Abstract
The diaries of sculptor Zbyněk Sekal (1923- 1998) are testimonials of the existential situation of a generation of Czech artists who were, at the threshold of their maturity, struck by war and further political development towards totality. The crisis of the avant-garde, reflections of leftist thinkers, the topic of war sought over and over, together with absurdity, cruelty, suicide, alienation, personal crisis, religion and the labyrinth as the basic living mode, reflections of the meaning of one's own production, this whole spectrum of thought places the author among the tragic figures of modern culture.
They also support the range of philosophic and literary sources Sekal identified himself with (as Heidegger, Kafka) and thus the work is supplemented by an unusually broad scale of interpretive keys. Both interpretation of Sekal's work and its formal analysis are refined and widened.
The escalating dynamism of the diary entries oscillates among inner dialogue, commentary, romance, and cyclic litany, and leads towards a dramatic finale of the artist's work and life.