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#0179
Charles the Fourth with Prague’s narrow horizon fifty
years ago. As he put it, whatever was recently being
undertaken “was tailored merely according to the
measure of the day.” We cannot - and do not want to
- return back to Gothic culture, but its grandiose,
self-conscious and goal-oriented construction pro-
vides a more Contemporary and inspiring example
than the poverty of yesterday - heroic and sacrificial
as it may háve been. (Circle 1935, 7)
Again, this matches the sentiment of the 193 Os
in that there is an admiration for an epoch of order
and discipline, monumentality and subjugation un-
der higher-order goals. Either Mukařovský or Jakob-
son are the likely candidates for the authorship of
this passage. In his Aesthetic Function, Norm and
AestheticValue of 1936, Mukařovský assigned Gothic
society aspecial status, and also for Jakobson the
préoccupation with the Middle Ages had a certain
mystique, as seen, among other places, in his “Con-
sidérations About the Poetry of the Hussite Period”
(Jakobson 1936). The study strikes one by an em-
phasis on the integrated character of medieval socie-
ty:
Gothic order did not know the strict division of
spheres of interest - religion, art, science, socio-eco-
nomical, national, erotic spheres - characteristic of
modem times. Each phenomenon had several levels
and each event belonged necessarily to several le-
vels at the same time. This is the essence of gothic
symbolism. The tendency toward autonomy of indi-
vidual areas only began with the Renaissance. (Ja-
kobson 1936, 2)
IV
Clearly, the Middle Ages provided a score of
animating images some of which were readily picked
up and modified by Czech progressivist intellectu-
als in the 1920s and 1930s: the Gothic cathédral
(Vančura, Fischer), a kind of chivalric code (Vanču-
ra), craftsmanship and goal-oriented work (Vanču-
ra, The Circle), monumentalism (The Circle) and
order (Vančura, Fischer, the Circle). Atthe same time,
most of these images appear in the interwar time in
their late forms, having traveled a long path through
Symbolism, Expressionism and the early avant-garde,
both at home and abroad. Gothic allusions were fre-
quent in Jaroslav Durych (1886-1962), a Czech catho-
lic author whose name belongs to an overall account
of Czech Medievalism but can beignored here. The
image of the cathédral appears in the Czech Sym-
bolist poet Otokar Březina, the Prague German poet
R.M. Rilke, but also in the Bauhaus organizer Wal-
ter Gropius. (Incidentally, the name originally con-
templated for Bauhaus was Bauhütte, a word with
strong medieval connotations.) And, as we hâve seen
above, one of the earliest programs of Czech avant-
garde, Teige’s “New Proletarian Art,” exploited the
image of a ”new socialist Gothic.”
But on the whole, Czech progressivist authors
haye rarely achieved the medievalistic quality that is
known from the English 19th Century medieval ra-
vivai, from German conservatives such as Moeller
van der Bruck or from such Russian thinkers as Ber-
dyaev. It should be obvious from the Czech sources
that in each case Medievalism represents a trace élé-
ment, an ingrédient of a discourse that by itself does
not aim at a large-scale Gothic Revival. In other
words, the Prague Linguistic Circle was not a medieval
guild, and Fischer was not a Czech William Morris.
