While we live with the sense that time is always new and things are changing rapidly, some aspects of the argument and truth are so persistent that some formulations may last more than half a century and remain valid for us. this is the case by definition milan kundera (Brno, Czechia, 1929) establishes the first. two texts gathered’A kidnapped West‘ (‘Literature and small nations’, lecture read at the Czechoslovak Writers’ Congress in 1967) with the vandal figure: “They are all educated, content with themselves. […]. Their proud narrow-mindedness believes they can shape the world according to their image, and they are capable of turning their homeland into a homeland. the desert without history, memory, echo, and all beauty“.
Kundera considers this proud provincialism to be the worst enemy of small cultures whose reason for their existence at the cultural level (he speaks of reasoning) is not related to powerful states. leave the folkloric corners and day-to-day administration itself, and offers valuable work to the rest of the countries.
This idea is interesting in a country like ours where at least four literature acts without a State. But if we add his opinion, In the globalizing world, the dominant culture tends to swallow everything.Even cultures like the Spaniards risk becoming junk or Anglo-Saxon satellites if they are not warned against vandalism by their compatriots. And something of that risk comes up every time movie billboards or the news and cultural news of the press act like obedient echoes of another country’s industry, always dealing with stories that don’t belong to us.
no cultural
Current events may spoil the reading of the second of the collected texts, published as a journal article in 1983: ‘The Kidnapped West’. Kundera denounces the cultural neglect of what he calls “Central Europe,” which would include countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. He assures that the rest of Europe condemns the absence of freedoms caused by the communist regime in these countries, but forgets that their forced annexation to Russia also violates their cultural identity: It is closer to rationalism and Catholicism than sentimentality and orthodox religion..
A mental reflex suggests that this text is a warning against Russia’s imperialist impulses, but Kundera warns that we should not compare (yes, condemn) the situation in Ukraine and Belarus (politically thematic but belonging to the same cultural sphere) with Russia. That of Hungary and Poland. Over the years, these countries, which got rid of the Soviet yoke and integrated into the EU, accelerated their drift against the enlightenment principles that we usually associate with Europe. Approaching extremism and intolerance. Political emancipation has not completely eliminated the monsters here.
Think tank, life teacher, comedic genius, it’s always a pleasure to meet or rediscover a text from Kundera. And this book is a happy reminder of how lucky we are to be our contemporary.
‘A kidnapped West’
milan kundera
Translation of Maika Lahoz
tassels
88 pages
17 euros
Source: Informacion
Brandon Hall is an author at “Social Bites”. He is a cultural aficionado who writes about the latest news and developments in the world of art, literature, music, and more. With a passion for the arts and a deep understanding of cultural trends, Brandon provides engaging and thought-provoking articles that keep his readers informed and up-to-date on the latest happenings in the cultural world.