чешка

There is nothing more important for the value of a work of art, for its significance, for its lasting impact than whether it gives a true picture and a true expression of its time. Whether, with its own specific means, it reflects the new moments in life that have brought about the changes that give uniqueness to the historical moment, and also the features that are typical of man in general, or the historically conditioned unity of the particular, the variable and the general, the permanent. The social function of a work of art is therefore expressed in the fact that at the moment of its emergence and immediate impact it brings people knowledge of the unknown or not depicted by artistic means and that in this way it contributes to their worldview orientation and forms in them a new emotionality and aesthetics; that even in the next era, even if it is completely different, radically changed, the work of art becomes a document of past life, which remains an integral part of the content of the present, and has its own value for the future. In answering the question posed at the beginning, we interpret and measure the value of the work of Sophocles and Shakespeare, of Cervantes and Stendhal, of Tolstoy and Gorky, of Villon and Mayakovsky. In answering this question, we also evaluate contemporary Czech literature, Czech literature of the last fifteen years after the Second World War. It seems that this question concerns primarily the theme of literature. But in reality it does not concern only it, although it is precisely the theme that is a sufficiently sensitive indicator of the extent to which a work of art, with its ideological content and attitude, as well as its artistic expression and style, represents an expression of its time and contributes to shaping its physiognomy.