Vortrag
16/06/2025
18:00 Uhr
Marie Hanzelková and Jiří Dufka: Czech Chapbooks 1600-1900: Transcultural Crossing and Intermediality (Moving Books IV)
UdL 6
Raum 2093
This lecture introduces the world of small-format print production in the multilingual Czech lands, focusing on the trajectory of a specific text across geographical space, book formats, and diverse genres, linguistic, and cultural environments. The first part will survey cheap print production in the Czech lands during the 17th-19th centuries, characterizing its formats, content, materiality, and user practices, as well as the interplay between manuscript, print, and oral culture. These dynamics will be illustrated through a case study: the popular 17th-century English tale of the “soldier praying with a deck of cards,” which subsequently spread throughout Europe and beyond. The lecture will then trace the adaptation and reinterpretation of this story within German and Czech traditions, as preserved in various material forms – chapbooks, broadsides, song records, and manuscripts. It will highlight how physical format, visual design, and textual structure shaped the tale’s reception, exploring how texts were not only read but also experienced visually, aurally, and performatively, and how the same narrative acquired new meanings depending on its medium, audience, and historical setting.