ABSTRACT
Jaroslav Průšek was a pioneer in modern Chinese literature not only in Czechoslovakia but also globally—he was among the first to offer courses on modern Chinese literature in universities in Europe and America. As a Marxist and a humanist in Cold War–era Czechoslovakia, Průšek employed a unique blend of nationalism, romanticism, Marxism, humanism, and structuralism in his work, which laid the foundation of the Prague School of Sinology as an academic discipline in Czechoslovakia in 1945, and his pioneering approaches in modern Chinese literary studies. The author asks why Průšek saw compatibility between modernization theories and Chinese Marxist or leftist endeavors, and argues that humanistic and structuralist influences prior to Průšek’s acceptance of Marxism intertwined with Marxism and Hegelian dialecticism played an important role in Průšek’s writings in post-communist Czechoslovakia. The eclectic synthesis of Marxism and Western schools of thought reflected both Průšek’s resistance against a dogmatic implementation of communism in Czechoslovakia and his socialist ideals in his studies of leftist Chinese writers.
