Programme / Program

Ondřej Dadejík (*1973)
Assistant professor at the Department of Aesthetics, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague and at the Institute of Art and Culture Sciences, Faculty of Arts, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. He works in the field of process aesthetics; his related areas of interest are contemporary environmental, landscape, and everyday aesthetics. He is the co-author of Process and Aesthetics: An Outline of Whiteheadian Aesthetics and Beyond (2021, with Martin Kaplický, Miloš Ševčík and Vlastimil Zuska). He is also co-editor of several anthologies and collective monographs. For example, his articles have been published in the European Journal of Aesthetics or Philosophy East and West.

Martin Kaplický (*1976)
Assistant professor at the Department of Aesthetics, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague and at the Institute of Art and Culture Sciences, Faculty of Arts, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. He specializes in process philosophy, pragmatist aesthetics, environmental aesthetics and theories of aesthetic experience. Up to the present he published 3 books in Czech language and one in English – Process and Aesthetics: An Outline of Whiteheadian Aesthetics and Beyond. Praha: Karolinum Press, 2021 (the book was written together with Ondřej Dadejík, Miloš Ševčík and Vlastimil Zuska). He published a number of articles on different topics in Czech and English language. For example, his articles have been published in the European Journal of Aesthetics or Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture.

Reading the River: A Process-Oriented Interpretation of a Philosophical Metaphor
Since the time of Heraclitus, the river has been one of the important philosophical metaphors attempting to grasp the processual nature of reality. The main aim of this paper is to present, through this philosophical metaphor, a process-oriented conception of environmental aesthetics. Currently, two lines of environmental aesthetics can be considered as the most influential: Allen Carlson′s cognitive environmental model and Arnold Berleant′s aesthetics of engagement. Carlson′s and Berleant′s approaches undoubtedly point to fundamental aspects of our aesthetic experience of the environment, but by overemphasizing their preferred dimension—cognition and bodily participation, respectively—they lose the ability to distinguish between the aesthetic and the non-aesthetic and to grasp the aesthetic experience of the environment as a whole. We intend to argue that the process-oriented approach can not only incorporate both of these dimensions but also offers an interesting distinction between the aesthetic and non-aesthetic fields. The starting point for this paper will be Allen Carlson′s interpretation of Mark Twain′s descriptions of the river in Life on the Mississippi (1883). We will attempt to (1) point out the untapped possibilities for interpreting these dense passages; (2) we will compare them with descriptions of the experiences of a deep sea fisherman found in one of French philosopher Michel Serres′ essays; and (3) we will develop Twain′s beautiful and rich insights through the thinking of process philosophers, especially Alfred North Whitehead and John Dewey. In the proposed reading, the central concepts will be the event, the process, and the qualitative dimension of the situation.

Karel Stibral (Department of Environmental Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Masaryk University, Brno)
His research focuses on the aesthetic appreciation of nature and landscape in modern times, the relationship between biology and art, the history of the relationship with nature in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and the history of nature conservation. He has written a monograph on the subject entitled Estetika přírody. K historii estetického ocenění krajiny (The Aesthetics of Nature. On the History of Aesthetic Appreciation of Landscape, 2019); O malebnu. Estetika přírody mezi zahradou a divočinou (On the Picturesque. The Aesthetics of Nature between Garden and Wilderness, 2011); Darwin a estetika. ke kontextu estetických názorů Charlese Darwina (Darwin and Aesthetics. On the Context of Charles Darwin′s Aesthetic Views, 2006), and others. He is one of the organizers of the Beauty-Landscape-Nature conferences (I-X).

Rivers, floods and environmental humanities
This contribution will use the example of floods to address issues related to the goals and possibilities of the field of environmental humanities. Today, various humanities disciplines include so-called disaster studies, which seek to rethink our relationship to various natural disasters, but also to the environment in general, and which often draw on various insights from history, cultural history, and art history in the broadest sense, from literature to visual arts to film and other art forms. The question, of course, is how far this humanities trend can go and what it can do in times of growing environmental problems. Floods and water disasters in particular are among the leading topics in environmental studies.

