Literární komparatistika, středoevropský kulturní prostor a teorie literárních dějin

The author of the present article deals with the crucial and topical problems concerning both the history and theory of national literatures and the comparative studies and their methodology in general. Commenting upon the volumes of the History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe the author arrives - apart from the general positive evaluation of this scholarly attempt - at several critical conclusions which even appear in the title of the immense project - "literary cultures" and "East-Central Europe". He starts with the basic meaning of comparative literary studies and with a certain tension between the supranational and national literary structures in their both diachronous and synchronous partial and general (universal) aspects. He accentuates the necessity to be very careful and take into account not only contemporary, topical state of things, the contemporary more or less political status of literature, but also the diachronous structures which emerge from the deep basis of mentalities and cultures of the past. He comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to apply neither a strictly historical approach and to transfer the past situations into the current position nor to modernize the past. In this sense he gives several examples and samples typical of these manipulations. There cannot be definite conclusions, but only basic principles oscillating between universal and specific points of view in the form of a decalogue: 1) The various methods of comparative studies are useful for the study of Central Europe only if implementing the principles of area, territorial or zonal, cultural, religious and political studies, but preserving the philological core of the entity as the key-factor. 2) It is inevitable to study not only coincidences and similarities, but, above all, divergencies and resistances which are often methodologically more prolific. 3) Central Europe is more a spiritual or cultural than a geopolitical entity. 4) It si useless to serve political purposes. One of the relic of this thinking is the term Ostmitteleuropa (East Central Europe). Such an entity has never existed, it is a factual, purpose-built construct such as, for example, West and East Balkans. 5) It is necessary to regard the remnants of the Cold War as false and harmful like the assertion that Prague is situated in the East and Helsinki in the West, or Dresden lies in Central Europe while Cheb (German Eger, from Latin Egra) in the East Central Europe (Ostmitteleuropa). See the selected Central European bibliography in the volume Litteraria Humanitas XI. Crossroads of Cultures: Central Europe, Kreuzwege der Kulturen: Mitteleuropa, Křižovatky kultury: Střední Evropa, Перекрестки культуры: Средняя Европа. Masarykova univerzita, Filozofická fakulta, Ústav slavistiky, Brno 2002, editor: Ivo Pospíšil). 6) The keys to the Central European entity are rather would-be marginal undercurrents and outsiders. Thus it is recommendable to study these phenomena which do not form the mainstream in Central European national literatures (religiously oriented cultural/literary streams and currents, e. g. Catholic Modernism, traditionalism, rural literature, utopian and anti-utopian literatures, conservatism of all strands, regressive trends, static literary structures, naive art, children's literature, mass literature/Trivialliteratur, genres of virtual authenticity etc.). 7) While studying the literature of Central Europe, it is useful to start from comparing the transformations of literary genres. 8) It is recommendable to avoid the danger of the prevelant impact of shallow, but nowadays fashionable subjects and approaches, such as the pure focus on the internet, mass media, sexual deviations, social or domestic violence, gender studies, political correctness etc. 9) To study Central Europe also means the implementation of the so-called invaders, i. e. crucial outer stimuli, such as the impact of French, Anglo-American and Scandinavian cultures, the problem of immigration and emigration, the impact of East Slavs in general and the Russians in particular, the impact of Balkan and Asian elements, non-Christian religions etc. 10) It si inevitable to avoid the exaggeration of Western cosmopolitan conceptions of literature in the axiological sense according to the thesis: "The less national, the better."