The affinity with the North American Indian in Czech literary discourse on the democratic roots of Czech national culture
Tóm tắt
This paper surveys the Czech cultural appropriation of the North American Indian in a historical perspective, through the three radical changes of the political paradigm: the first Czechoslovak democratic republic (1918–1938), the communist era (1948–1989), and the post-Velvet Revolution present. Although the American Indian was appropriated as a symbolic structure with surprisingly different functions in various social and political contexts, in most cases it figured in the democratic discourse.
Tài liệu tham khảo
As Leslie Fiedler was quick to point out, ‘Primitivism is the large generic name for the Higher Masculine Sentimentality, a passionate commitment to inverting Christian-Humanist values, out of a conviction that the Indian’s was of life is preferable. From this follows the belief that if one is an Indian he ought to, despite missionaries and school boards, to remain Indian; and if one is White, he should do his best, despite all pressures of the historical past, to go Native.’ Leslie A. Fiedler, The Return of the Vanishing American (New York: Stein and Day), 169.
The publication data are taken from Marcel Arbeit, Bibliografie americké literatury v českých překladech I-III/Bibliography of American Literature in Czech Translations (Olomouc: Votobia, 2000)
J.F. Cooper, The Deerslayer (1889, 1908, 1928, 1960, 1991)
J.F. Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans (1852, 1896, 1908, 1925, 1925, 1934, 1937, 1953, 1961, 1968, 1970, 1989, 1991); Adaptations: 1892, 1902, 1930, 1938, 1940, 1948, 1957, 1972
J.F. Cooper, The Pathfinder Translation: 1929, 1934 (1942), 1957, 1963 (Henzl) Adaptation: 1892, 1930
J.F. Cooper, The Prairie. Translation: 1908, 1926 (2 edn 1935), 1930, 1967; Adaptation: 1881, 1893, 1930. Other Cooper novels began to appear in the 1920s and 1930s.
Marcel Arbeit, ‘Neznámí nejznámější američtí autoři’, Host 10 (2004): 64.
Arbeit, Bibliography of American Literature in Czech Translations, 31.
‘Stručná historie trampingu’ [Brief History of Tramping], https://doi.org/jackal003.sblog.cz.
See Tomáš Pospíšil and Don Sparling, ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at America’, Brno Studies in English 27 (2001), 73–84. The authors of this paper identify the tramps’ source of inspiration in ‘the mythic America of individual freedom amidst untouched Nature, in the world of the Wild West, among the Noble Savages’ (p. 77).
Bob Hurikán, Dějiny trampingu [History of Tramping] (Praha: Novinář, 1990), 10. The most popular Czech illustrator of adventure stories and prehistoric life, Zdeněk Burian, an active tramp and one of the founding members of the movement, also found the Indian to be the most powerful symbol of romanticism in the popular sense of the word (‘romantika’).
See Vladimír Hulpach, Století Zděnka Buriana [The Century of Zděnek Burian] (Praha: Knizní klub, 2004), 107. The centrality of the Indian in Burian’s imagination is acknowledged by the editors of the two monographs of Burian: indeed, one book has his picture of the Sitting Bull on the cover, the other at least includes this picture among three smaller ones.
See more about tramp songs in Pospíšil and Sparling, 78–80.
Pavel Janáček and Michal Jareš, Svět rodokapsu [The World of Pulp] (Praha: Univerzita Karlova v Praze–Nakladatelství Karolinum, 2003), 73.
Michal Jareš, Svět rodokapsu [The World of Pulp] (Praha: Univerzita Karlova v Praze–Nakladatelství Karolinum, 2003) Ibid., 30.
Michal Jareš, Svět rodokapsu [The World of Pulp] (Praha: Univerzita Karlova v Praze–Nakladatelství Karolinum, 2003) Ibid, 30.
Michal Jareš, Svět rodokapsu [The World of Pulp] (Praha: Univerzita Karlova v Praze–Nakladatelství Karolinum, 2003) Ibid, 15–16.
Many now-forgotten writers–such as Joseph Altsheller and Thomas Mayne Reid–contributed to this phenomenon; they are too numerous to be listed here.
Pospíšil and Sparling explain the popularity of May as the ability to construct ‘other’ worlds–alternative realities, ‘the exotic “other”’ which offers freedom from a modern urban society, bound by conventions, regulations, rules and high cultural traditions, and confined to a narrow space’ (p. 74).
J.V. Sládek was a nineteenth-century poet laureate, valued by the communists also for his lower-class, country origin.
These films were directed by Harald Reinl, with Pierre Brice as Winnetou, and Leo Barker as Old Shatterhand.
Nejvetší německý indián’ [The Greatest German Indian], Interview with Gojko Mitic, Pátek Lidových novin (22 September 2006), 32–38.
The Dog Soldiers were the most famous military society among the Cheyenne. They were also used to keep order, as a kind of police. See Carl Waldman, Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes (New York: Checkmark Books, 1999), 52.
Jiří Veselý and Ondřej Hejma, ‘Indiánská dýmka míru’ [Indian pipe of peace], Psí kusy: ty nejlepší kousky [Dog pranks: the best bits], perf. Žlutý pes: Bonton Music, 1996.
Pospíšil and Sparling, 81.
See Jiřina Šiklová, ‘The “Gray Zone” and the Future of Dissent in Czechoslovakia’, in East Europe: Where from, Where to? ed. Arien Mack, spec. Issue of Social Research, 57 (2) (Summer, 1990): 347–364.
Co dĕlá indián [What does the Indian do]. Jiří Schelinger /František Ringo Čech. Unpublished lyrics available from: https://doi.org/www.akordytexty.cz (accessed 1 July 2008).
Young people, who spent their weekend and their holidays living like the Indians.