Преход и постсоциализъм. Литература, памет, общество след 1989 година (Сборник с докладите от едноименния международен научен колоквиум, проведен на 21 септември 2023 г. в Славянския институт на Академията на науките на Чешката република)
Transition and Postsocialism. Literature, Memory, Society After 1989 (Papers from the International Scientific Colloquium held on 21 September 2023 at the Institute of Slavonic Studies of the Czech Academy of Sciences)
Author(s): Jan Rychlík, Pavel Janoušek, Miroslav Kouba, Nikolay Papuchiev, Ani Burova, Vera Kaplická Yakimova, Boris Minkov, Kristiyan Yanev, Jakub Kapičiak, Miroslav Olšovský, Jakub Mikulecký, Alena Fialová-Šporková, Radoslav Passia, Aleš Kozár, Slaveya Dimitrova
Contributor(s): Ani Burova (Composer), Slaveya Dimitrova (Composer), Jakub Mikulecký (Composer), Ani Burova (Editor), Slaveya Dimitrova (Editor), Jakub Mikulecký (Editor)
Subject(s): History, Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Social history, Comparative Study of Literature, Bulgarian Literature, Czech Literature, Polish Literature, Russian Literature, Slovak Literature, Slovenian Literature, Present Times (2010 - today)
Published by: Софийски университет »Св. Климент Охридски«
Keywords: Postsocialism; Bulgarian literature; Czech literature; Slovak literature; Russian literature; Polish literature; Slovenian literature; Transition; Memory; Society
Summary/Abstract: The volume contains the papers presented at the International Scientific Colloquium “Transition and Postsocialism: Literature, Memory, Society after 1989,” held in September 2023 in Prague, at the Slavic Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The articles by Bulgarian, Czech and Slovak scholars included in this collection explore the post-socialist literary context and the processes in literature since 1989. Subject to scholarly analysis are the artistic forms through which contemporary works represent the decades of socialism, the turning point in 1989 and the period of the Transition. In addition to the perspective of literature, the issues of post-socialism and the Transition are examined through the prism of history, of the social processes and the media.
- Print-ISBN-13: 978-954-07-6098-8
- Page Count: 187
- Publication Year: 2025
- Language: Slovak, Bulgarian, Czech
Revoluce 1989: Očekávaní a výsledky
Revoluce 1989: Očekávaní a výsledky
(Revolutions of 1989: Expectations and Results)
- Author(s):Jan Rychlík
- Language:Czech
- Subject(s):History, Social history, Recent History (1900 till today), Transformation Period (1990 - 2010)
- Page Range:7-14
- No. of Pages:8
- Keywords:Velvet Revolution; 1989; Czechoslovakia
- Summary/Abstract:Revolutions invariably bring in an illusion of the beginning of a new age. People believe that everything from now on will be not only different, but also much better, and that they stand at the eve of “a golden age and paradise on Earth.” The Velvet Revolution, as the peaceful political change in Czechoslovakia at the end of 1989 came to be known, was certainly no exception. It goes without saying that no revolution can materialize in full people’s expectations. The “paradise on Earth” never existed, does not exist and will never do so. It is also known that during every revolution, people know what they do not want rather than what they exactly want. The system of the so-called “real socialism” and in the Czechoslovak case especially, the “regime of normalization,” which was imposed on the country after the Soviet invasion in 1968, was rejected by the majority of Czechs and Slovaks in November 1989. But do we know what the people really wanted to have in its place? And did it materialize – at least partly? These are the questions the author attempts to answer in this essay.
