Majid and Boblig: The motif of exploiting religion in Syed Waliullah's Lalsalu and Václav Kaplický's Witchhammer
Abstract
There are many similar traits and motifs in the Bengali and Czech literatures. Among the most significant ones, there is the motif of fighting for independence, both political and language-based, and the ever-present complicated matter of religion.
There are pieces of literature that deal with the relations between different religions or creeds (Hindu/Muslim, Catholic/Protestant/atheist) on one side, and books whose subject-matter is a single religion and, quite often, its critique. This subject, together with the motif of rural superstition (village life and its ambivalence is also a crucial topic in both literatures) that is also quite frequent in both Czech and Bengali literatures, is the most prominent feature of the two books mentioned in the title of this paper: Syed Waliullhah's Lalsalu and Václav Kaplický's Witchhammer.
In this paper, I compare these two books and show that despite the fact that they come from different literary traditions, language, and indeed religious background, they share a surprising amount of features and play a similar role in a nation's self-image.