Ute Eickelkamp is a social anthropologist affiliated with the School of Communication, University of Technology Sydney. She held positions as Senior Research Fellow (Fritz Thyssen Foundation funding) at the Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr University Bochum, as an ARC DECRA Fellow (Charles Darwin University) and as an ARC Future Fellow (University of Sydney). Her ethnographic research focuses on emergent images of nature in the face of climate change and ontological duress, in contexts of Indigenous survivance and postindustrial precarity in Central Australia and Germany respectively. She writes about water, slag heaps, the underground, art, imagination, care and temporality, and is completing, with Stefan Berger and Axel Schuch, a creative non-fiction book of dialogues about nature, environment and climate change in the working-class suburbs of Recklinghausen along the Emscher River.

From cloaca maxima to blue life: Tracing the resignifications of the Emscher River in Germany′s post-mining Ruhr Valley
Between 1992 and 2022, the Emscher River running centrally through Germany′s Ruhr Valley, was restored from an open wastewater canal to a healthy river system. Sacrificed to industrialisation in the early 20^th century, the Emscher carried the household and industrial refuse from Europe′s largest coal basin for nearly 100 years towards the Rhine. The new Emscher not only embodies a resuscitated riverine ecology, it also carries memories and messages about the end of hard coal mining, deindustrialisation, societal renewal, and ecological living and future-making as a climate-adjusted, green industrial region. Situated between an environmental and a symbolic approach, this paper investigates the shifting meanings and signifiers that institutions, artists, designers, and local residents have created for the waterway before, during and after the massive river conversion project.

The analysis draws on ethnographic field observations and my photographic documentation of riverine iconography, interviews conducted during a two-year research project on perceptions of nature and the river in the northern city of Recklinghausen, catalogues of Emscher art and design projects, documentary films of the river conversion, conversations with filmmakers and artists, grey literature (foremost that produced by the water manager, the Emschergenossenschaft), newspaper coverage, and on scholarly publications.

Anna Mírková (she/her) has a background in social work and artivist performances. She is currently pursuing her Master′s degree in Anthropology at Faculty of Humanities of Charles University. For her bachelor′s thesis, she examined the more-than-human territorial (re)productions at a cemetery in central Prague, tracing the territorial claims and the relationships of local inhabitants and visitors. Currently, she is researching the negotiation of landscape transformation in a post-flood Jeseníky. Anna is part of the Resisterra research team, which explores rebellious politics across more-than-human worlds.

Rivers as Companion Species: Making Sence of the Anthropocene Riverscape
Rivers are good companions to think with through the troubles of the Anthropocene. They demonstrate the significance and arbitrariness of borderwork throughout the history of human landscape management, which can be understood partially as an effort of creating solidifying in structures through which we attempt to control the flows life depends on (Ingold& Simonetti 2022). They also reveal the feral dynamics of these infrastructures. However, rivers are not just story-telling characters; they are also active landscape shapers and potential partners in regenerative efforts.

In my speculative contribution, I follow James Scott (2025), who understands rivers as living organisms with specific timescales and rhythms of life and suggests that the history of human-river interactions should be read as a process of domestication; domestication of rivers by the humans and humans by the rivers. Taking this notion further I ask what happens if we portray rivers and humans as companion species (Harraway 2003)? In answering this question, I draw on the aforementioned authors, as well as on ethnographic research of the post-flood landscape in the Jeseníky area. How does portraying the river as alive change how we would read the landscape? How does this perspective resonate with the post-flood landscape of Jeseníky? And could this perspective help us adopt a more probiotic approach to rivers and landscapes in general? Aware of the danger of romanticizing fluidity, to which positive ethical values are easily ascribed (Ballestro 2019), I explore these and subsequent questions with a central focus on rivers and humans as companion species.

Petr Popelka is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ostrava. He received his PhD in Economic and Social History from the University of Ostrava in 2005 and completed his habilitation in Czech and Czechoslovak History in 2014. His research focuses on the economic and social history of Central Europe from the 18^th to the 20^th centuries, with particular expertise in Business History, long-term trends in landscape development during the 19^th and 20^th centuries, and modernisation processes within urban and rural societies. He is the author or co-author of eight monographs, co-editor of four collective monographs, and has published eighty scientific studies. His latest publication is an extensive collective monograph entitled Entrepreneurship in the Czech Lands: From the Prague Groschen to Joint Stock Companies (Prague, 2025).

