The Image of Defendants as Protagonists of Czech Court Stories

GLOGAR, Ondřej. The Image of Defendants as Protagonists of Czech Court Stories. In Critical Legal Conference 2021. 2021.

Basic information

• Original name: The Image of Defendants as Protagonists of Czech Court Stories
• Name in Czech: Obraz obžalovaných jako protagonistů českých soudniček
• Authors: GLOGAR, Ondřej.
• Edition: Critical Legal Conference 2021, 2021.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 50500 5.5 Law
• Country of publisher: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Organization unit: Faculty of Law
• Keywords (in Czech): soudnička; obraz obžalovaných; právo a populární kultura
• Keywords in English: court story; image of defendants; law and popular culture

Abstract

Legal culture in sense of ‘ideas, values, opinions, and attitudes of some population with regard to law and legal systems’ (Friedman, 1975) may be reflected in various sources. During the First Czechoslovak Republic many readers sought in newspapers a section called the Courtroom. These columns contained stories on the border of journalism and belles-lettres, drawing on themes from real contemporary court proceedings. The main characters of these court stories usually come from minor classes (housemaids, bourgeois etc.). Thus, they do not follow the “prototype” of a person that law was counting with, nor are they common heroes or villains of topical literature. Nevertheless, many writers were drawing on their stories and giving them the floor in this genre. The defendant is generally an individual who does not quite fit within legal framework and the stories intend to enthral the readers by uniqueness and social exclusion of these characters (or narrators at least show them in such spotlight). Submitted contribution aims to describe how the court stories presented the protagonists as a parallel of a narrative approach towards Frankenstein’s monster (and even other characters from the novel) who as well experienced misunderstanding, conviction of being different and not befitting anywhere. Based on presumed fascination and pop cultural aspect of the stories, I will examine how they could influence the public opinion on these protagonists as marginalized group of people.

Links

• GA19-12837S, research and development project: Name: Právo v literatuře: kvalitativní analýza obrazu práva v krásné literatuře přelomu 19. a 20. století

Investor: Czech Science Foundation