Zdeněk Kalista se začal literární kritice nesoustavně věnovat jako doplňku své původní literární tvorby již na počátku dvacátých let. Systematičtější literárněkritická aktivita je s jeho jménem spjata v polovině let dvacátých, kdy vede kulturní rubriku časopisu Demokratický střed (1925-1927) a zakládá časopis První svazek (1926-1927). Do obou těchto časopisů píše jako pendant svých programotvorných a kulturně publicistických textů též příspěvky literárněkritické, které podepisuje mj. Václav Hrbek. Definitivně se pak Kalistův literárněkritický typ vyhraňuje ve třicátých letech na stránkách časopisu Lumír, do jehož vedení se dostává po smrti Viktora Dyka v roce 1931 a kde se počíná systematicky věnovat referování o soudobé české básnické produkci. Kalistova kritická profilace byla zřetelně ovlivněna jeho profesí historika: básnické dílo se mu stávalo pramenem k analýze soudobé duchové atmosféry. V zásadě Kalista přistupuje k textu básnického díla z hermeneutických pozic bez výraznějších předem zformulovaných kritických měřítek. Básnické dílo se snaží uchopit prostřednictvím porozumějícího náhledu a kritická měřítka vyvozuje až při jeho recepci z něj samého. Není přitom kritikem ideologickým či stranickým, byť dominantní oblasti jeho kritického zájmu lze poměrně zřetelně uchopit (poezie „obnoveného baroka“, tj. verše Lazeckého, Renče a Kostohryze, Čarkova „poezie půdy“, zájem o mladé debutanty atp.). V svých kritických analýzách Kalista hojně pracuje s hlediskem komparativním a vývojovým. Osobitá je pak jeho kritická terminologie a metodika. Vedle důrazu na duchovní stránky skutečnosti, kterým zřetelně předjímá své pozdější teoretické koncepty z oboru jím postulovaných a propagovaných „dějin duchových“, pracuje především s pojmy organičnosti a ústrojnosti básnické tvorby. Zřetelně do Kalistových kritických textů pronikají též inspirace z ostatních oblastí jeho tvůrčího zájmu, především pak z jeho zájmu o kulturu a dějiny barokní epochy a o kulturu a umění vůbec. Pravidelnou pozornost Kalista věnoval též překladové poezii. V průběhu třicátých let představovala kritika dominantní oblast jeho literárních aktivit. Po zániku Lumíra roku 1940 se však již Zdeněk Kalista i pod tíhou vnějších okolností k soustavné literárněkritické činnosti nevrátil. and Zdeněk Kalista (1900–1982), a scholar of the Baroque, began to devote himself to reviewing as a complement to his original literary work in the early 1920s. His more systematic work in literary criticism began in the mid‑1920s, when he was in charge of the arts section of the periodical Demokratický střed (The Democratic Centre, 1925–27) and founded the periodical První svazek (The First Volume, 1926–27). Under various pseudonyms, including Václav Hrbek, he wrote reviews in addition to articles on other areas of the arts and also forming his programme. His approach to criticism became clear in the 1930s in the periodical Lumír, of which he became Editor‑in‑Chief after Viktor Dyk’s death in 1931. It was here that he began systematically to write articles on contemporary Czech verse. As a critic, Kalista was clearly influenced by his being an historian: a work of poetry became for him a source to be used in the analysis of the spirit of the times. Kalista essentially approached the text of a work of poetry from hermeneutically, without having clearly critical criteria. He sought to comprehend the work sensitively, and deduced his criteria afterwards. He was not an ideological or partisan critic, though his chief professional interest as a critic is relatively clearly understood. (For example, the verse of the ‘Baroque Revival’, in particular, the verse of František Lazecký, Václav Renč, and Josef Kostohryz, as well as Jan Čarek’s ‘Boden poetry’ and young poets making their débuts). In his criticism Kalista worked considerably with comparison and the study of development. His terminology and methods are distinctive. Apart from an emphasis on the spiritual side of reality, which clearly anticipated his later theoretical concepts from the field of ‘spiritual history’, which he postulated and promoted, he worked chiefly with the concept of the ‘organicity’ of poetry. Kalista’s criticism is also manifestly influenced by other areas of his interest, other areas of Baroque art and history and the arts in general. He also regularly paid attention to poetry in translation. By the 1930s book reviewing was the chief area of his work in literature. After Lumír was closed down in 1940, however, and also under the weight of external circumstances, Kalista no longer returned to regular book reviewing.
