the Spanish Civil War

The book “Inter armа. The Premonition of War in Czech Culture (1935–1939)” contains texts representative of both Czech culture and the dominant attitudes in European cultural space, chronologically framed by the Spanish Civil War and the eve of the Second World War. The compiler of the collection, author of the preface, and translator of most of the texts is Dobromir Grigorov. The selected literary testimonies – journalistic essays, poetry, fiction, and drama – contain important intellectual insights, ideological messages, and pose common contemporary questions about the changing interpretations of concepts such as socialism and democracy, and their divergent interpretations. A significant focus in a number of texts is the clash between the individual right to freedom and justice on the one hand, and collective identity on the other. Some of the authors such as Karel Čapek, Vladislav Vančura, and František Halas are well-known to Bulgarian readers, but others are almost or completely unknown – Gustav Winter, Emanuel Vajtauer, Otokar Fišer, Milena Jesenská.