Přehled o publikaci

The volume’s central question revolves around literary and, more broadly, cultural narratives on totalitarianism across diverse national literatures. Through their presentations, participants explore representations of power within literary texts. Furthermore, they examine literary strategies employed in various national literatures to document oppressive systems, with particular focus on dystopian narratives. Within the comparative framework of the volume, discussions extend to a range of responses to authoritarianism – both direct and indirect – as articulated across diff erent literary genres. The relationship between authoritarian regimes and literary production is also addressed from another perspective: the extent to which such regimes can infl uence literary and artistic activity, and conversely, their ability to use artistic expression to further ideological objectives. Given that oppression is fundamentally incompatible with the freedom of expression integral to art and literature, the ways in which authoritarian mechanisms of control, such as censorship, negotiate literary texts, emerged as a central theme of the discussion. Finally, participants sought to analyse literature both as a form of resistance to authoritarian regimes and as a product shaped by specifi c historical contexts. This analysis was rooted in the critical themes of oppression, political ideology, and memory.