Soviet Literary Czech Studies (Bohemistics) in the Era of “Normalization”

Abstract

The topic of the article is the Soviet literary Bohemistry of the period of «normalization», 1969-1989, the era of total control over cultural life in Czechoslovakia, when aesthetic criteria almost completely disappeared from literary criticism and only works that expressed support for the regime were translated. It shows how the Soviet bohemists (I. Bernstein, L. Budagova, S. Nikolsky, N. Shulgina, the Leningrad group: V. Kamenskaya, I. Inov, O. Malevich, I. Porochkina and others) tried to present authors, representatives of the so-called «shadow zone», and in difficult conditions of censorship, self-censorship, fears and doubts created for readers and all those interested in the idea of a small but original Czech literature, which gave the world great writers.