DOI article:
II. Utopias and Revivals
DOI article:Toman, Jindřich: Medievalism in Czech progressivist culture: notes on the perseverance of a totalizing gesture
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51723#0178
pears as “devoid of sense,” while “meaningful” phe-
nomena are regarded as results of chance (as is the
case in Darwinism, for instance).
The range of topoi that characterize Fischer’s
discourse also includes the concept of “order” (řád)-.
The epoch we are entering [...] is an epoch of
order. In sharp contrast to the cultural and social
disintegration, even anarchy, of the preceding peri-
od [...], there emerges a period of cultural and social
order, a synthetic period, which, so to speak, sets out
to materialize what the present times so desperately
lack: unity of the cultural universe - in philosophy,
science, society, inshort, everywhere where the or-
der-creating activity [řádové úsilí] of the human spirit
can reach. (Fischer 1933, 41)
It is not surprising that, like Vančura, Fischer
did not hesitate to support his arguments with cer-
tain medieval images that were congruent with the
idea of order and unity of the cultural universe. In
his Unrest of the Present Times (Fischer 1930),
a brochure dedicated to the alternatives to democra-
cy, he evokes a topos that is classical in this context,
that of the cathédral:
Is it so hard to widerstand how fruitful and beau-
tiful the wisdom is with which the most precious
legacy of Europe, the stone image of its genius, the
Gothic cathédral, speaks to us - to us who have since
long unlearned such language? Is it so hard to see
and understand how, aiming upwards, the cathédral
abducts the desire for perfection into higher and
higher realms; how it materializes the harmony in
which part and whole breathe with the same will;
how itsubordinates the spirit of matter under the
prayer of beauty and order? (Fischer 1930, 35)
In 1932, Fischer reasserted his Gothic nostalgia
in a book of essays, entitled literally The Mirror of
the Period. One of the essays, “Gotika” (Gothic),
begins with the assertion that, despite its religiosity,
the Gothic period seems to be close and familiär to
the man of the twentieth Century. The passage is re-
markable in that Fischer confesses to séduction by
the term gothic:
Its language sounds so familiär, so deeply akin
to us, despite its piety and the distance of centuries.
In fact, for quite a long time, I was considering the
possibility of calling my prototype of cultural Syn-
thesis a gothic prototype. (Fischer 1932, 97)
He then raises the question of whether the Mid-
dle Ages, in which everything was subordinated to
religious ideas, would lose their appeal if their reli-
giosity were removed. In other words, he is asking
what the core and what the overlay of the medieval
period was, and he eventually décidés that it indeed
is possible to do without what was negated by later
secularization, because the genuine core of the Mid-
dle Ages was not religion but the epoch’s synthetic
character.
Although no direct advocate of Medievalism,
Fischer saw in the Gothic era a world which had an
inspiring effect in a time of crisis. It was able to sup-
ply modern times with an element that was missing
in the mechanistic world of the late 19th Century the
element of desire and perfection. Gothic splendor
helps estheticize Fischer’s synthetic society, which
can longer seek eternity in God, yet also lives through
desire for perfection:
The Gothic period has become the most expres-
sive symbol of this desire. Tuning its prayer in stone
into a chord, it speaks to us a language that sounds
close even today a language of beauty and desire for
the unity of order. (Fischer 1932, lOOf)
III
So far the sélection of sources has revolved
around authors who had some relation to Structura-
lism and the Prague Linguistic Circle (see Toman
1994). Vančura was a follower of the Circle and
a close friend of Jakobson’s. Fischer was admitted
as a member in the 1930s. (In the 1960s he became
a grandfather of a school of thought known as dia-
lectical structurology, acontinuation of Prague Struc-
turalism with soft Marxist means.) Did the Circle
also show any traces of Medievalism in its cultural
program?
In 1935, the Prague Linguistic Circle began to
publish a journal, Slovo a slovesnost, which opened
with an introduction that not only proclaimed inté-
gration of linguistics into the Contemporary systém
of social needs, but, remarkably, attempted to do so
with recourse to the Gothic period and its constitu-
tive éléments:
The Gothic epoch thought in dimensions of cen-
turies. Ignât Herrman was right when he contrasted
the far-sighted imperial construction of Prague by
168
nomena are regarded as results of chance (as is the
case in Darwinism, for instance).
