by Martin Hrdina, Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague

Pascale Casanova's concept of the world republic of letters is a description of an environment of antagonistic forces, the description of which defies the logic of the linear growth of the autonomy of art. The objective of this lecture is to furnish a more concrete counterpoint to the simplistic evolutionary perspective that has typically been applied in the histories of national literatures. It is imperative to strive for a more subtle view of autonomy (as conceived by P. Bourdieu and P. Casanova) and its constitution at the intersection of various strategic resources. In addition to the size and antiquity of the national field, structural relationships between literary production, the critical discourse accompanying it, and institutional infrastructure also play a role.

The proposed model is supported by empirical evidence from a number of literary peripheries, which in the latter half of the 19th century were preparing for the well-known test of their autonomy. This entailed the acceptance of modernity and attunement to "world literary time." The structural conditions of autonomy and heteronomy of national fields and their literary production are made visible in their export discourse in the annual reviews of continental literature, which were regularly published in the London magazine Athenaeum.

Martin Hrdina is a researcher at the Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. His professional interests are focused on Czech literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. He has published numerous studies and contributed to monographs on various topics in cultural history, including places of memory in the formation of the modern Czech nation, critical and scholarly reflection on Romanticism and Realism in Czech literature, and responses to the 'Manuscripts of Dvůr Králové and Zelená Hora' in art. From 2020 to 2024, he organized interdisciplinary research on the autonomization of Czech art, which resulted in the book 'Kritika a autonomie českého umění (1859–1892).' He has applied his latest research on poetry as co-author of a joint history of Czech and German literature in the Czech lands, which was published in 2024. He is also a member of the organizing committee of the Pilsen Interdisciplinary Symposia.

Tuesday 10 February 2026, from 2pm until 4pm

Salle de réception
ULB - Bâtiment DE1 - Niveau 3 - Salle R.3.105
Avenue Antoine Depage 1
1000 Bruxelles

Contact : martina.mecco@ulb.be