eds. Jakub Kapičiak ‒ Akvilė Rėklaitytė

To discuss the rhetoric of sincerity, it is necessary to focus on
the means that create the effect of genuine and honest (self-)disclosures. This issue explores literary representations of sincerity across Central and Eastern Europe from the late 19th century to the present. The articles, dealing with Bulgarian, Czech, Lithuanian, Slovak, Polish, Romanian, and Ukrainian literatures, demonstrate how the public disclosure of private feelings functions as a powerful communicative principle. Moving beyond its common association with contemporary post-postmodern paradigms, they explore sincerity as an unstable, relational, and highly context-dependent category.

World Literature Studies is an open access and print scholarly journal published quarterly by Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0. Subscriptions: Slovak Academic Press, s. r. o., Bazová 2, 821 08 Bratislava, sap@sappress.sk. Annual subscription: 40 €

Articles:
GERTRAUDE ZAND
Sincerity in Czech literature: Notes toward a rhetoric of lamentation
KRISTIYAN YANEV
(In)sincerity as a narrative strategy in Karol Irzykowski’s “Sny Marii Dunin. Palimpsest”
MARIE ZETOVÁ
Giving an account of oneself through the eyes of the other: On sincerity in Bohumil Hrabal’s
autobiographical trilogy
DALIA SATKAUSKYTĖ
The cultural and political value of sincerity in the literature of Soviet Lithuania
JAKUB MIKULECKÝ
The rhetoric of sincerity in Bulgarian underground literature from the 1960s to the 1980s
ŠIMON ČIŽMÁR
Experimenting with life: New sincerity in contemporary Slovak poetry
EVA KENDERESSY
Is there “sincerity” in the literary imagery of Mircea Cărtărescu’s novel Solenoid?
OLHA VOZNYUK
Sincerity in poetry amid Russia’s war against Ukraine: Svidchennia of Victoria Amelina

The full content of the issue with links to the individual texts can be found HERE.