Bohemica Litteraria (Jul 2013)
Dům s pevnými základy...? : reflexe padesátých let v normalizační próze
Abstract
This study describes the image of the post-war history created in the prose of the 1970s and 1980s, especially in those socio-historical novels which were published officially and fulfilled political and ideological demands (in agreement with the government's official document titled "Lessons from the Crisis: Development in the Party and Society after the 13th Congress of the Czechoslovak Communist Party"). It focuses especially on novels depicting the period of the beginning of the 1950s, usually called "Stalinism", "Dogmatism" or "Cult of Personality". It was interpreted as a victory, as well as the model for "the present" on the one hand, but, on the other hand, it was necessary to explain and re-interpret the events such as political injustice or forcible collectivization of agriculture. The study shows the fixed and preferred patterns and ideological model solutions, known from the older novels written in the socialist realism period, and describes the new possibilities, "the innovation" utilized by the Normalization writers to describe those periods and events. It characterizes the schemes, motifs and storylines often used to describe the period, and it also deals with the pattern of typical heroes (and the focus on intellectuals).
