Эпоха «остранения». Русский формализм и современное гуманитарное знание

The history of Czech Structuralism is full of various polemics that were often significantly contributed to the development of structural thinking. It is not just about mutual polemical clashes, but about the way in which the various debates were held, or about a particular strategy which can often be reconstructed based on different types of texts. What can we meaningfully imagine when the concept of the strategy of thinking is used? In other words, is it possible to detect and analyze, referring to the quoted Mukařovský’s passage, some general patterns, which govern the area of scientific inquiry? If we ask such questions, we can add one more: it is possible to construct a historical analysis of scientific opinion or a current theoretical research rather than as (i) the development of ideas and knowledge related to the specific areas of human activity or (ii) the historical stage in the development of a certain type of Sciences (humanities, literary), but as the description and analysis of a historical space, within which the ideas, knowledge are still in the making? In this sense, it is not a description of the findings in terms of their development to the objectivity, but the history of the terms of their ability to appear and operate within a particular field of thought. It is clear that the results of such historical analysis, defined as archeology, cannot be integrated into a complex interpretation of Czech Literary Structuralism and its development. Taking into account the issue of the relationship between Russian Formalism and Czech Structuralism, that is the way the relationship was interpreted, understood and theoretically grounded in approaches to the tradition of Czech Structuralism, the analysis of archeology may be the appropriate tool to better understand the historical period.

1. How to understand the concept of Archeology?