Renata Popelková is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic. Her research interests include the historical development of landscapes, historical land use, and the analysis of spatial and temporal landscape changes during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She has authored numerous articles published in prestigious international journals, including Applied Geography and Journal of Maps. She is also a co-author of the book Black or Green Land: Industrialisation and Landscape Changes of the Ostrava–Karviná Mining District in the 19^th and 20^th Century (2016).

Marcin Szymański (Department of the Recent Polish History, University of Łódź)
Historian, whose research focuses primarily on the economic history of Poland in the 19^th and 20^th centuries and environmental history. Author of numerous works on the history of industry in Poland (including co-author of the book Wielki Przemysł, Wielka Cisza [Big Industry, Big Silence], 2020). Museum curator and science popularizer. Participant in the grant „An Environmental History of Transboundary Rivers in Cold War East-Central Europe” at the University of Ostrava.

The sick river. Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the pollution of the Odra river during the period of state socialism, 1945–1989.
The massive industrialisation that Czechoslovakia and Poland underwent during the era of state socialism had significant environmental impacts. After the Stalinist era, characterized by an emphasis on extensive economic production and a vision of a large-scale transformation of nature, the Czechoslovak and Polish state transitioned to technocratic management of the economy and natural resources from the mid-1950s. For the first time, river water quality was systematically addressed as part of comprehensive planning. Using the example of the Odra River, a major international watercourse, we will observe, how the countries concerned dealt with pollution of the river, which did not form an ideological border between 1945 and 1989, but was a shared international watercourse. We will focus both on the circumstances of the negotiation of the Czechoslovak-Polish agreement on the Odra River and, above all, on its implementation and outcome: that is, the question of how much it contributed to the real remediation of the environmental damage caused in the period 1945–1989.

Anna Barcz is an Associate Professor at the T. Manteuffel Institute of History (Spatial History Lab), Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS) in Warsaw. She was trained as a philosopher and literary scholar at the University of Warsaw and the Institute of Literary Research (PAS). Her main research projects focus on environmental narratives related to rivers: the Odra/Oder (2016-2018), Vistula (2019-2023), and main European rivers (2024 – now). She is also the author of three monographs: “Environmental Cultures in Soviet East Europe: Literature, History and Memory” (Bloomsbury 2020, 2021); “Animal Narratives and Culture: Vulnerable Realism” (CSP 2017); “Ecorealism: from Ecocriticism to Zoocriticism in Polish Literature” (in Polish, 2016).

Katarzyna Słomska-Przech is an Assistant Professor at the T. Manteuffel Institute of History (Spatial History Lab), Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS) in Warsaw. She was trained as a geographer and cartographer at the University of Warsaw and Maria Curie-Skłodowska University. She completed her PhD in social sciences at the University of Warsaw in 2021. Her work intersects topics of the history and methodology of cartography, historical geography, and data modelling. She is also interested in the cognitive aspects of cartography, map usability and the space of historical towns.

Karol Witkowski is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization (Department of Geoenvironmental Research), Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS) in Krakow. His research focuses on the transformation of channel patterns and the human impact on fluvial systems (e.g. channelisation, water mills and inland navigation), as well as fluvial sedimentology (e.g. anabranching and anastomosing rivers). He conducts research in Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia.

Major Danube Floods in Long Modernity (1700–2000): The River′s Side in Geohistory, Cartography, and Literature
What narratives emerge when the Danube floods—and what narratives have humans imagined it to tell? As one of Europe′s great transnational rivers, the Danube has long served as a witness to, and participant in, the historical processes of modernity. Its presence is deeply embedded in the political, environmental, and symbolic landscapes of long modernity (1700–2000), particularly in the nineteenth century, when imperial powers sought to regulate and discipline its flow. Yet rather than reinforcing this narrative of control, our project foregrounds the river itself—its floods, its unpredictability, its historical agency—as a means of rethinking European historiography.

Our interdisciplinary team—comprising a principal investigator in literary studies, and two research specialists in historical geography, history of maps and hydromorphology—interrogates how the Danube′s most catastrophic floods have been represented across a range of historical sources: literary texts, cartographic documents, and hydroengineering records. We ask how these floods have shaped human understandings of risk, territory, and temporality, and how such representations might inform future-oriented discourse on water and climate.

