The Mystifications of a Nation: "The Potato Bug" and Other Essays on Czech Culture
by Vladimír Macura edited by Hana Píchová and Craig Cravens foreword by Caryl Emerson introduction by Petr Bugge
University of Wisconsin Press, 2010 Paper: 978-0-299-24894-9 | eISBN: 978-0-299-24893-2 Library of Congress Classification DB2035.M33 2010 Dewey Decimal Classification 943.71
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | EXCERPT | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
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.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Vladimír Macura (1945–1999) was a Czech writer, translator, and semiotician. Hana Píchová 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.
REVIEWS
"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
“Hana Píchová 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
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Peter Bugge, Aarhus University
Preface
Caryl Emerson, Princeton University
Where Is My Home
Mystification and the Nation
Dream of Europe
Prague
The Center
The Bridge
Michurin
The Potato Bug
The Spartakiad
The Metro
The Death of the Leader
Minus-Stalin
Symbol With a Human Face
Renaming
The Celts Within Us
EXCERPT “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
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
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Nearby on shelf for History of Austria. Liechtenstein. Hungary. Czechoslovakia / Czechoslovakia / General. Description and travel. Antiquities. Social life and customs:
The Mystifications of a Nation: "The Potato Bug" and Other Essays on Czech Culture
by Vladimír Macura edited by Hana Píchová and Craig Cravens foreword by Caryl Emerson introduction by Petr Bugge
University of Wisconsin Press, 2010 Paper: 978-0-299-24894-9 eISBN: 978-0-299-24893-2
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.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Vladimír Macura (1945–1999) was a Czech writer, translator, and semiotician. Hana Píchová 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.
REVIEWS
"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
“Hana Píchová 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
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Peter Bugge, Aarhus University
Preface
Caryl Emerson, Princeton University
Where Is My Home
Mystification and the Nation
Dream of Europe
Prague
The Center
The Bridge
Michurin
The Potato Bug
The Spartakiad
The Metro
The Death of the Leader
Minus-Stalin
Symbol With a Human Face
Renaming
The Celts Within Us
EXCERPT “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
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | EXCERPT | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE