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Karel Klostermann and the discourse on the Bohemian Forest

Publication at Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Humanities |
2019

Abstract

This paper deals with a) the role of writer Karel Klostermann (1848-1923) and his work in the protracted debate over approaches to the administration of the Bohemian Forest National Park (BFNP), and b) a description of intertextual relations between three sets of texts: Karel Kloster- mann's fiction, discourse on Karel Klostermann/the image of Klostermann's fiction, and discourse on the BFNP. The material analysed consists of evidence from an extensive corpus of media texts on the BFNP dated 1991-2010, which use the life and work of Karel Klostermann as part of the argu- ment data, both as quotations and simple references.

This evidence is classified on the basis of the positions of the speakers and the motifs involved. The results of this analysis indicate not only that motifs from the discourse on Karel Klostermann have only to some extent crossed over into the dis- course on the BFNP, depending in particular on the position of the speaker, but also that new motifs continue to cross over from fiction.

However, it also reveals the nature of discourse on the BFNP, which is primarily determined by the dominant narrative of the unnatural character of the large-scale decline of mountain spruce trees.