RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
A1 Špaček, Martin
T1 GROWING UP DURING NORMALIZATION IN TRAGICOMIC AND NOSTALGIC NARRATION
JF Bohemica Olomucensia
YR 2021
VO 13
IS 3
SP 74
OP 94
DO 10.5507/bo.2021.044
UL https://bohemica.upol.cz/artkey/boh-202103-0008.php
AB This study examines the significant amount of popular Czech prose published after 1989 that addressed growing up during the late communist era of 'normalization' (1970s and 80s). The prose of P. Šabach, M. Viewegh, I. Dousková, H. Pawlowská, J. Formánek and B. Vaněk Úvalský have much in common: adolescent or distant narrators and acts of small and funny resistance against the regime, but also a lack of interest in politics, memories of pop-culture, first love and partying. Much of this is related to the well-known phenomenon of "ostalgia" or "post-socialist nostalgia", meaning nostalgic reminiscences of the communist era. The study also connects all texts with the widespread "silent majority" discourse after 1989, in which most people denied their participation in communist totalitarianism, seeing themselves as oppressed by the regime.