Methodologically, we challenge the technocentric and imperial paradigms that have long dominated the study of river management and hydrohistory. Instead, we propose a more nuanced, and at times non-anthropocentric, approach to the Danube—often called the “European Nile”—as a historical actor. At the conference, we will present a selected case study to demonstrate how our triangulated analysis of literary, cartographic, and hydrological sources reshapes the narrative of flooding, repositions the Danube within its geohistorical context, and contributes to broader conversations about water, agency, and the Anthropocene.

Jan Pezda (Department of History, Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava) works as an assistant professor. In addition to teaching and training future history teachers, he focuses on cultural, gender, and postcolonial history. His research concentrates on tourism, sports, the senses, and physical culture in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. In 2025, he published his first book, Slunce, Voda, Vzduch. Zrod moderního turismu, with Paseka Publishing House.

Martin Tomášek (Department of Czech Literature and Literary Criticism, Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava). His research focuses on 19^th-century Czech literature, regional literature, and the didactics of Czech and world literature. His long-term interest in the literary representation of space has resulted, among other things, in the monograph Krajiny tvořené slovy (Landscapes Created by Words, 2016) and a series of multi-authored monographs from Ostrava symposia on space in literature and art. He is currently preparing a publication entitled Učit (se) číst svět (Teaching (and Learning) to Read the World), which offers teachers inspiration on how to work with difficult topics such as the climate crisis and armed conflicts in literature classes.

Eastern Eyes on the Rhine: Tourism, Nationalism, and the Re-Scripting of a River in the 19^th Century
The Rhine has long stood as one of Europe′s most charged imaginative geographies – a place heavily invested with meaning, myth, and identity by different nations. For Germans, it symbolized national unity and cultural heritage; for the French, it embodied a natural frontier and geopolitical claim; for the English, it was celebrated as a picturesque and sublime landscape central to Romantic travel. This paper explores how these layered representations were encountered, adapted, and re-scripted by Czech and other Eastern European tourists. Drawing on travelogues, diaries and correspondence, it examines how visitors from the Habsburg lands and beyond positioned themselves within – or against – dominant Western narratives of the Rhine. Were they passive consumers of established German, French, or English visions, or did they infuse the river with meanings rooted in their own cultural and political contexts? By tracing these negotiations, the paper highlights the ways in which Eastern travellers both reproduced and unsettled the canonical geographies of the Rhine, inscribing alternative perspectives into Europe′s most symbolically saturated river landscape. Scripting, in this sense, does not only involve creating textual representations, but also everyday practices of travel – the tourist gaze, social encounters, planning and accommodation, and forms of Eigen-Sinn – which both participated in and reshaped the imaginative geography of the Rhine.

Petr Tomášek graduated in art history and aesthetics from the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in 2002 and completed doctoral studies there in 2017 with a dissertation on the subject of art collection of the Salm-Reifferscheidt princely family in the 19^th century. He has been working for the Moravian Gallery in Brno since 2005, currently as the curator of the Old Masters and 19^th century painting and sculpture collections. He individually organised the large exhibition projects Moravian National Gallery (2011), The Aristocracy of Taste (2016–2017) and Moravian Picture Gallery (2022–2023) and has collaborated on numerous others. He professionally specialises in the history of private and institutional collecting, the art of the early modern era, particularly 19^th century painting from Central Europe

With the Rhine at their backs: How the Rhine River made its mark on the social rise of the Eichhoff family and even entered one portrait
The Eichhoff family came from the Rhineland. After their elevation to the nobility in 1833, the Eichhoffs purchased the Rokytnice u Přerova estate and chateau two years later, which they occupied until 1945, when they were forced to leave for Austria. Their remarkable art collections are now housed in the Moravian Gallery in Brno. The architect of the family′s unprecedented social rise was Johann Joseph Eichhoff (1762-1827), who, thanks to his own skills and Enlightenment contacts, rose from the position of the Elector′s personal cook to become the first mayor of Bonn, acting prefect of the administrative region of the Arrondissement of Bonn and director-general of the Rhine shipping service (from 1811) after 1794, during the French domination of part of the Rhineland. As an expert on Rhine shipping and related customs issues, he attended the Congress of Vienna from 1814 to 1815, and his son Peter Joseph, Free Lord of Eichhoff (1790-1866) then entered the service of the Austrian Empire in 1818, where he ended his dizzying career as President of the Court Council and Minister of Finance from 1835 to 1840.

