"Bestie lidská se napájela nejsladší rozkoší…": Román Jaroslava Marii Váhy a meč jako mikrohistorický případ

This study focuses on Jaroslav Maria’s novel Váhy a meč (Sword and Scales, 1928), which it analyses as a microhistorical case, viewing this work/text as an indicator of, and factor in, social events within a specific historical constellation (i.e. the period around 1928). Jaroslav Maria’s novels were very popular in the interwar period, even though they were negatively viewed from the aesthetic standpoint; their subject matter was the life of the various social classes, morality, justice and the judiciary. The novel Sword and Scales refers to actual court cases that were tried in Czechoslovakia, subversively presents and distorts some of the stereotypes of the era with its imagery (femininity, racial and social otherness — the topic of the Roma minority) and gets involved in political issues. This study examines the historical context and the contemporary reception of the novel and on this basis analyses the way in which the literary work has been socially utilized.