The main topic of the thesis is the investigation of the Polish influence on Russia during the Time of Troubles, as it's described by the Russian writers of the first half of 17th century in their Historical narrations. In the first part of the work there is introduced the Time of Troubles as a phenomenon that significantly influenced all its contemporaries. The thesis also pays attention to the historical sources, to their causes and circumstances of creation and also some of their authors. In the most extensive part of the work there are, based on extensive source material, discussed various topics that are focused on the Polish factor on the Russia during the period. There is mentioned the Polish support of False tsars, who aspire to the tsar title, the king's Zikmund military intervention and also the final victory of Russian militia over foreign interventionists. In conclusion there are compared individual historical narrations with each other, if there are any different topics that they describe or if they describe any element of Polish intervention in the same way or if there is any connection between the authors' lives and their works.

Esta tese discute como Brasil e Portugal abordam em suas representações literárias o imaginário que envolve a Segunda Guerra Mundial. O estudo volta-se ao aspecto do combatente brasileiro em solo italiano, “o pracinha”, e à perspectiva do refugiado, vítima das perseguições antissemitas, que buscou asilo em terras lusitanas. Para tanto, procede-se ao exame das obras de Boris Schnaiderman, Guerra em surdina, e de Roberto de Mello e Souza, Mina R, no âmbito brasileiro. As narrativas analisadas no panorama português são “Nasci com passaporte de turista” e O cavalo espantado, de Alves Redol, “O mundo perdido”, de Joaquim Paço d’Arcos, e Sob céus estranhos, de Ilse Losa. De um lado, vislumbra-se a guerra em funcionamento, apontada nos romances brasileiros através da experiência coletiva e da experiência individual dos soldados (agentes e vítimas do aparato da guerra). De outro lado, aponta-se as consequências da guerra por meio dos desterrados que chegaram a Portugal e assumiram a voz narrativa para relatar suas trajetórias, o que se compreende como “a escrita do refugiado”.Os efeitos da guerra também são apresentados através do relato feito pela alteridade, destacado aqui como “o refugiado na escrita”. O aporte teórico conta, entre outras referências, com o artigo de Fredric Jameson, War and representation (2009), como suporte para a análise das representações bélicas nas duas literaturas. A partir disso, os retratos da guerra, apreendidos por meio do corpus selecionado nessa tese, exibem irascibilidade, desumanização e descaso como características desse “tempo sombrio” (ARENDT, 1991), além de abordarem o desalento próprio àqueles que passaram por vivências aterradoras, sejam eles os combatentes – como no caso brasileiro –, sejam os fugitivos das perseguições antissemitas – como no português. / This thesis discusses how Brazil and Portugal approach in their literary representations the imaginary that involves the Second World War. The study turns to the aspect of the Brazilian combatant on Italian soil, “the pracinha”, and the perspective of the refugee, a victim of anti-Semitic persecutions, who sought asylum in Lusitanian lands. To do so, the works of Boris Schnaiderman, Guerra em surdina, and Roberto de Mello e Souza, Mina R, are examined in the Brazilian context. The narratives analyzed in the Portuguese panorama are “Nasci com passaporte de turista” and O cavalo espantado, by Alves Redol, “O mundo perdido”, by Joaquim Paço d'Arcos, and Sob céus estranhos, by Ilse Losa. On the one hand, we can see the war in operation, pointed out in the Brazilian novels through the collective experience and individual experience of the soldiers (agents and victims of the apparatus of war). On the other hand, the consequences of the war are pointed out by the exiles who arrived in Portugal and took the narrative voice to report their trajectories, which is understood as “the writing of the refugee”. The effects of war are also presented through the account of alterity, here described as “the refugee in writing”. The theoretical contribution counts, among other references, the article by Fredric Jameson, War and representation (2009), as support for the analysis of warlike representations in the two literatures. From this, the portraits of war, seized through the corpus selected in this thesis, exhibit irascibility, dehumanization and neglect as characteristics of this “dark time” (ARENDT, 1991), as well as addressing the self-despondency of those who have experienced frightening experiences, be they combatants – as in the Brazilian case – are the fugitives of anti- Semitic persecutions – as in Portuguese.

