Publication details
Dismantling Socialist Realism: The Beat Generation in Czechoslovakia
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The Beat Generation poets undoubtedly had a privileged position in Communist Czechoslovakia. While a few studies focusing on the Beats in Czechoslovakia already exist, not enough emphasis has been put on the editorial decisions and motivations for publishing Beat poetry nor on the politics of contemporary Czechoslovak publishing industry. Without an understanding of their context, the actual importance of the Beats cannot be properly gauged. Literary criticism of Czechoslovakia was in the firm grip of socialist realism. As the leading critic Ladislav Štoll puts it, the purpose of socialist realist art was “the grandiose struggle for a new and better social order” undertaken by the working class (“Třicet let bojů” 17, my translation). In other words, art was an ideological vehicle virtually controlled by the Communist Party, and translated works of Western authors had to obey the same rules. Publishing Beat texts was therefore a clearly political act which had to be carefully navigated. After all, it was the Beats’ apparent anti-ideological yet socially-conscious stance which allowed their works to be read as criticizing the totalitarian regime. The proposed presentation then focuses on the practices of several Czechoslovak editors and translators responsible for popularization of the Beats, namely Jan Zábrana, Igor Hájek, and Josef Škvorecký, and the politics of the publishing industry bound by socialist realist literary criticism. These editors and translators, the presentation further argues, employed Beat texts in order to fight the dogmatic standards of literary criticism, and therefore the totalitarian nature of the state as a whole. Štoll, Ladislav.“Třicet let bojů za českou socialistickou poezii.” 1948. Z dějin českého myšlení oliteratuře 2 1948-1958. Ed. Michal Pribáň. Prague: Ústav pro českou literaturu AV ČR, 2002. 16-32. |