Hold konzervativnímu kritikovi totalitarismu
A tribute to the conservative critic of totalitarianism

Summary/Abstract: The review introduces a collection edited by Jiří Hanuš and titled "The modern world critic: Rio Preisner 1925–2007" (Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury, 2018) and dedicated to Rio Preisner (1925–2007), a Czech expert in German studies, political philosopher, essayist, translator and poet. He was born in Carpathian Ruthenia; in 1968, he emigrated to the United States and lectured at the Pennsylvania State University as Professor of German studies. Preisner profiled himself in particular as a Christian conservative political thinker and a representative of philosophically based, irreconcilable criticism of totalitarianism, especially Communism and Marxism as its philosophy. He was also commenting on the American civilization and the value crisis of the modern Western democracy, which was, in his opinion, fatally struck by its departure from Christian foundations. Due to his ideological radicalism and conservatism, he found himself at the edge of Czech political thinking, although his work is extensive and, insofar as Czech authors are concerned, he was the one who was examining the phenomenon of totalitarian ideologies in the most consistent manner. The reviewer introduces contributions to the collection, whose authors attempt to characterize Preisner’s thinking and work from different angles in the context of his time, one by one, and ascribes a timeless validity to them.

• Details
• Contents