IMAGE OF MEXICO IN CZECHOSLOVAK TRAVEL SKETCHES OF THE 1940S AND 1950S

This study presents literary material that originated in the post war Czechoslovak Republic in the late 1940s and early 1950s, inspired by the experience of traveling to Mexico. The subject of interpretation is two books of travel sketches: the Slovak literary and theatre scholar Ján Boor’s Mexico (1949) and the Czech journalist and diplomat Norbert Frýd’s Mexico is in America (1952). Based on the aforementioned texts, the study seeks to reconstruct the image of Mexico as it was shaped by the Czechoslovak cultural discourse of the period, while at the same time aiming to reveal the ideological platforms of both authors’ narratives. The selection of interpreted works was marked by the fact that both were written during a period of stronger influence of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the authors represent the same generation and represent a distinctive form of coexistence of Czech and Slovak culture in the territory of one state.