The Rhine River, which became the source of the Eichhoffs′ social rise, forms an important frame for the portrait of Johann Joseph Eichhoff at the end of his life. The painting, created by the Austrian-German painter Carl von Sales (1791-1870) refers in many details to the sitter′s personality as director of the Rhine Shipping Company, thus symbolically recalling the height of his career, when Eichhoff′s expert advice on Rhine shipping was relied upon by the leaders of the major European powers. The paper will recall the circumstances of the portrait′s creation as a ′river-themed′ artwork, offer an interpretation of it in the context of the above facts and recall some other interesting related facts.

Veronika Faktorová (Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences) is a literary historian focusing on the history of 19^th-century Czech literature, which she studies in a broader Central European context. Recently, she has also been concerned with the aesthetics of landscape and nature and ecocriticism. She systematically deals withtravel literature, publishing a monograph entitled Mezi poznáním a imaginací (Between Knowledge and Imagination, 2012) and preparing editions of travelogues by Josef Wünsch, who discovered the sources of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, and Ida Pfeiffer, a world traveler. In various works, she also focuses on the Šumava and Krkonoše mountains as places of cultural memory.

River in danger. Literary Reflection on the Vltava in the Rise of Industrialisation
In the imaginative geography of the last third of the 19^th century, the Vltava gained a privileged position: it became a literally flowing symbol of Czech culture, in whose stream various meanings meet. The most stereotypical of these was petrified by the publication Čechy (esp. Volumes I and II, 1883 and 1884 published by J. Otto), a representative encyclopaedia, which concentrated the ambitions and aspirations of the "reborn" Czech nation. The book presents the Vltava as the most beautiful Czech river and closely links it with national history and identity. Otto′s Čechy, however, also demonstrates that this cultural image was already in tension with the physical, social and economic nature of the river at the time. Its perception began to be conditioned by the accelerating processes of industrialisation and urbanisation, and its image was rewritten by various projects that changed and regulated its geomorphological shape. The Vltava was also acquiring a recreational function and began to be consumed and commodified by tourists.

This paper will focus on how the symbols of modern times – factory chimneys, railways, dams, urban sprawl, but also steamboats or tramp settlements – have inspired authors to revise productive aesthetic and national concepts, and what new literary possibilities have emerged in relation to the changing river and its landscape.

Alexandra Rálik (*1992) is an assistant lecturer in Hungarian literature and the methodology of teaching literature at the University of Szeged. Although her PhD dissertation, which she successfully defended in May 2025, focused primarily on contemporary Hungarian poetry, her research interests are deeply rooted in comparative cultural studies and literary theory, particularly with regard to literary and cultural phenomena in Central and Eastern Europe.

Regaining a river′s own voice – an acquacritical approach to Tisza′s representations in Hungarian literature
Throughout the centuries, the river Tisza has played an enormous symbolic role in Hungarian literature. Although it was often referred to “the most Hungarian river”, the relationship between the water and people was not always so clear-cut. During the Industrial Revolution, the Tisza′s familiarity was quickly received as uncontrollable wildness. According to István Széchenyi′s plan, the river was regulated to achieve economic profitability and prevent disastrous floods that ruined cities. Following the regulations, the length of the Tisza decreased from 1419 km to 962 km, as did the area of floodplains and swampy regions surrounding the old riverbeds. One of the first reasons to doubt the success of the river regulations was the Great Flood of Szeged in 1897, which washed away almost the entire city and created new cultural myths of the city′s resurrection.

While classical pieces of Hungarian literature depict the flood as a catastrophe or a metaphor for the war between nature and humanity, contemporary novels often adopt a different approach to retelling the myth of the river and the reborn city. It has also become clear that the cutting of the river′s course and the draining of the swamps almost two hundred years ago are still exacerbating the effects of climate change nowadays, particularly the increasingly frequent droughts and the accelerated process of desertification of the Great Hungarian Plain. This paper therefore aims to interpret contemporary and classical Hungarian novels and short stories from an eco- and aquacritical perspectives, shedding light on the different literary techniques used to create a metaphorical and objectifying relationship between the river and humans, and also recognises Tisza′s own voice from a new angle of literature.

Špela Sevšek Šramel is Associate Professor of Slovak Literature at the Department of Slavistics, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. Her research focuses on 20^th-century Slovak and Slovene prose, interliterary connections, and cultural relations among Slovene, Czech, and Slovak literature. She is the co-author of the university textbook Od Donave do Vltave (From the Danube to the Vltava, 2023) and has translated works by major Slovak authors, including Pavel Vilikovský, Dušan Mitana, and Balla, into Slovene. In both her research and teaching, she emphasizes comparative approaches and the symbolic and narrative functions of natural elements in Central European literary landscapes.

