestimated Havel’s reluctance to politicize the dissident movement when the matter was being hotly debated in 1989., b2_And, third, Suk appears not to have fully appreciated Havel’s sudden change in his conception of ‘anti-politics’, which meant Havel’s becoming a political leader and using the methods of realpolitik in the struggle for power., [autor recenze] Milan Znoj., Obsahuje bibliografii, and Tři hlasy k jedné knize