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This dissertation examines Soviet and Polish science fiction from the 1960s to 1980s as a political genre that investigates power and society. The problem of alterity is central for this genre: it is ungovernable because it is incomprehensible. Science fiction of this kind explores the possibilities and impossibilities of living with the Other that can impact social organization dramatically and lethally while that Other cannot be impacted in return. Living peacefully with such alterity is the fundamental premise of pluralism as a principle of social organization, according to the conclusions of the study. The dissertation explores alterity in science fiction by Ivan Efremov (1908–1972), Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (1925–1991 and 1933–2012), Stanisław Lem (1921–2006), and Volodymyr Savchenko (1933–2005). My goal is to reveal in their works a transformative epistemological shift that had manifested itself through the tropes of alterity. Among these tropes the dissertation highlights aliens and alien civilizations, artificial intelligence, anisotropic universe, distant planets endowed with unique natural attributes, the more abstract unknown, and non-human elements running out-of-control within human species. I also examine specifically science-fictional notions such as the bull and progressor, which represent the intelligentsia’s relations with power and the masses. The analyzed literary worlds also represent their authors’ views of alternative societal organization, ruled by the powerful alterity such as a mega-computer or alien super-intelligence. Another important trope of alterity is based upon a simultaneous performance of contradictory competing logics that create an effect known as parallax: the reader may interpret the same characters and/or stories in multiple, mutually incompatible, ways. Beyond avoiding censorship, these tropes set the stage for the authors’ utopias, in which the Other appears as an impenetrable alterity that affects those who encounter it. For these writers, alterity serves as the tool for problematizing progress, as it was imagined after World War II by the majority of political elites under socialism and in the West. I suggest that their science fiction contributed, among many other factors, to the lexicon and the imaginary of a cohort of political dissidents and Communist Party functionaries alike who translated science-fictional themes into political science terms to shape Perestroika’s discourse. The dissertation, thus, establishes a historical connection between Soviet and Polish science fiction of the post-Stalin period and the ways in which democracy was discursively constructed in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and other former socialist nations.

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Boris Akunin’s historical detective novels have sold more than eight million copies in Russia, and have been translated into nearly a dozen languages. Boris Akunin is the pen name of literary critic and translator Grigory Chkhartishvili. Born in 1956 in the republic of Georgia, he published his first detective stories in 1998. His first series of novels, beginning with Azazel’ and followed by Turetskii gambit, feature a dashing young police inspector, Erast Fandorin. Fandorin’s adventures take place in the Russian Empire of the late nineteenth century, and he regularly finds himself at the center of key historic events. The first book takes place over one summer, May to September 1876, as the intrepid Fandorin, on his first case, unveils an international organization of conspirators—Azazel’—bent on changing the course of world events. The second takes place two years later from July 1877 to March 1878 during Russia’s war with the Ottoman Empire. The young detective again clashes with Azazel’, as he unravels a Turkish agent’s intricate plan to weaken and destroy the Russian state. Both adventures have proven wildly popular and entertaining, while maintaining a certain literary value. The exploration of time and space in Russian literature was once a popular subject of discourse, but since the 1970s it has been somewhat ignored, rarely applied to contemporary works, and even less to works of popular culture. Akunin’s treatment of time and space, however, especially given the historical setting of his works, is unique. Azazel’, for example, maintains a lightning pace with a tight chronology and a rapidly changing series of locales. Turetskii gambit presents a more laconic pace, and, though set in the vast Caucasus region, seems more claustrophobic as it methodically works towards its conclusion. Both works employ a seemingly impersonal narrator, who, nonetheless, speaks in a distinctly 19th century tone, and both works cast their adventures within the framework of actual historical events and locations. This thesis analyzes core theories in literary time and space, applying them then to Akunin’s historical detective literature.