Hledání smyslu literatury. Česká literatura v čase seriálove tekutosti
Hledání smyslu literatury. Česká literatura v čase seriálove tekutosti
(The Search for the Meaning of Literature: Czech Literature in the Time of Serial Fluidity)
- Author(s):Pavel Janoušek
- Language:Czech
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Czech Literature
- Page Range:15-25
- No. of Pages:10
- Keywords:Czech literature; literature during the so-called normalization; literary poetics; literary traffic; transformation after 1989; the advent of digital communication; the transformation of literature an
- Summary/Abstract:The purpose of the essay is to describe the transformation that Czech literature has undergone from November 1989 to the present. The first part of the essay seeks to describe this transformation from a historical perspective: it defines how the transition from the communist notion of socialism, i.e. from an ideologically octroi society and culture to a present based on the vision of a free economy and market of ideas, is involved in this literature. Thus, it compares the functioning of Czech literature in two different political and economic systems, which not only dictated and continue to dictate a different social role for it, but also create different material and communicative conditions for its emergence, social functioning, and readership – hence for the success of a different poetics. Part Two then turns the attention to the more global transformation of the communication processes as brought about by the transition from a “paper” culture to a digital one. It thus seeks to capture the fundamental transformation of the receptive abilities and preferences of potential addressees and the creators’ resulting efforts, as well as the transformation of socially preferred poetics.
Lze po roce 1989 psát transkulturní déjiny jihoslovanských literatur?
Lze po roce 1989 psát transkulturní déjiny jihoslovanských literatur?
(Is it Possible to Write a Transcultural History of South Slavic Literatures after 1989?)
- Author(s):Miroslav Kouba
- Language:Czech
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Comparative Study of Literature, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:26-39
- No. of Pages:14
- Keywords:transculturalism; South Slavic literatures; history of literature; national and cultural identity; national narrative; interpretative models
- Summary/Abstract:The post-1989 transformations offered an opportunity to reassess the view of literary history, especially that of ethnically and culturally mixed environments, which since the 19th century had been interpretatively based on a consistently strengthened ethnocentrism. Inspired by a broadly understood transculturalism, one can ask whether and how this concept could be applied to the South Slavic context and its inherently multi-ethnic character. At the same time, it is necessary to take into consideration the different profiles of the literary-historical developments in each of these geocultural environments, especially in the earlier period. The elimination of experienced ethnocentrisms, at least on a theoretical level, could open up a broader dialogue with the different cultural or confessional communities that shape the immanent Balkan heterogeneity. The paper attempts to dwell on the possibility for a new conceptualization of transculturalism: while in the West it reflects the failures of the previously promoted multiculturalism, in the countries of South-Eastern Europe it could function as a stimulus for a new interpretation of the history of literature, especially in the conditions of the regained democracy of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Another key issue the article deals with is the change in the periodization of the history of South Slavic literatures, which the use of transculturalist approaches necessarily entails.
Кратките разкази, публикувани във всекидневниците през 90-те години на ХХ век - рецептивни предизвикателства
Кратките разкази, публикувани във всекидневниците през 90-те години на ХХ век - рецептивни предизвикателства
(Short Stories Published in Newspapers During the 1990's: Some Challenges Facing Critical Receptions)
- Author(s):Nikolay Papuchiev
- Language:Bulgarian
- Subject(s):Bulgarian Literature, Sociology of Literature
- Page Range:40-54
- No. of Pages:15
- Keywords:newspapers; short stories; literary competitions; popular literature; advertising
- Summary/Abstract:The present text is part of a larger study aimed at exploring the cultural dimensions of the Bulgarian Transition. The text focuses on the place of literature, in particular on short stories published in the mainstream press and the challenges they pose to contemporary literary criticism. Given the fact that these are texts doomed to rapid ageing (Bourdieu) and that they are situated alongside topical information making up the overall textual context of the newspaper issue, they rarely become part of literary history and even less of the literary canon endorsed by academia. Nonetheless, as shown by the results of the empirical surveys conducted as part of the aforementioned study, there emerges a close correspondence between these texts and long-established social conceptions embedded in the memories of this period. The past is reconstructed in broad strokes, many of which are also drawn with the help of the media during the period under consideration. Thus, irrespective of why short stories rarely become part of the knowledge about the period, they have a role to play in the formation of certain receptive competences among the mass readership. On the basis of this observation, the present analysis aims to explore them within the overall informational framework in which they are situated, rather than applying mechanisms that reduce them solely to aesthetic constructs within the overall framework of literary history.
