Landscape and history: Remarks on the margins of Stanislaw Vincenz's and Josef Váchal's literary works.
Abstract
This article focuses on a cultural dimension of the Middle European landscape seen as an integrative factor in the multicultural borderland in the context of historical changes. The starting point of this comparative reflection is a selection of literary work by two authors: a Polish writer Stanisław Vincenz (1888-1971) and his monumental novel Na wysokiej połoninie and a Czech artist Josef Váchal (1884-1969) and his memoirs from the First World War Malíř na frontě.
The first author connected with the mountainous region of Galicia called Bukowina (nowadays a part of Ukrainian state and in the past a part of multicultural Polish Republic -Rzeczpospolita and then a part of Austro-Hungarian Empire) was a supporter of the idea of boundless Europe. Opposite to political and national activists he appreciates natural and cultural landscape more in mutual pursuit of integration especially in the context of historical calamities.
The second one, an eccentric known for his spiritual quest but first of all an innovative graphic artist and interesting memoirist, seems to be quite practical and reasonable in his perception of historical absurdity evoking by his personal experience of military service at the Italian font in the years 1916-1918.