The article analyses the “Iron Curtain” as a Czech site of memory.
The official communist narrative denied the Western term “Iron Curtain” and asserted the legalistic argumentation of “state borders protection” supported by nationalistic and ideological arguments. After the fall of the regime in 1989 and the opening of the state borders, the Western “Iron Curtain” paradigm was adopted by the democratizing Czech society whereas the communist narrative
became marginalised. It did not disappear, though, and both interpretations, the “Iron Curtain” as a central part of the new mainstream discourse and the “state border protection” as a peripheral part of post-communist memory, have remained alive side by side. and Článek zahrnuje poznámkový aparát pod čarou
This article examines the nature of the relationship between the kind of textual politics, here referredto as ‘women’s writing’, and the dominant discursive practice of Czech culture, whoselogic and functioning is best encapsulated in the Derridean term ‘phallogocentrism’. Women’swriting is defined here as the kind of writing which locates itself outside the domain and logicof a phallogocentric discourse, trying to challenge and undermine its hegemonic status. In thisrespect, women’s writing is not delimited by the sex of an author, but by his/her gendered subjectivity,his/her position within the discursive formation, and his/her attitude to hegemonic languagepractices. Women’s writing, as understood in this thesis, critically reflects upon the role oflanguage as a decisive medium for our thinking, and questions the notion of subjectivity, whichis usually equated with the Cartesian Ego and conceived as an autonomous entity. Through itstextual strategies, women’s writing reflects upon the fact that we all are inevitably ‘inserted’ intolanguage. Consequently, rather than striving to free itself of – inevitable – discursive formationand constraints, it highlights the formative role of language by means of an ironic, palimpsest‑likere‑writingof conventional literary narratives, as well as by means of textual politics definedby the continuous displacement of meaning. The criticism of the phallogocentric concept of subjectivityis on the one hand informed by the decentring of the identity of the narrating subject,and on the other by one’s awareness of one’s epistemic situatedness within a particular discursivespace. The logic and economy of women’s writing is determined by the tension between itsdrive towards non‑phallogocentricdiscourse, and its paradoxical, yet inevitable dependence onsymbolic codes and hegemonic discursive practices. The subversive potential of women’s writing,as understood here, is thus not situated within a space seen as a radical ‘beyond’, but is directedinwards, into the fissures of the phallogocentric discourse itself.In order to exemplify the features of women’s writing, the article discusses a novel Slabikářotcovského jazyka (A Primer of the Father Tongue) by Sylvie Richterová (who is, apart fromSoučková, Linhartová, Hodrová, and Hrabal, one of the authors discussed in a monograph ofwhich the present article is an excerpt). Richterová’s novel, which may be read as a radical reassessmentof the genre of autobiography, is considered in the article a fragmented space ofmemory, which provides an ambiguous ground for an attempt to integrate a discontinuous identity,an integration that can never be fully accomplished. The paper then argues that one’s identitycan never be grasped as a full and unmediated presence due to both the nature of languagebased on the mechanism of constant deferral (Derrida) and the nature of always already splitsubjectivity based on an essential and constitutive lack (Lacan). Given this crucial yet impossibletask of achieving one’s identity in its full presence, what the text does is to enact textuallythe process of inevitable, benign ‘failure’. Thus, rather than a simple proposition, a meaning ora function of the text resides in recording textual traces of this profoundly meaningful ‘failure’. Ultimately,the article argues, the subversive potential of women’s writing can paradoxically only residein a strategic staging and performance of its very own discursive and epistemological limitsin process, or, as Miroslav Petříček puts it, as a pragmatic contradiction, which means that atthe textual and stylistic level, the text performs the exact opposite of what it conveys at the levelof its proposition.
In her essay, the author deals with the traditional position of woman in Jewish society. Although woman’s life role may seem very restricted and insignificant, according to the tradition, Jewish woman is considered to be the pillar of the family and the key element in passing on the Jewish tradition to future generations. Women’s participation in religious life is limited, yet their main attention is almost exclusively directed towards family and child raising. their absence from religious rituals is perceived as a positive element which enables women to fully concentrate on their most important role of a mother. Jewish families are traditionally large. Among Jewish woman’s main tasks is the observance of family purification rules, preparation of kosher food, arrangements for family celebrations of Sabbath and festivals and child raising. Attention is also paid to the basic principles of matrimonial cohabitation, to the educational opportunities of Jewish women in the past, their charitable and associational activities and the most frequent ways of earning their living.
The study deals with the policy towards the Jewish minority in Slovakia during the first years of the interwar Czechoslovak Republic. In particular it examines the attitudes, semantics and everyday praxis of the members of the new political establishment. Whilst they attempted to solve the "Jewish question" as soon as on the turn of the 19th and 20th century by establishing cooperatives, after the World War I they used their new governmental authority for revising the so-called "liquor licenses" which were seen as a "Jewish privilege". This emphasis on the "practical" or "humanitarian" antisemitism - significant for the Czech and Slovak populism since the late 19th century - merged in the postwar period with the aggressive campaign against the "Judeo-Bolshevism" which was alleged as a threat for the new Czechoslovak state. and Článek zahrnuje poznámkový aparát pod čarou