По колко начина може да бъде разказана историята? Близкото минало като романов сюжет
По колко начина може да бъде разказана историята? Близкото минало като романов сюжет
(How Many Ways Are There to Recount History? The Recent Past as a Subject of Fiction)
- Author(s):Ani Burova
- Language:Bulgarian
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Bulgarian Literature
- Page Range:55-67
- No. of Pages:13
- Keywords:novel; memory; history; socialism; post-socialism; literary typology
- Summary/Abstract:The paper explores the ways in which the theme of the recent past (socialism in the second half of the 20th century and the post-1989 transition) is interpreted in the novels of the turn of the last century. It examines contemporary Bulgarian literature in the context of post-socialist Slavic literatures and draws out a number of typological similarities between them. The fictional interpretations of the recent historical past are remarkably diverse. The article offers an outline and a typology of the main directions in the novelistic representations related to the topic. Two main artistic models through which contemporary literature expresses the complex personal and collective memory of history are identified. One entails autobiographical or autofictional writing with an emphasis on the authenticity of experience, while the other involves the presentation of the historical events in an abstract and universalized form, in which the recent past is commented on in the much broader context of the entire human experience with history and its manifestations.
Jednat lokálně a psát globálně – nebo naopak?Environmentální psaní v českém a bulharském kontextu
Jednat lokálně a psát globálně – nebo naopak?Environmentální psaní v českém a bulharském kontextu
(Acting Locally and Writing Globally – or Vice Versa? Environmental Writing in Czech and Bulgarian Literature)
- Author(s):Vera Kaplická Yakimova
- Language:Czech
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Comparative Study of Literature, Bulgarian Literature, Czech Literature
- Page Range:68-82
- No. of Pages:15
- Keywords:ecology; contemporary literature; Bulgarian literature; Czech literature
- Summary/Abstract:The article focuses on the changes in the perception of environmental issues in the Czech and the Bulgarian context, from the time of the transition from socialism to capitalism to the most recent times. Against the background of social changes, the article focuses on literary texts that specifically reflect on the environment. The main thesis is that we can trace the social marginalization of environmental themes, which were among the fundamental ones in the transition period, and their rediscovery in the most recent literature. This change is also related to the shift from local issues and problems to a global perspective, where literature offers one of the ways of expressing climate grief.
Колко какофония може да си позволи романът на прехода? Повествователният модел в романа на Уве Телкамп „Кула“ и българските романи на прехода („Разруха“ на Владимир Зарев и „Чекмо“ на Момчил Николов)
Колко какофония може да си позволи романът на прехода? Повествователният модел в романа на Уве Телкамп „Кула“ и българските романи на прехода („Разруха“ на Владимир Зарев и „Чекмо“ на Момчил Николов)
(How Much Cacophony Can the Transition Novel Accommodate? The Narrative Model of Uwe Tellkamp’s Novel 'The tower' and Bulgarian Novels of the Transition (Vladimir Zarev’s 'Decay' and Momchil Nikolov’s 'Chekmo'))
- Author(s):Boris Minkov
- Language:Bulgarian
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Comparative Study of Literature, Bulgarian Literature, German Literature
- Page Range:83-98
- No. of Pages:16
- Keywords:determinism; stream of consciousness; picaresque novel; contingent worlds; dissolution of values
- Summary/Abstract:The article compares and contrasts Uwe Telkam’s novel The Tower (2008) and the attitudes inherent in Bulgarian novels dedicated to the Transition. Vladimir Zarev‘s Razruha [Decay] and Momchil Nikolov’s Chekmo are chosen as the focus because of their distinctive symptomatics. The Tower gathers in its kaleidoscopic perspective the points of view of three characters. With great plasticity and subtlety, the narrative shifts from the auctorial (authorial) narrative of a thirdperson omniscient and omnipresent narrator to different personal perspectives, but repeatedly keeps returning to the former mode. Between the meticulous construction of the enclosed world of a 1980s Dresden neighborhood (with detailed representations of everyday life, material culture, and specific manifestations of local, class-based and professionally differentiated folklore), and the intense, seemingly surreal visions, there are characteristic discontinuities but also possible interconnections. The Tower thus combines the modes of a typical nineteenth-century novel with the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique. Bulgarian literary practice typically leaves little room for any deviations from the suggestion of strict order as both a social and a narrative model. As regards the Transition, in particular, Bulgarian writers quite openly endorse assessments that are devoid of ambiguities, heteroglossia and multiple interpretations. In the present article, this is traced in Razruha, where the narrative is traditional and almost trivial, and in the novel Chekmo, which follows a picaresque model.
