A JOURNEY OF A NAME FROM THE REALM OF REFERENCE TO THE REALM OF MEANING: THE RECEPTION OF MILAN KUNDERA WITHIN THE CZECH CULTURAL CONTEXT (original) (raw)

and ending for the moment with Donald Davidson or Umberto Eco, there have been thousands of pages covered with argumentation that focuses on the same issue: in using a proper name, what do we refer to? A psycho-physiological unity of a unique person or a conceptual construct based on some ency clopedic or cultural code reduction? In the case of Milan Kundera's Czech reception,1 one can not avoid addressing such an issue again and again. When Czech critics, literary historians and interpreters say "Milan Kundera," what do they refer to? Almost never explored explic itly, such a notion seems to be the key to most of the rhetorical agendas and evaluative attempts one can notice when focusing on the ways "Kundera" has been interpreted in the Czech con text between the 1960s and 1990s.