The Mystifications of a Nation: "The Potato Bug" and Other Essays on Czech Culture - Softcover

Macura, Vladimír

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0299248941 ISBN 13: 9780299248949

Verlag: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Book by Macura Vladimir

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Críticas:

While the essays in this volume are rather brief, they always present food for thought. Sometimes brilliant and often funny, they should be read, and not only by experts. European History Quarterly" Hana Pichova and Craig Cravens have done Czech studies a great service in carefully translating and judiciously annotating this volume. . . . Most of Macura s essays strike the reader in a particular way: as if you ve had the good fortune to show up in the middle of a rather interesting but much broader discussion, the beginning of which and the end of which, it seems, you also won t be around for. This peculiarity intrigues much more than it frustrates, and in the contemporary field of Czech studies, there is something to it. David S. Danaher, Slavic and East European Journal " Macura is not defined by his nation; rather, in these essays, he defines his nation. He does so with an ironic twinkle in his sharp eye, all the while catching what others missed seeing or, more often still hoped would be overlooked. Paulina Bren, Bohemia " "The Macura revered by Czech intellectuals for his irreverent take on their culture's sacred cows is very much in evidence in this selection of his essays." Michael Henry Heim, University of California, Los Angeles " Macura is not defined by his nation; rather, in these essays, he defines his nation. He does so with an ironic twinkle in his sharp eye, all the while catching what others missed seeing or, more often still hoped would be overlooked. Paulina Bren, "Bohemia"" "The Macura revered by Czech intellectuals for his irreverent take on their culture's sacred cows is very much in evidence in this selection of his essays." Michael Henry Heim, University of California, Los Angeles" "While the essays in this volume are rather brief, they always present food for thought. Sometimes brilliant and often funny, they should be read not only by experts."--Rene Kupper, "European History Quarterly " "Hana PIchovA and Craig Cravens have done Czech studies a great service in carefully translating and judiciously annotating this volume. . . . Most of Macura's essays strike the reader in a particular way: as if you've had the good fortune to show up in the middle of a rather interesting but much broader discussion, the beginning of which and the end of which, it seems, you also won't be around for. This peculiarity intrigues much more than it frustrates, and in the contemporary field of Czech studies, there is something to it."--David S. Danaher, "Slavic and East European Journal" "Hana Pichova and Craig Cravens have done Czech studies a great service in carefully translating and judiciously annotating this volume. . . . Most of Macura's essays strike the reader in a particular way: as if you've had the good fortune to show up in the middle of a rather interesting but much broader discussion, the beginning of which and the end of which, it seems, you also won't be around for. This peculiarity intrigues much more than it frustrates, and in the contemporary field of Czech studies, there is something to it."--David S. Danaher, "Slavic and East European Journal" "Macura is not defined by his nation; rather, in these essays, he defines his nation. He does so with an ironic twinkle in his sharp eye, all the while catching what others missed seeing or, more often still hoped would be overlooked."--Paulina Bren, "Bohemia" "The Macura revered by Czech intellectuals for his irreverent take on their culture's sacred cows is very much in evidence in this selection of his essays."-Michael Henry Heim, University of California, Los Angeles

Reseña del editor:

A keen observer of culture, Czech writer Vladimír Macura (1945-99) devoted a lifetime to illuminating the myths that defined his nation. The Mystifications of a Nation, the first book-length translation of Macura's work in English, offers essays deftly analyzing a variety of cultural phenomena that originate, Macura argues, in the "big bang" of the nineteenth-century Czech National Revival, with its celebration of a uniquely Czech identity.
    In reflections on two centuries of Czech history, he ponders the symbolism in daily life. Bridges, for example-once a force of civilization connecting diverse peoples-became a sign of destruction in World War I. Turning to the Soviet and post-Soviet eras, Macura probes a range of richly symbolic practices, from the naming of the Prague metro system, to the mass gymnastic displays of the Communist period, to post-Velvet Revolution preoccupations with the national anthem. In "The Potato Bug," he muses on one of the stranger moments in the Cold War-the claim that the United States was deliberately dropping insects from airplanes to wreak havoc on the crops of Czechoslovakia.
    While attending to the distinctively Czech elements of such phenomena, Macura reveals the larger patterns of Soviet-brand socialism. "We were its cocreators," he declares, "and its analysis touches us as a scalpel turned on its own body." Writing with erudition, irony, and wit, Macura turns the scalpel on the authoritarian state around him, demythologizing its mythology.

 

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: University of Wisconsin Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0299248941
• ISBN 13: 9780299248949
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 166