Abstract
The 1850s are considered a period of stagnation for Czech literature, a period of its quantitative, and to some extent also qualitative, decline. Under the apparently stagnant, surface of Bach's Bohemia. however, a major differentiation and transformation of domestic culture was taking place.
On the hand, revivalist literature reached its zenith in synthetic works, although on the other hand forms of revivalist art and life were being relativised and ridiculed. This was particulary seen in short-lived humorous magazines, which were dominated by texts parodying traditional revivalist formation and conventions.
The study shows how their critical gesture became not just a tool forrejecting surviving romanticism, butalso the beginning of a new, more realistic, view of reality.