Hrdinství starých - Sborník k 50 narozeninám Jiřího Starého – Novotná Marie (2021)

The anthology for the significant jubilee of the Nordicist, Germanist, religionist, and musician Jiří Starý is quite diverse – just like the breadth of interests and the multilayered education of the honoree himself. The affected diversity pertains to thematic, genre, and stylistic spheres. In the book, the reader will find strictly scholarly contributions, quasi-scholarly contributions – reporting fictional motifs and plots, yet presented in a supremely academic form, essays – both philosophical and humorous, original authorial prose, dramatic and poetic works, translations, and last but not least – laudatory odes. All contributions to the anthology are broadly unified (besides the obvious congratulatory function) by a certain adoration of the value heights of past worlds, old proven qualities that do not succumb to transience. It can thus be labeled as conservative, if we understand the term as respect for what deserves to be preserved, for it may not be entirely in vain to insist on the cultural validity of such historical outputs that Jan Patočka classified as possibilities of 'rising from decline.'