Bohemica Olomucensia

The aim of my study is to compare the views of the concept of literary history by Russian formalists and Prague structuralists, two significant literary theoretical schools of the beginning of the twentieth century. In spite of the fact that both schools are primarily considered literary theoretical, their particular members were involved in a whole scale literary critical investigation - including the area of literary historical inquiry. Indeed, slowely but surely both respective schools became more emancipated in their claim of a general validity of their originally literary theoretical ideas and started to widen the scope of their scholarly interest towards encompassing the concept of literary history. The formalists originally almost dismissed literary history as an unwelcome heritage of the old approach and the structuralists overlooked it due to their initial emphasis on synchronic aspects of literature.

Keywords: Russian formalism, structuralism, Prague Linguistic Circle, Jan Mukařovský, Felix Vodička, literary history