Boris Akunin’s historical detective novels have sold more than eight million copies in Russia, and have been translated into nearly a dozen languages. Boris Akunin is the pen name of literary critic and translator Grigory Chkhartishvili. Born in 1956 in the republic of Georgia, he published his first detective stories in 1998. His first series of novels, beginning with Azazel’ and followed by Turetskii gambit, feature a dashing young police inspector, Erast Fandorin. Fandorin’s adventures take place in the Russian Empire of the late nineteenth century, and he regularly finds himself at the center of key historic events. The first book takes place over one summer, May to September 1876, as the intrepid Fandorin, on his first case, unveils an international organization of conspirators—Azazel’—bent on changing the course of world events. The second takes place two years later from July 1877 to March 1878 during Russia’s war with the Ottoman Empire. The young detective again clashes with Azazel’, as he unravels a Turkish agent’s intricate plan to weaken and destroy the Russian state. Both adventures have proven wildly popular and entertaining, while maintaining a certain literary value. The exploration of time and space in Russian literature was once a popular subject of discourse, but since the 1970s it has been somewhat ignored, rarely applied to contemporary works, and even less to works of popular culture. Akunin’s treatment of time and space, however, especially given the historical setting of his works, is unique. Azazel’, for example, maintains a lightning pace with a tight chronology and a rapidly changing series of locales. Turetskii gambit presents a more laconic pace, and, though set in the vast Caucasus region, seems more claustrophobic as it methodically works towards its conclusion. Both works employ a seemingly impersonal narrator, who, nonetheless, speaks in a distinctly 19th century tone, and both works cast their adventures within the framework of actual historical events and locations. This thesis analyzes core theories in literary time and space, applying them then to Akunin’s historical detective literature.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to employ a theatrological approach to the work of one of the most original and influential Czech pantomime troupes of all time, entitled Pantomima Alfreda Jarryho (the Alfred Jarry Pantomime, AJP). The company was established in 1966 in Prague by two young mime artists Boris Hybner and Ctibor Turba and existed as late as the political liquidation of the troupe in 1972 that came due to the process of the so-called normalization period in the former Czechoslovakia. The thesis consists of four major parts that are divided into several subsections. The first part deals with the historical contexts of the art of mime, both international and domestic. The AJP troupe represents the second generation of Czech pantomime that refused the style of the so-called modern pantomime expressed in the international context by Marcel Marceau and in the Czech context by Ladislav Fialka at the Theatre Na zábradlí (Theatre on the Balustrade). Since there is no monograph strictly based on this theatre, although it played a major role among the newly established small theatres in the sixties (and had an important influence on the poetics of the AJP troupe), we briefly introduce the poetics of both the pantomime company led by Fialka and the drama company led by the director Jan Grossman,...

The present thesis investigates the music and career of Jeffrey Lewis (born 1942). The thesis is broadly divided into three sections. First is an account of the composer’s life, told mainly through an overview of his works, but also through a sketch of his early years in South Wales, his studies in Cardiff, Darmstadt, Kraków and Paris, his academic career in Leeds and Bangor, and his subsequent early retirement from academia. There follows a more detailed study of six works from the period 1978 – 1985, during which certain features of Lewis’s musical language came to the fore, perhaps most notably a very individual and instantly recognisable use of modal language. After an Epilogue, the thesis concludes with an Appendix in the form of a Catalogue in which all Lewis’s known compositions are listed, together with details of performances, broadcasts and recordings. Lewis’s music often plays with our temporal expectations; the close interrelationship between texture, structure, harmony and melody, and its effect upon our perception of the passage of time, are explored in the main analyses. These are conducted partly by means of comparison with other works by Lewis or his contemporaries. Memoria is examined in relation to a similarly tranquil score, Naaotwá Lalá, by Giles Swayne. The following chapter discusses the extra-musical inspiration for Epitaph for Abelard and Heloise, whose relationship to Tableau is then explored in the next. The difficulties of creating a large-scale structure that unifies the work’s various harmonic elements are also investigated. The analysis of Carmen Paschale considers it in relation to Lewis’s other choral music, whilst the final analytical chapter compares and contrasts two three-movement works, the Piano Trio and the Fantasy for solo piano. Lewis’s melodic writing in the Piano Trio is discussed in relation to that of James MacMillan, and the origins of the first movement of Fantasy in Oliver Knussen’s Sonya’s Lullaby are explored. In the Epilogue, the possible reasons for Lewis’s current neglect are explored, various influences on Lewis’s musical thinking are laid out, and his achievements are assessed.