The range of topoi that characterize Fischer’s
discourse also includes the concept of “order” (řád)-.
The epoch we are entering [...] is an epoch of
order. In sharp contrast to the cultural and social
disintegration, even anarchy, of the preceding peri-
od [...], there emerges a period of cultural and social
order, a synthetic period, which, so to speak, sets out
to materialize what the present times so desperately
lack: unity of the cultural universe - in philosophy,
science, society, inshort, everywhere where the or-
der-creating activity [řádové úsilí] of the human spirit
can reach. (Fischer 1933, 41)
It is not surprising that, like Vančura, Fischer
did not hesitate to support his arguments with cer-
tain medieval images that were congruent with the
idea of order and unity of the cultural universe. In
his Unrest of the Present Times (Fischer 1930),
a brochure dedicated to the alternatives to democra-
cy, he evokes a topos that is classical in this context,
that of the cathédral:
Is it so hard to widerstand how fruitful and beau-
tiful the wisdom is with which the most precious
legacy of Europe, the stone image of its genius, the
Gothic cathédral, speaks to us - to us who have since
long unlearned such language? Is it so hard to see
and understand how, aiming upwards, the cathédral
abducts the desire for perfection into higher and
higher realms; how it materializes the harmony in
which part and whole breathe with the same will;
how itsubordinates the spirit of matter under the
prayer of beauty and order? (Fischer 1930, 35)
In 1932, Fischer reasserted his Gothic nostalgia
in a book of essays, entitled literally The Mirror of
the Period. One of the essays, “Gotika” (Gothic),
begins with the assertion that, despite its religiosity,
the Gothic period seems to be close and familiär to
the man of the twentieth Century. The passage is re-
markable in that Fischer confesses to séduction by
the term gothic:
Its language sounds so familiär, so deeply akin
to us, despite its piety and the distance of centuries.
In fact, for quite a long time, I was considering the
possibility of calling my prototype of cultural Syn-
thesis a gothic prototype. (Fischer 1932, 97)
He then raises the question of whether the Mid-
dle Ages, in which everything was subordinated to
religious ideas, would lose their appeal if their reli-
giosity were removed. In other words, he is asking
what the core and what the overlay of the medieval
period was, and he eventually décidés that it indeed
is possible to do without what was negated by later
secularization, because the genuine core of the Mid-
dle Ages was not religion but the epoch’s synthetic
character.
Although no direct advocate of Medievalism,
Fischer saw in the Gothic era a world which had an
inspiring effect in a time of crisis. It was able to sup-
ply modern times with an element that was missing
in the mechanistic world of the late 19th Century the
element of desire and perfection. Gothic splendor
helps estheticize Fischer’s synthetic society, which
can longer seek eternity in God, yet also lives through
desire for perfection:
The Gothic period has become the most expres-
sive symbol of this desire. Tuning its prayer in stone
into a chord, it speaks to us a language that sounds
close even today a language of beauty and desire for
the unity of order. (Fischer 1932, lOOf)
III
So far the sélection of sources has revolved
around authors who had some relation to Structura-
lism and the Prague Linguistic Circle (see Toman
1994). Vančura was a follower of the Circle and
a close friend of Jakobson’s. Fischer was admitted
as a member in the 1930s. (In the 1960s he became
a grandfather of a school of thought known as dia-
lectical structurology, acontinuation of Prague Struc-
turalism with soft Marxist means.) Did the Circle
also show any traces of Medievalism in its cultural
program?
In 1935, the Prague Linguistic Circle began to
publish a journal, Slovo a slovesnost, which opened
with an introduction that not only proclaimed inté-
gration of linguistics into the Contemporary systém
of social needs, but, remarkably, attempted to do so
with recourse to the Gothic period and its constitu-
tive éléments:
The Gothic epoch thought in dimensions of cen-
turies. Ignât Herrman was right when he contrasted
the far-sighted imperial construction of Prague by
168