The presented essay was originally published as ''Il samizdat tra dialogo e monologo: Le attività editoriali di Zdeněk Mlynář e la scelta degli interlocutori'' in the Italian online journal eSamizdat: Rivista di culture dei paesi slavi (2010-11, pp. 261-80). This double issue is based on papers given at the conference ''Samizdat between Memory and Utopia: Independent Culture in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century,'' which was held at Padua University in late May and early June 2011, and is freely accessible on the periodical website (http://www.esamizdat.it/rivista/2010-2011/index.htm). For its publication in Soudobé dějiny, the author has considerably expanded his essay, particularly after doing research in the Mlynář Papers deposited in the National Archive, Prague. The author concentrates mainly on the research and publishing activities of the politician and political scientist Zdeněk Mlynář (1930-1997) while he was in exile, which he puts into a detailed chronology of his career as a public fi gure. He asks and seeks to answer the general question whether the milieu of samizdat and independent publishing, which developed in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s, did or did not leave deep traces also in the structures of the various political activities of those who criticised the state-sanctioned arts and sciences of ''normalisation'' Czechoslovakia. The author points out that Mlynář has today been largely ousted from Czech historical memory, even though he was amongst the leading opponents of the regime after its collapse, and tried to regain a place in Czechoslovak politics. The author recalls Mlynář’s becoming a member of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, his law studies in Moscow in the fi rst half of the 1950s, where he formed a lasting friendship with his fellow-student Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931), and last but not least Mlynář as an expert researching the prospects of the socialist political system in the 1960s. He then concentrates on Mlynář’s work during the Prague Spring of 1968, when he became a member of the reformist leadership of the CommunistParty on the side of Alexander Dubček (1921-1992). After the August intervention by the armies of fi ve Warsaw Pact states, Mlynář gradually became disillusioned with the possibilities of continuing reform, and he resigned from the Party leadership. In the early 1970s, he found employment in the Department of Entomology of the National Museum, Prague, and avoided political life completely. Nevertheless, he gradually started to take part in debates with other reformists expelled from the Party about the possibilities of infl uencing developments in Czechoslovakia with the help of left-wing parties in Western Europe. The author discusses Mlynář’s analyses of the situation at the time, the development of his views, and his integration into the nascent dissident movement, which appeared after the founding of Charter 77. A few months later, in June 1977 to be precise, Mlynář emigrated to Austria as a consequence of a smear campaign against the Chartists. The author focuses on Mlynář’s close work amongst Czech exiles, particularly with the increasingly diverse Listy group, which was established by Jiří Pelikán (1923-1999). The group in question was centred on the exile periodical of the same title, which was published in Rome and formed the core of Czechoslovak socialist opposition in exile. In addition, the author focuses on the efforts of Mlynář and his colleagues to win support among Western left-wing circles, particularly in relation to the Italian Communists and Socialists and later the West German Social Democrats. He also takes into account Mlynář’s political essays, which met with a considerable response amongst the public of Western Europe, and the clear shift in opinion from the initial model of a political system with Communist Party hegemony to political pluralism. In this context, the author then gives a comprehensive account of two large research and publishing projects coordinated by Mlynář. The fi rst project, from 1979 to 1982, was entitled ''Experiences of the Prague Spring of 1968''; its participants were almost exclusively Czech sociologists, historians, economists, jurists, and other specialists in exile. The project resulted in almost 30 mimeographed volumes in three language versions (mostly Italian, French, and English), which were distributed by several hundred carefully selected left-wing individuals and institutions in the West, and it culminated in a congress held in Paris. According to the author, this little known project represents one of the most profound and essentially never-published refl ections on the origins, development, and failure of the Prague Spring. The second project, entitled ''Crises in Soviet-type Systems,'' ran from 1982 to the late 1980s, and presented the perspectives of authors from a wider range of central European countries. It resulted in 16 works by Czech, Polish, Hungarian, and East German authors, published by the leading Czech exile publishing house, Index, as small paperback editions in English, French, and indeed German. The number of its subscribers grew to about 2,000. Part of the project was presenting papers at conferences and other international forums. Both of the projects in question, according to the author, demonstrate Mlynář and his colleagues’ persistent orientation to exclusive circles of the political Left in the West, whom, in their efforts to change things in Czechoslovakia, they preferred to the dissidents still in Czechoslovakia.