Petr Popelka – Jana Davidová-Glogarová – Jaroslav David
Self-Made Man: The Social Phenomenon and Artistic Figure of Nascent Capitalist Culture
This study examines representations of the entrepreneurial ‘self-made man' in works of Czech literary fiction from the second half of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. We may identify two basic lines of development in this context. First, a offered rather positive image of the self-made man is offered in works by journalists and biographers, where entrepreneurs figure as pillars of the national community. Authors typically draw here on essential ideas and characteristics from the mid-19th century. Second, as a counterpart to this positive image, we find critical representations of the self-made man, in connection to the fact that the figure of the entrepreneur (whether Czech, German, or Jewish) was part of the literary presentation of the national theme. These negative representations often came with judgments of the entrepreneur's relationship with the workforce and his social impact, reflecting in part the flip side of industrial modernity.
Keywords: Czech Lands – 19th century – business history -–self-made man – entrepreneur – Czech novel
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