Abstract

This study proposes a dynamic model of totalitarianism and a method for examining its literary representation. It approaches totalitarianism as a process comprising incubation, seizure of power, terror, normalization, erosion, and the subsequent formation of memory. Using the metaphor of literature as a seismograph, the study identifies both the analytical possibilities and the limitations of literary evidence and derives nine methodological principles for comparative analysis. The model is tested through a Czech sequence of works by Kafka, Čapek, and Petiška, supplemented by Hungarian and Polish points of comparison.

Keywords

  • totalitarianism
  • literature
  • seismograph
  • Central Europe
  • comparative literary study
  • dynamic model
  • Kafka
  • Čapek
  • Petiška
  • long twentieth century

About the author

Prof. Dr. Libor Pavera

Prague, Czech Republic

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6916-8483

Libor Pavera lives in Prague and works across Central Europe. His research addresses the development of schools and education, aesthetics in the broad sense (the individual arts), and new media – fake news, deepfakes and related phenomena – as well as LTI and “harmful language”, both in theoretical work and in applied studies and projects.

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How to cite

PAVERA, Libor. Totalitarianism in the Long Time: Literature as a Seismograph and Its Blind Spots. Global Insights & Research Network [online]. 2026, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 107–130. ISSN 3029-8318. Available from: https://girn.uk/2-2026/totalitarianism-in-the-long-time-literature-as-seismograph/

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Licence and copyright

Copyright © 2026 Libor Pavera. This article is open access, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0).

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