Offer to publish in a journal
Stredoeurópske pohľady (Volume 8, Issue 1/2026)
Thematic focus: Czech and Slovak war-themed literature and film
Final paper submission deadline: 31th January, 2026
E-mail: ceviews2020@gmail.com
Editors of the issue: prof. PhDr. Miloš Zelenka, DrSc., doc. Mgr. art. Štefan Timko, PhD., Mgr. Lukáš Jiskra
The thematic issue dedicated to Czech and Slovak literature and film with a war theme will include studies presented at an international conference of the same name at the Faculty of Central European Studies, UKF in Nitra, on October 2, 2025. The conference is organized by the Institute of Central European Languages and Cultures at the Faculty of Social Sciences, UKF in Nitra, and the Department of International Relations and Diplomacy at the Faculty of Political Sciences and International Relations, UMB in Banská Bystrica, in cooperation with the Czech Center in Bratislava and the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Bratislava. The studies focus on the verbal and film presentation of war, especially in the literature and film of the Central European region. They note the iconic, indexical, and symbolic presence of war motifs in fictional and non-fictional works (including literature and documentary film), without omitting the media of strategic communication. They focus primarily on events of the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as various forms of contemporary conflicts, such as the Russian-Ukrainian, Israeli-Palestinian, Armenian-Azerbaijani, etc.
It goes without saying that European and world literature has been linked from the very beginning with war or violent competition between individuals and nations for lasting power over the “weaker” ones. This is demonstrated by well-known examples from ancient literature, where Gilgamesh and Achilles desire immortality more than justice, leading to killing and the violent enforcement of eternally valid “higher” ideas. Immortality is thus always achieved by overcoming or killing one’s opponent. When Gilgamesh understands the existential limitations of heroic epics based on the adoration of eternity (“the sleeping and the dead, how similar they are / Is death not depicted in both faces?”), Achilles also comes to the realization in his dialogue with Odysseus that “the lazy man does not escape death, nor does the man who has done much.” Literature, of course, unlike politics, does not have the tools to resolve these conflicts diplomatically or economically. The apparent subordination of the aesthetic factor to social, moral, and psychological aspects in the reflection of literary depictions of war conflicts does not play a fundamental role here. However, literature is more than a reflection by historians on facts, causes, and consequences: its real role remains to reveal how individuals and nations, through their authentic experience, endure the dubious “glory” of war, suffering, helplessness, hatred, but also friendship and brotherhood. From this perspective, artistic reflections on war mostly become anti-militarist literature, a stirring protest against all forms of violence.
Contemporary literary concepts seek to understand the ideologemes of war through cultural studies, imagological probes, or narratological approaches in a multidimensional perspective, which can be deconstructed into four complementary interconnected spheres of inquiry: the first analyzes the literary grasp of war discourse, which it confronts with other, often different discourses as an existential clash of ideological ideas about war as such. The second line of research sociologically characterizes literary representations of wars, into which an individualized perspective is embedded, for example, extensive epic novels depicting the typified fate of an individual in contrast to the broader historical, social, and political contexts of war. The third direction focuses on the cultural context of artistic representations of war, e.g., the significance of dreams in literature, which are often associated with the topos of home and its loss. Home constructs an individual’s identity, their relationship to themselves and others, marked by loneliness, fear, mistrust, or personal uprooting. The fourth area maps, with varying time intervals, the constitution of historical memory about war, which is metaphorically represented by the changing and subjective memories of individuals or specific communities with an aesthetic-axiological dimension.
The editors, who reserve the right to editorial and linguistic editing of the text, accept yet unpublished contributions of a methodological nature. In addition to the peer-reviewed papers, they also accept reports, documents and reviews thematically corresponding to the focus of the monothematic issue, which must be sent by August 31, 2025. Contributions can be published in V4 languages (Slovak, Czech, Polish, and Hungarian), in English, and, by agreement with the editors, in other world languages, with formal instructions valid for the journal Stredoeurópske pohľady (the template). Based on an independent and completed review process, the selected authors will be informed by the editors about the acceptance of their contribution. The issue is expected to be published in July 2026.
Formal Instructions for Writing Papers
Guidelines for processing the submission:
-
- range of 7 – 12 pages with appendices and references (12 600 – 21 600 characters including spaces)
- we accept contributions in Slovak, Czech, Hungarian, Polish and English
- font Times New Roman, size 12, line spacing: multiples of 1.15, block alignment, all margins 2.5 cm
- abstract in English, font size 12 (max. 10 lines – 600 characters including spaces)
- keywords in English (max. 5)
- alphabetical list of references according to the valid bibliographic standard at the end of the text (it contains only the works cited in the article)
The editors also accept reviews by agreement.
Download the template HERE
Recommended material: Rules of writing and editing documents (SK)
Version for editors
in the format MS Word 6.0/95 and higher, formatted as demonstrated in the template
Version for reviewers
in .pdf format, a file has to be named after the title of the article. This version must not contain information about the author(s) (their name, surname, information about the workplace).
By submitting a contribution to the editorial office, the author also declares that he has become acquainted with the content of the Code of Ethics and agrees with its implementation.
Thank you very much for your cooperation!