„Последните поети“ и „бъдещите варвари“: типология на процесите в българската и полската поезия от края на хх в.
„Последните поети“ и „бъдещите варвари“: типология на процесите в българската и полската поезия от края на хх в.
(“The Last Poets” and “The Future Barbarians”: A Typology of the Processes in Bulgarian and Polish Poetry at the End of the 20th Century)
- Author(s):Kristiyan Yanev
- Language:Bulgarian
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Comparative Study of Literature, Bulgarian Literature, Polish Literature
- Page Range:99-109
- No. of Pages:11
- Keywords:poetry; literary generation; brulion; Literaturen vestnik
- Summary/Abstract:The article offers a comparison between the literary generations formed around the Polish magazine brulion and the Bulgarian literary newspaper Literaturen vestnik, which were the periodicals of key significance in the two countries after 1989. Highlighted are the similarities in generational consciousness, literary gestures and controversies that characterize the affirmation of postmodern aesthetics and the rejection of the pre-1989 official artistic paradigm. The similarities between the Polish and the Bulgarian situation are explored as a function of the typologically similar conditions under which the social and cultural situation shared by the Eastern Bloc countries during that period resulted in a comparable generational experience and poetic realization.
Sergej Lebeděv a promýšlení ruských devadesátek
Sergej Lebeděv a promýšlení ruských devadesátek
(Revisiting the Russian 1990s with Sergej Lebedev)
- Author(s):Jakub Kapičiak
- Language:Czech
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Russian Literature
- Page Range:110-118
- No. of Pages:9
- Keywords:cultural memory; metamodernism; postmodernism; post-socialist society; contemporary Russian fiction
- Summary/Abstract:Sergej Lebedev (1981) is one of the most translated and highly appreciated contemporary Russian authors of fiction. In his books, Lebedev repeatedly attempts to grasp the meaning of the Soviet past for today’s Russia. His novel The People of August (Ljudi avgusta, 2016) addresses the issue of the 1990s. It is set in the geographical space of the post-socialist countries. The protagonist travels across Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Kazakhstan in search of victims of the Stalinist terror. The present article discusses Lebedev’s approach to the 1990s in comparison with novels that reflect the same period as their immediate present. In different national and cultural contexts, among the novels that have constructed literary models of the post-socialist world, the ones that stand out include Peter Pišťanek’s Rivers of Babylon (1991), Jáchym Topol’s City Sister Silver (Sestra, 1994) and Viktor Pelevin’s Generation “P” (1999). These are novels generally labelled as postmodernist. They portray the 1990s societies as a battlefield of different tribes fighting with each other for resources and power. While Lebedev’s novel presents the same type of general picture of the 1990s, its protagonist is driven by a higher purpose. He is trying to uncover the truth about the traumatic past and to understand how the past affects the present and the future. In my paper I therefore propose to label Lebedev’s writing as metamodernist, as it revitalizes historicity, affect and depth.
Umění drásat. současné „ženské psaní“ v rusku
Umění drásat. současné „ženské psaní“ v rusku
(The Art of Scratching: Contemporary “Women’s Writing” in Russia)
- Author(s):Miroslav Olšovský
- Language:Czech
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Russian Literature
- Page Range:119-127
- No. of Pages:9
- Keywords:“Women’s Writing” in Russia; Vasyakina, feminist literary criticism; Cixous; Russian poetry of the 21st century; epistolary genre
- Summary/Abstract:Vasyakina’s novel Rana (2021) is characterized by a minimalist style. In this novel, through the voice of her alter ego – the poet Oksana – she processes the traumatic experience of the death of her own mother, who fell ill with cancer. The narrative method is characterized by a ritualistic repetition that oscillates between autobiography and essay. Oksana tells the existential story of her dying mother in contrast to her lesbian experiences. The problem of gender creates a counterpoint to the trauma of the death of a loved one. The present study interprets Vasyakina’s novel in relation to the philosophical thinking of the French feminist Hélène Cixous.
