André Gide: Návrat ze Sovětského svazu; Retuše k mému "Návratu ze Sovětského svazu". Střetnutí individualisty s kolektivistickou utopií

• Main Author: Petkevič, Daniel
• Other Authors: Voldřichová - Beránková, Eva
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: Czech
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-291302

The French writer André Gide (1869-1951) was a representative of the individualist stream in society and literature at the end of the nineteenth and in the first half of the twentieth century. This diploma work examines the circumstances of the writer's involvement in the question of communism in the thirties of the twentieth century, which led to his visit of the Soviet Union in summer 1936 and to his writing two revealing testimonies. Gide's Soviet episode is considered from the perspective of his individualism, which is treated in the first part of this work. It depicts both the basic influences and inspirations that had impact on Gide's individualist spirit and its manifestation in the author's life, creation and in his art and social criticism. The second part focuses on the matter of Gide's communist alignment. It shows the main reasons for his sympathy with the communist ideas, which progressively developed into their association in the early thirties of the twentieth century. In this period of incertitude due to deep social and economic crisis, which gave rise to emerging totalities, Gide felt the need of a political alignment. He was blind in his belief that the implementation of his social ideals was conceivable in the Soviet Union, which succesfully attacked the Western intellectuals with a...