Ústav pro českou literaturu AV ČR – Bláhová Kateřina, Sládek Ondřej (2010)

Since its foundation in 1947, the Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences has been a unique research centre focusing on the theory and history of Czech literature from its earliest period to the present day. It also serves as an information and consultation centre for literary studies. This book does not offer a comprehensive history of the institute, but rather a series of insights into the work of the individual departments that helped shape it. The institute has contributed to important and positive achievements in Czech literary scholarship, yet its existence cannot be separated from the highly contradictory social context that formed it. Its history is therefore also a chronicle of changing relationships between ideas and illusions, totalitarian political power and the pragmatics of everyday life, the desire for free academic research and differing views of the purpose and role of literary studies. Divided into twelve chapters, the book outlines the institute’s main research areas and collective projects, describes the work of its departments, and presents its most significant figures and key historical moments. The authors draw on numerous archival documents and the extensive recollections of witnesses. The contents are in Czech.