Zapomenutí vyhnanci? (Ne)návraty bulharské exilové literatury po roce 1989
Zapomenutí vyhnanci? (Ne)návraty bulharské exilové literatury po roce 1989
(Forgotten Exiles? Comebacks of Bulgarian Exile Literature After 1989)
- Author(s):Jakub Mikulecký
- Language:Czech
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Bulgarian Literature
- Page Range:128-141
- No. of Pages:14
- Keywords:Bulgarian exile literature; comebacks from exile; anti-communist literature; postsocialistic culture
- Summary/Abstract:The article focuses on the situation of Bulgarian exile literature from the Cold War period after the fall of the communist regime in 1989; i.e. on how Bulgarian exile literature was incorporated into the new conditions of a multi-party democratic society and a free market. Subject to the analysis are exile poetry, prose, memoirs, essays, feuilletons, as well as satire and humorous literature, with the aim of uncovering to what degree particular types and genres were successful in post-socialistic culture in Bulgaria. The article seeks to locate the new publications of older exile books in the context of the new market economy of post-socialistic Bulgaria, and to define a set of those literary texts that, on the contrary, fell into oblivion. After more than three decades since the fall of the socialistic regime in Bulgaria, there is a need to try to determine some general tendencies related to the phenomenon of Bulgarian exile literature’s emancipation within the new post-socialistic culture.
Báječná léta na kdyssissippi. Reflexe normalizace v současné české literatuře
Báječná léta na kdyssissippi. Reflexe normalizace v současné české literatuře
(Wonderful Years on the Oncessissippi: Reflections on the Normalization Period in Contemporary Czech Prose)
- Author(s):Alena Fialová-Šporková
- Language:Czech
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Czech Literature
- Page Range:142-152
- No. of Pages:11
- Keywords:contemporary Czech prose; normalization; autobiographical novels
- Summary/Abstract:This article aims to describe the changing reflections on the period of normalization over the past thirty years and to highlight certain tendencies in recent prose. The years after 1989 saw the publication of prose works which dealt with the period of normalization using a variety of literary modes and perspectives: the greatest success was enjoyed by humorous works (prose works by Michal Viewegh, Petr Šabach and Irena Dousková). As the transformation period became more and more subject to a critical reevaluation, works of a pessimistic, melancholic or critical tone gradually began to predominate (works by Pavel Kolmačka, Věra Nosková, Irena Dousková, Jan Balabán and others). At the same time, the period of normalization became incorporated into the narratives of larger novels which portrayed life in socialist Czechoslovakia as opposed to the present (works by Petr Brycz, Sylvia Richterová, Michal Přibáň, etc.), as well as mainstream works, successful novels with large-scale historical narratives based on the stories of individual families (works by Kateřina Tučková or Alena Mornštajnová). The last decade has also seen the publication of a number of smaller prose works combining fiction with their authors’ autobiographical experiences and describing the world of normalization as cheerless, inhospitable and even cruel (works by Pavel Růžek, Milena Slavická, Simona Bohatá, etc.). The attitudes towards the period of normalization, which continues to feature in Czech literature, reveal a lot about how Czech society treats the legacy of the recent past, what moments resonate in it, which of those are fading away and what it is that still remains in the common historical memory.
