Abstract
"Can literature be emancipated from national and geographical borders?" No matter how restrictive the category of nation has been for literary research, if we look at literature from a diachronic perspective, both the national and geographical aspects of literature become crucial. National literatures as such were established as a part of (artificially) created national identity, constructed in contrast to other identities.
But such rivalries can be found in the recent past as well - one of the prime examples would be the Cold War period. Here, the rivals were not nations but power blocs whose literature (or interpretation of it) sought to establish itself in contrast to the 'Other'.
The focus of this presentation is to demonstrate how this cultural 'Other' was presented in the other culture: specifically, what image were the official structures on the east side of the Iron Curtain trying to create by translation, reception and interpretation of US literature. My presentation focuses on the situation in Czechoslovakia.
Between 1948- 1956, the ideological norm directly determined the cultural politics of book publishing: by the means of censorship and also by the direct influence on the edition plans of publishing companies. This created a situation where the state decided both on the choice of books for translation and their official interpretation, thus constructing a specific version of American literature and establishing an 'alternative canon.' 1 I would like to introduce my research on the 'Czechoslovak America' and show the tendencies and examples of this construction of American literature using the background of the common major tendencies in the countries of Central Europe that shared the same political orientation.
Although borrowing some concepts from the Transnationalist approach, the presentation goes against Casanova's notion of the 'literary universe', determined only by the literary value. If we look at publishing in certain times and places, as was Czechoslovakia in the 1950s, literary value played a minor role in comparison to the geopolitical perspective.