The Mystifications of a Nation

by Macura, Vladimir; Pichova, Hana; Cravens, Craig; Emerson, Caryl

• ISBN13: 9780299248949
• ISBN10: 0299248941
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-11-18
• Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Pr

Summary

A keen observer of culture, Czech writer Vladimiacute;r Macura (194599) devoted a lifetime to illuminating the myths that defined his nation.The Mystifications of a Nation, the first book-length translation of Macurars"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 postVelvet 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.

Author Biography

Vladimfr Macura (1945–1999) was a Czech writer, translator, and semiotician. Hana Pfchovß is associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of The Art of Memory in Exile: Vladimir Nabokov and Milan Kundera. Craig Cravens is Fellow of Czech Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and author of The Culture and Customs of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vii
Semio-Feuilletons on the End of Empires: The Cult of the Center and the Comedy of the Bridge	p. ix
Translators' Preface	p. xv
Introduction: The Czech World of Vladimír Macura	p. xvii
The Nineteenth Century: Genesis of a Nation
Where Is My Home?	p. 3
Mystification and the Nation	p. 8
Dream of Europe	p. 13
The Center	p. 27
Prague	p. 35
The Bridge	p. 47
The Joyous Age: Reflections on Czechoslovak Communism
The Potato Bug	p. 53
Death of the Leader	p. 62
Symbol with a Human Face	p. 69
The Metro	p. 73
Michurin	p. 85
Spartakiad	p. 92
Renaming	p. 104
Minus-Stalin	p. 107
The Celts within Us	p. 114
Notes	p. 117
Further Readings	p. 129
Index	p. 131
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

“In the shadow of Yuri Lotman’s Tartu School, the essays in this book stand out marvelously humorous and small.”—Caryl Emerson, from the foreword