Retrospektívne pohľady slovenskej literatúry na normalizačné obdobie
Retrospektívne pohľady slovenskej literatúry na normalizačné obdobie
(Retrospective Views of Slovak Literature on the Normalization Period)
- Author(s):Radoslav Passia
- Language:Slovak
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Slovak Literature
- Page Range:153-163
- No. of Pages:11
- Keywords:contemporary Slovak literature; normalization period in Czechoslovakia; grey zone; literary images of normalization; retrospective constructs
- Summary/Abstract:The present study is the first to address the retrospective views of Slovak literature on the so called “normalization period” in Czechoslovakia. The invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968 and the subsequent occupation marked the start of the period of the so-called normalization; in a broader sense, normalization lasted from the spring of 1969 until the Velvet Revolution in November 1989. The goal of normalization was to reassert the power of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and regain control over a society influenced by Alexander Dubček’s reformist ideas of “a socialism with a human face.” The article identifies the common elements in the ways contemporary Slovak literature depicts Czechoslovak normalization. In today’s post-socialist period, this topic attracts mainly authors pertaining to the older and middle generations. In their various ways, their texts deal with personal life experience, often in the form of memoirs or autobiographic writing. They clearly distinguish between the private space, which is internally free, and the public space, which is controlled by the state power. Prevailing in contemporary literary reflection is a critical perception of the socialist state regime. The authors highlight moral failures, but also the ambivalence of values at the time. The protagonists are not heroes or active opponents of the communist regime – their disapproval is either latent, or they completely ignore the situation. The preferred perspective in these works is on the grey zone – a vaguely defined social and cultural space located between the official ideology and the alternative opinions held by the dissident and anti-communist opposition.
Obrazy socialistické éry v současné slovinské literatuře
Obrazy socialistické éry v současné slovinské literatuře
(Images of the Socialist Era in Contemporary Slovenian Literature)
- Author(s):Aleš Kozár
- Language:Czech
- Subject(s):Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Slovenian Literature
- Page Range:164-172
- No. of Pages:9
- Keywords:Slovenian literature; reflection of socialism; contemporary novel; nostalgia in literature; tabu topics
- Summary/Abstract:Contemporary Slovenian social narrative without any doubt carries traces of a nostalgia for Tito’s era of 1960s and 1970s that can be observed in literature as well (e. g. Bronja Žakelj). However, works that unmasked the totalitarianism of that period had started appearing much earlier, e.g. those of Lojze Kovačič or Vitomil Zupan. These were later followed by historical novels which searched for the roots and causes of the transformation of the idealism of the antifascist resistance into a totalitarian machinery (the works of Drago Jančar or Maruša Krese). Another strand of literature describes the merging of nationalities, migration, prejudices and stereotypes, but also a xenophobia observable in Slovenian society to this day (Goran Vojnović). The present article is an attempt to outline the abovementioned perspectives in the ways modern Slovenian society and culture are dealing with the period of socialism.
Българският интелектуалец и политиката: етос, послания, оценки. Случаите на Желю Желев и Блага Димитрова
Българският интелектуалец и политиката: етос, послания, оценки. Случаите на Желю Желев и Блага Димитрова
(The Bulgarian Intellectual and Politics: Ethos, Messages, Evaluations. The Cases of Zhelyu Zhelev and Blaga Dimitrova)
- Author(s):Slaveya Dimitrova
- Language:Bulgarian
- Subject(s):History, Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010)
- Page Range:173-182
- No. of Pages:10
- Keywords:10 November 1989; Zhelyu Zhelev; Blaga Dimitrova; independent intellectual; pragmatic politician; political morality
- Summary/Abstract:The paper analyses the changed perception of the place and role of the intellectuals after 1989, as reflected in the essays, public speeches and interviews of writers, philosophers and public figures such as Zhelyu Zhelev and Blaga Dimitrova. The leading criterion for selecting the texts for analysis is the participation of their authors – intellectuals and humanitarians – in the governance of Bulgaria immediately after the changes. The starting point is the thesis that while before 1989, the ethos of the intellectual precluded him or her from engaging in politics, after 10 November 1989 the paradigm shifted and the newly established perception was that the true intellectual should model the political processes, implement the change, create the new order with its new rules, and broadcast the important messages. The key to the construction of the intellectual’s image lay in the public confidence in his or her high moral character and will to always tell and defend the truth. As it happened, however, in the post-1989 Bulgarian environment, the debate about the intellectual became laden not only with too many expectations, but also with a number of preconceptions. Over time, Bulgarian intellectuals who involved themselves with politics were faced with the need to make a choice between remaining independent intellectuals or becoming pragmatic politicians.
