Neobyčejný kronikář obyčejného života v době kolektivizace
An Extraordinary Chronicler of Ordinary Life in the Era of Collectivization

Summary/Abstract: The author of the main text published in the volume "Mladočovské Jericho: Kolektivizace jedné vesnice" [The Mladočov Jericho: The Collectivization of a Village], Jan Boštík (1901–1983), was a small farmer who resided in the village of Mladočov near Litomyšl in East Bohemia, an amateur of regional history and archaeology, and a “folk” writer. Throughout the 1950s, he chronicled in diary entries the collisions between the traditional village community and the communist regime, which was forcibly imposing collectivization. In the 1970s, Boštík transformed his writings into a comprehensive and coherent regional chronicle of a revolutionary era, and stylized it as a distinctive Old Testament narrative of the destruction of Jericho. In the reviewer’s opinion, the book – which in addition to the carefully edited manuscript contains a biographical and a historical study as well as some other texts – clearly stands out from the numerous works of historical literature devoted to the topic of collectivization in communist Czechoslovakia and represents an extraordinary publishing achievement. Boštík tends towards aphoristic expression, often employing irony and sarcasm, while at the same time his text shows a strong sense of belonging to the local community and a deep Christian faith. The latter makes this testimony to the demise of an entire world seem not only tragic but also reconciliatory.

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