The silence of the occupied in Czech Literature, 1940-46
The use of silence to characterize the dominant response of occupied populations during the Second World War recurs throughout post-war European literature and is especially prominent in Czech writing. Interpreting the meaning of this silence therefore became central to Czech efforts to establish a...
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press
2023
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| _version_ | 1797108867973251072 |
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| author | Chitnis, R |
| author_facet | Chitnis, R |
| author_sort | Chitnis, R |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | The use of silence to characterize the dominant response of occupied populations during the Second World War recurs throughout post-war European literature and is especially prominent in Czech writing. Interpreting the meaning of this silence therefore became central to Czech efforts to establish a preferred narrative about the German occupation in the immediate post-war period. Through analysis of the motif in more and less well-known works published between 1940 and 1946, I shall map the narrowing understanding of the silence of the occupied from its varied, ambiguous portrayal in the now forgotten first Czech novel about the Occupation, Silences by Josef Horal, to its unequivocal interpretation as resistance in Jan Drda's canonical The Mute Barricade. While this narrowing reflects Tony Judt's notion of a “collective amnesia” necessary for national unity and recovery, the marginalization of certain perspectives also presages the broader move in Czech post-war society away from pluralism to nationalist authoritarianism. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:34:06Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:e1aa3904-c44b-4974-9e3b-decde61f9521 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:34:06Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:e1aa3904-c44b-4974-9e3b-decde61f95212023-02-10T09:16:06ZThe silence of the occupied in Czech Literature, 1940-46Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:e1aa3904-c44b-4974-9e3b-decde61f9521EnglishSymplectic ElementsCambridge University Press2023Chitnis, RThe use of silence to characterize the dominant response of occupied populations during the Second World War recurs throughout post-war European literature and is especially prominent in Czech writing. Interpreting the meaning of this silence therefore became central to Czech efforts to establish a preferred narrative about the German occupation in the immediate post-war period. Through analysis of the motif in more and less well-known works published between 1940 and 1946, I shall map the narrowing understanding of the silence of the occupied from its varied, ambiguous portrayal in the now forgotten first Czech novel about the Occupation, Silences by Josef Horal, to its unequivocal interpretation as resistance in Jan Drda's canonical The Mute Barricade. While this narrowing reflects Tony Judt's notion of a “collective amnesia” necessary for national unity and recovery, the marginalization of certain perspectives also presages the broader move in Czech post-war society away from pluralism to nationalist authoritarianism. |
| spellingShingle | Chitnis, R The silence of the occupied in Czech Literature, 1940-46 |
| title | The silence of the occupied in Czech Literature, 1940-46 |
| title_full | The silence of the occupied in Czech Literature, 1940-46 |
| title_fullStr | The silence of the occupied in Czech Literature, 1940-46 |
| title_full_unstemmed | The silence of the occupied in Czech Literature, 1940-46 |
| title_short | The silence of the occupied in Czech Literature, 1940-46 |
| title_sort | silence of the occupied in czech literature 1940 46 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT chitnisr thesilenceoftheoccupiedinczechliterature194046 AT chitnisr silenceoftheoccupiedinczechliterature194046 |