Page 106 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 106
Ideology in the 20th Century: studies of literary and social discourses and practices
remember it too. The village used to look almost like those postcards by
Lada. (Dvořáková 2018, 42)
Dvořáková has the courage to confront the negative features of vil-
lage people, but cannot ignore some of the general features that have
changed the countryside considerably, including the much less frequent
opportunities to meet and spend time in the collective, pig-slaughtering,
country dance parties, celebrating holidays, Sunday church visits, all that
is not taken for granted anymore, it is much less common, people are be-
coming withdrawn more and more, living in their home microworld, just
like the people in the city against whom they define themselves.
Conclusion
106 In contemporary Slovenian prose, the countryside is a rather marginal
motive, even from the explorational point of view. The countryside is per-
ceived as a backward environment full of prejudices, not corresponding
to the modern age of the 21st century whatsoever, let alone to be seen an
alternative in economic, spiritual or lifestyle terms. Quite the opposite,
leaving the countryside is usually a release for the protagonist and the be-
ginning of a new, brighter future.
In the case of contemporary Czech prose, it can be said that it once
again returns to the social level of rural prose while reflecting the local po-
litical past, inscribed in the fates of its protagonists or the history of fam-
ilies, generations, affected as their roots are being cut. The past with its
black-and-white ideological rape of the village image is markedly reflect-
ed here. This prose then picks up the threads of ‘deconstructing’ interpre-
tations of these patterns in the 1960s. Personal and family memories play
an important part here as they can stand up to the mist of oblivion and
period ideological distortions that overlay the sharp features of the land-
scape, the distinct boundaries between good and evil.
Ideological tools and motivations are changing over time. In the
1950s, it was the expropriation of the land of private farmers and the de-
struction of the entire social stratum of rural farmers. Later, for example,
the construction of a nuclear power plant and a dam, built in the abstract,
so-called public interest, regardless of the impact on the landscape, villag-
es and their inhabitants, or, for example, the opening of coal mines and
the eviction of people from areas affected by mining.
Similarly, today, images of the countryside feature various instru-
ments of manipulation, lies, distortions of reality with the intention of
gaining financial or other benefits. At the same time, however, this is not
remember it too. The village used to look almost like those postcards by
Lada. (Dvořáková 2018, 42)
Dvořáková has the courage to confront the negative features of vil-
lage people, but cannot ignore some of the general features that have
changed the countryside considerably, including the much less frequent
opportunities to meet and spend time in the collective, pig-slaughtering,
country dance parties, celebrating holidays, Sunday church visits, all that
is not taken for granted anymore, it is much less common, people are be-
coming withdrawn more and more, living in their home microworld, just
like the people in the city against whom they define themselves.
Conclusion
106 In contemporary Slovenian prose, the countryside is a rather marginal
motive, even from the explorational point of view. The countryside is per-
ceived as a backward environment full of prejudices, not corresponding
to the modern age of the 21st century whatsoever, let alone to be seen an
alternative in economic, spiritual or lifestyle terms. Quite the opposite,
leaving the countryside is usually a release for the protagonist and the be-
ginning of a new, brighter future.
In the case of contemporary Czech prose, it can be said that it once
again returns to the social level of rural prose while reflecting the local po-
litical past, inscribed in the fates of its protagonists or the history of fam-
ilies, generations, affected as their roots are being cut. The past with its
black-and-white ideological rape of the village image is markedly reflect-
ed here. This prose then picks up the threads of ‘deconstructing’ interpre-
tations of these patterns in the 1960s. Personal and family memories play
an important part here as they can stand up to the mist of oblivion and
period ideological distortions that overlay the sharp features of the land-
scape, the distinct boundaries between good and evil.
Ideological tools and motivations are changing over time. In the
1950s, it was the expropriation of the land of private farmers and the de-
struction of the entire social stratum of rural farmers. Later, for example,
the construction of a nuclear power plant and a dam, built in the abstract,
so-called public interest, regardless of the impact on the landscape, villag-
es and their inhabitants, or, for example, the opening of coal mines and
the eviction of people from areas affected by mining.
Similarly, today, images of the countryside feature various instru-
ments of manipulation, lies, distortions of reality with the intention of
gaining financial or other benefits. At the same time, however, this is not
