BETWEEN MATERIAL, THEORY AND IDEOLOGY. ON THE POSITION OF LITERARY HISTORY

The lecture, which arises from concrete research done at the Institute of Bohemian Studies at Jihoceska univerzita, Ceske Budejovice, focuses on the possible methodological approaches in studying 19th-century Czech literature. Step-by-step, it recapitulates the way of gradual creation of a methodological position, and at the same time illuminates the practical meaning of the instrumentalization of each individual theoretical postulates for literary historicism. Literary historicism is understood as an arbitrary alghorithm, used in each step to define the point of view, the summary of the work tools and the terminological inventory. The goal is to liberate literary historicism from the constriciton of the traditional, causal, linear understanding, yet at the same time prevent the break-down of the literary historical position in the windstorm of widely understood cultural studies.