Syllabus
Lectures:
1. Late medieval period as the crisis of the Middle Ages? (RZ)
2. The Luxembourg dynasty in Central Europe (RZ)
3. Iconography as a historical source. Good king Wenceslaus (JD)
4. Poor end of a tapster - sinners on the pictures of the Last Judgement (JD)
5. Bohemian icons - the cult of images in the European context (JD)
6. Mid-term essay (JD + RZ)
7. Biblical typology: How the biblical Exegesis was shared across medieval Europe (JD)
8. Hunting the unicorn - an unusual iconography of Annunciation (JD)
9. Three streams of Hussitism (RZ)
10. Looking for Hussite art - problem of identifying art of the Hussite/Utraquist church (JD)
11. Hussite and anti-Hussite propaganda (JD)
12. Final essay (JD + RZ) Required readings: Fajt, J., Charles IV: emperor by the grace of god: culture and art in the reign of the last of the Luxembourgs 1347-1437. Bamberg: Arthis,
2006. Kaminski, H., A history of the Hussite revolution, Berkeley: University of California Press 1967, 2nd ed.
2004. Recommended readings: Suckale, R., Prague: the Crown of Bohemia, 1347-1437, eds. Barbara Drake Boehm and Jiří Fajt, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2005. Opačić, Z., Architecture and Religious Experience in 14th-Century Prague, in: Jiří Fajt, Andrea Lange (eds.), Kunst als Herrschaftsinstrument. Böhmen und das Heilige Römische Reich unter den Luxemburgern im europäischen Kontext, Berlin-München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2009, pp. 136-149. Bartlová, M., Šroněk, M. (eds.), Public Communication in European Reformation, Prague: Artefactum, 2007, pp. 29-68. Bartlová, M., Iconography of Jan Hus, in: A Companion to Jan Hus, eds. František Šmahel, Ota Pavlíček. Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2015, pp. 325-341.
Annotation
The course is focused on cultural transfers between Bohemia and Western Europe during the 14th and 15th century. Its aim is to present how to interpret historical reality on the basis of late medieval iconographic sources.
The attention will be paid to Luxembourg and Hussite art. The course is a suitable form of preparation for the comprehensive exam in European history in contexts.