Narrative and ideological discourses inrepresentations of the Mašín Brothers

PG Slavic, Baltic, Albanian languages and literature;HX Socialism. Communism. Anarchism

Sveda, Josef ; Culik, Jan

University:University of Glasgow

Department:School of Modern Languages and Cultures

关键词: Mašín Brothers, Masin, Czech Ideology, Myth, Communism, Post-Communism, Central Europe, Semiotics, Narratology;   

Others  :  http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2289/1/2009SvedaMPhil.pdf

来源: University of Glasgow

【 摘 要 】

This thesis deals with narrative representations of the story of the Mašín brothers who in1951 established what they called ‘a resistance group’ against the Communist regime andkilled three people. They escaped from Czechoslovakia in 1953, heading for West Berlin.Despite being hunted by more than 20,000 East German and Soviet troops, the Mašínbrothers together with Milan Paumer got to West Berlin safely. Later, they went to theUSA and joined the U.S. army. Their actions are still regarded as controversial in today’sCzech Republic and are a topic of continuous public debate. Since the fall ofCommunism in 1989, this topic has been tackled by many historians as well as nonfictionwriters. The thesis analyses a novel, So Far So Good [Zatím dobrý. Mašínovi anejvětší příběh studené války] by Jan Novák, and a historical book written by BarbaraMasin called Gauntlet: Five Friends, Twenty Thousand Enemy Troops, and the SecretThat Could Have Changed the Course of the Cold War. The thesis also examines twonarratives about the Mašín brothers produced in Communist Czechoslovakia in the 1970sand 1980s – a short story by František Vrbecký called The Dead Do Not Talk and oneepisode of a famous television series Major Zeman’s Thirty Cases entitled Fear. Whereasin the narratives produced in Communist Czechoslovakia the Mašíns are depicted asmurderers, in the narratives published after 1989, they are portrayed as freedom fighters.This thesis analyses these narrative representations from a narratological point of viewand assesses how their structures are related to the values, beliefs and opinions theypromote. The semiotic and narratological approach (Porter Abbott, Seymour Chatman) isused as are contemporary critical theory (Roland Barthes, Theun A. van Dijk) and theoryof history (Hayden White). The thesis is divided into three parts: the first two partsanalyse the narratives from a narratological point of view and their affiliation to myth andthe third part unravels the relationship of the narrative discourse to the beliefs and valuesinscribed in the narratives – ideological discourse.