2016
MODERNISM – MACHAR – MASARYK: THOUGHT, CREATION AND MANNERS
Grant Agency CR, reg. No.: 14-29050S
Grand holders: Masaryk Institute and Czech Academy of Science Archive
Co-holder: Museum of Czech Literature
Project researcher: P. Kotyk
Time span: from 2014 to 2016
The project is supposed to make a contribution to the key stage in forming the early Czech modernism when the main principles were formulated in polemic conflicts of interests, which would end in opinion differentiation among the young generation. The project’s central subject talks about a mutual inspirational relationship between T.G. Masaryk and J.S. Machar in the period, intellectual, cultural, literary and political contexts. Viewing both figures to be leading representatives of literary, cultural, scientific, social or else critiques, the project lays emphasis on their interpretation of the modernism, on a fluctuating relation between their thought, creation and manners. The turn of the 20th century saw Czech society’s radical transformation when the politics, sciences and arts began to come to independence and professionalization. The thing that was nearing to completion in politics was a structure of political parties, while the scheme of political rise mostly leading via journalistic or new political structures was forming. The more the politics grew to mass character, the easier it was to interconnect the organizational party structure with the newly formed membership base. At the same time, the party spectrum had been undergoing a process of restructuralization, where newly emerging parties of interest and social democracies beyond parliament would try to find their places. What occupied an influential role in that transformation was the attitude of young writers, poets, and art critics who had been engaged in disputes with national ideals from the 1880s; and who re-evaluated the relations between art and society, and advanced art independence on exterior demands, especially those nationally educational. Despite the fact that the art modernism had been taking a critical position on party policy, and had been refusing ideological manipulation of both liberal parties, a range of their representatives searched for ways to involve the public in activities, while maintaining the basic requirements of criticism and individualism that had been already reproached by T.G. Masaryk. What can serve as a striking illustration of that attempt at co-operation between politicians and artists is the manifest ‘The Czech Modernism’ of the autumn 1895, and J.S. Machar, Viktor Dyk, S.K. Neumann’s or others’ activities. The more the influence of these figures was expanding, the more the scepticism was spreading due to the period model and the release of the Austrian identity (not only) in Czech society. Asserting non-political policy was associated with the discredited Austrian policy that had been entrenched in the Monarchy era, and during the times when the national programme had been escalating during the war. The same movements occurred in Czech, Polish, and Hungarian countries, and to a certain advance also German countries.