Likewise, Vančura cannot be reduced to a simple
imitátor of medieval Czech or a straightforward in-
tellectual medievalist - his prose and thoughts were
simply much more complex. But there is a clear line
of commitment and a recurring link that associâtes
Gothic imagery with certain social and cultural
projects. The Middle Ages served as a symbol of
a world that had a special appeal - an epoch of genui-
ne relations, genuine work, genuine faith. This is quite
in line with the 19th Century Medievalism that also
focused on a highly idealized vision of medieval
society as an example of undiluted piety and faith,
honest craftsmanship, mutual responsibility, and es-
thetic triumph. But this is also in line with a pro-
nounced commitment to the political philosophy of
antiliberalism that characterizes the Czech progres-
sivists of the interwar period. Critique of liberalism,
a fortuitous play of interests with no apparent mea-
ning, was a constitutive element of Fischer’s philo-
sophical systém. Likewise, the Circle, at least in Ja-
kobson’s and Mukarovskÿ’s understanding, was not
enamored of social and cultural categories of the late
nineteenth Century. Finally, Vančura was also criti-
cal of liberalism. Turning to the enquette on Catholi-
cism with which we began, we note the way Vančura
169
years ago. As he put it, whatever was recently being
undertaken “was tailored merely according to the
measure of the day.” We cannot - and do not want to
- return back to Gothic culture, but its grandiose,
self-conscious and goal-oriented construction pro-
vides a more Contemporary and inspiring example
than the poverty of yesterday - heroic and sacrificial
as it may háve been. (Circle 1935, 7)
Again, this matches the sentiment of the 193 Os
in that there is an admiration for an epoch of order
and discipline, monumentality and subjugation un-
der higher-order goals. Either Mukařovský or Jakob-
son are the likely candidates for the authorship of
this passage. In his Aesthetic Function, Norm and
AestheticValue of 1936, Mukařovský assigned Gothic
society aspecial status, and also for Jakobson the
préoccupation with the Middle Ages had a certain
mystique, as seen, among other places, in his “Con-
sidérations About the Poetry of the Hussite Period”
(Jakobson 1936). The study strikes one by an em-
phasis on the integrated character of medieval socie-
ty:
Gothic order did not know the strict division of
spheres of interest - religion, art, science, socio-eco-
nomical, national, erotic spheres - characteristic of
modem times. Each phenomenon had several levels
and each event belonged necessarily to several le-
vels at the same time. This is the essence of gothic
symbolism. The tendency toward autonomy of indi-
vidual areas only began with the Renaissance. (Ja-
kobson 1936, 2)
IV
Clearly, the Middle Ages provided a score of
animating images some of which were readily picked
up and modified by Czech progressivist intellectu-
als in the 1920s and 1930s: the Gothic cathédral
(Vančura, Fischer), a kind of chivalric code (Vanču-
ra), craftsmanship and goal-oriented work (Vanču-
ra, The Circle), monumentalism (The Circle) and
order (Vančura, Fischer, the Circle). Atthe same time,
most of these images appear in the interwar time in
their late forms, having traveled a long path through
Symbolism, Expressionism and the early avant-garde,
both at home and abroad. Gothic allusions were fre-
quent in Jaroslav Durych (1886-1962), a Czech catho-
lic author whose name belongs to an overall account
of Czech Medievalism but can beignored here. The
image of the cathédral appears in the Czech Sym-
bolist poet Otokar Březina, the Prague German poet
R.M. Rilke, but also in the Bauhaus organizer Wal-
ter Gropius. (Incidentally, the name originally con-
templated for Bauhaus was Bauhütte, a word with
strong medieval connotations.) And, as we hâve seen
above, one of the earliest programs of Czech avant-
garde, Teige’s “New Proletarian Art,” exploited the
image of a ”new socialist Gothic.”
But on the whole, Czech progressivist authors
haye rarely achieved the medievalistic quality that is
known from the English 19th Century medieval ra-
vivai, from German conservatives such as Moeller
van der Bruck or from such Russian thinkers as Ber-
dyaev. It should be obvious from the Czech sources
that in each case Medievalism represents a trace élé-
ment, an ingrédient of a discourse that by itself does
not aim at a large-scale Gothic Revival. In other
words, the Prague Linguistic Circle was not a medieval
guild, and Fischer was not a Czech William Morris.
Likewise, Vančura cannot be reduced to a simple
imitátor of medieval Czech or a straightforward in-
tellectual medievalist - his prose and thoughts were
simply much more complex. But there is a clear line
of commitment and a recurring link that associâtes
Gothic imagery with certain social and cultural
projects. The Middle Ages served as a symbol of
a world that had a special appeal - an epoch of genui-
ne relations, genuine work, genuine faith. This is quite
in line with the 19th Century Medievalism that also
focused on a highly idealized vision of medieval
society as an example of undiluted piety and faith,
honest craftsmanship, mutual responsibility, and es-
thetic triumph. But this is also in line with a pro-
nounced commitment to the political philosophy of
antiliberalism that characterizes the Czech progres-
sivists of the interwar period. Critique of liberalism,
a fortuitous play of interests with no apparent mea-
ning, was a constitutive element of Fischer’s philo-
sophical systém. Likewise, the Circle, at least in Ja-
kobson’s and Mukarovskÿ’s understanding, was not
enamored of social and cultural categories of the late
nineteenth Century. Finally, Vančura was also criti-
cal of liberalism. Turning to the enquette on Catholi-
cism with which we began, we note the way Vančura
169