O konstruktivistce a esencialistovi
The Constructivist and the Essentialist

The style and motifs of two reinterpretations of the Libuše myth

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to show how two contemporary Czech postmodern writers deal with the fictional renarration of the Libuše myth. Pole a palisáda (The Field and the Palisade, 2006) by Miloš Urban brings forth a traditional conception of the story of the princess who found herself a husband; however, the novella also uses some present-day writing techniques. Vilma Kadlečková wrote her story O snovačce a přemyslovi (The Weaver and the Premeditator, 2007 and 2015) as an answer to Urban’s adaptation and offers a completely different approach, setting the story in the near future and reversing many of its elements. Whereas Urban’s text is essentialist in nature, using ideas such as the rigid positions of the genders and an anthropocentric view of nature as its cornerstones, Kadlečková presents a work of fiction rooted in the postmodern and poststructuralist notion of social constructivism — her novella works with the idea of reality being shaped by what society believes in.

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