Román a dějiny – Barša Pavel (2022)

Discussions about the nature of the novel are not a thing of the past. On the contrary, they provide space for thinking about today. The climate and coronavirus crises have, alongside their immediate, literally physical impacts, one surprising philosophical consequence. How can we shape shared political visions of the future in a world where every private decision affects the planet or public health? Just as the revolutionary narratives of the twentieth century — fascism and communism — were buried by their own tragic realization, so the neoliberal belief in an unlimited market and the freedom of individuals is undermined by the limited capacity of the planet and the rediscovered fragility of human health. Inanimate entities and death have entered politics. The legitimization of revolutionary and liberal ideologies over the past two centuries has played a key role in the way individual and collective stories are connected, which is also at the center of Milan Kundera's thinking about the novel. Kundera draws from Hegelian concepts, which were adapted for the needs of communist ideology by philosopher György Lukács. However, for addressing today's political challenges, anti-Hegelian concepts of the novel and historicity formulated by Mikhail M. Bakhtin and Erich Auerbach are more suitable.