Multi-cultural phenomena in Czech Literature focused on Slavic, German and Jewish Culture

Kyuchin Kim (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Korea) [BIO]

Email: kyuchin@hufs.ac.kr and kyuchin@hotmail.com

 

ABSTRACT:

Czech literature written in Czech is rooted in western an central European literature, even if Czech language belongs to Slavic languages like Russian and Polish. Czech nation(at that time Moravian Empire) received religion, language and literature from Byzantine Empire at firs time in Slavic countries in 863. Even if right after that Czech literature was developed in Latin tradition, Czech literature never neglected to accept the great Greek antique literature and western literature including French, German and English literature, and in modern time American literature. Of course we can not ignore Russian literature and Polish since romantic tradition in 19 century. We can find easily multi cultural traditions in 20 century Czech literature which deals various motifs like other European literature.

Czech literature is divided into several main time periods: the Middle Ages in 9th–14th centuries; the Hussite period in 15th century.); the years of re-Catholicization and the baroque in 16th and 17th century.); the Enlightenment and Czech reawakening in the 18th and 19th century; the avant-garde of the interwar period(1918–1945); the years under Communism and the Prague Spring(1948-1989); and the literature of the post-Communist Czech Republic(since 1989). Czech literature and culture played a major role on at least two occasions when Czech society lived under oppression and no political activity was possible. On both of these occasions, in the early 19th century and then again in the 1960s, the Czechs used their cultural and literary effort to create political freedom and to establish a confident, politically aware nation.

In this article we will discus various multi cultural phenomena in anti-war theme and humors in Hasek's works, German and Jewish culture in Czech Jewish writers including Kafka, humanism and multi cultural phenomena in Capek's works who wrote many scientific plays, philosophical novels and invented the word 'robot', and many kinds of western literary and cultural tradition which appeared in Kundera's works, who became very popular in the world due to the his specific motifs and themes such as philosophical speculation on love and sex through his novels.