Jana Šnytová is Associate Professor of Czech Literature at the Department of Slavistics, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. Her academic interests include literary translation, cultural mediation, and Czech-Slovene literary relations. She is the co-author of Od Donave do Vltave (From the Danube to the Vltava, 2023) and (co-)editor of several anthologies, including Nesrečno srečni (Czech poetry of the second half of the 20^th century) and Antologija starejše češke književnosti. Her work highlights the role of literature and translation in shaping cultural memory, and she has initiated numerous student-focused translation projects, including the Student Translation Contest (2006–2018).

The Soča River as a Literary Element in Slovene and Czech Literature
Our paper explores the literary representation of the Soča River (Isonzo) in Slovene and Czech literature, focusing on the river not merely as a geographic or scenic backdrop, but as a powerful symbolic and transformative element. The Soča, known for its striking beauty and its tragic role as a battlefield during World War I, emerges in literary texts as a site of national identity, collective trauma, and existential questioning – its borderland location further evoking reflection on shifting national and ethnic boundaries.

In Slovene literature, the river appears already in the 19^th-century poetry of Simon Gregorčič as a gentle mother figure, a symbol of homeland and cultural rootedness. This Gregorčič′s depiction of the Soča River emerged as significant metonymy for the fate of Slovenes in Primorje Region, especially after 1918. In contrast, in Prežihov Voranc′s chronical war novel Doberdob (1940), the Soča becomes a site of horror, disintegration, and suffering – yet also a space of solidarity and historical consciousness.

Czech literature of the interwar period reflects an equally intense engagement with the Soča front, where many Czech soldiers were deployed. Authors such as J. Durych, F. Šrámek, J. Váchal, J. Bednář, A. L. Kaiser, J. V. Pleva, and J. Medek wrote prose shaped by their personal war experiences. In their works, the river functions not only as a setting but as a threshold – between life and death, reason and madness, despair and endurance. It becomes a witness to the collapse of values and a mirror of the inner disintegration of the individual.

Through close reading of selected texts, we will examine how the Soča River serves in both literary traditions as a multi-layered symbol of war, memory, and spiritual transformation. We argue that in both Slovene and Czech literature, the Soča exemplifies the river as element – a force that transcends space, questions humanity, and carries meaning beyond the narrative frame. In this way, the Soča embodies the broader cultural perception of rivers as integral parts of historical, national, and emotional landscapes.

Lukáš Holeček (*1985), literary historian and editor. He graduated from the PhD (2015) programme in History of Czech Literature and Theory of Literature at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. He is currently working at the Institute for Czech Literature of the CAS. His research interests include literature in the first half of the 20^th century, especially the history of literary criticism, traditionalism and cultural politics. In addition to professional studies, he is the author of chapters in the collective monographs History of Czech Literature in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (2022), Gesture and reality (2024). He has edited several publications, such as Jan Blahoslav Čapek. Literary Studies (2021), Diaries of Václav Tille (2023).

Images of the flood and the dam construction in a regionalist novel
The regionalism literature of the first half of the 20^th century used the motive of a flood, a swollen river. This motive has certainly its historical development, for example in Émile Zola′s novel The Flood (L′Inondation, 1880). The paper will focus on several images of floods in Herman de Man′s The Waxing Water (Het wassende water, 1925); Friedrich Bischoff′s novel Water Goblin (Der Wassermann, 1937), Jean Giono′s novel The Battle in the Mountains (Batailles dans la montagne, 1937), Antonín Procházka′s novel Family (Rod, 1940). The paper will focus on analyzing the use of the images of a flooded river and the dam construction in European regionalist literature in an effort to define its typical functions. The incursion of "progress" into "tradition" in dam construction revealed a "different" version of modernity. In particular, it will focus on the significance of the river for regional identity (the river as an identity-forming element), the relationship to place, the issue of modernization (technological progress vs. the old order) – the issue of dam construction as a major theme of environmental change that came into conflict with regional identity based on continuity and tradition.

Michaela Závodná works at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ostrava as Vice Dean for Development and as Deputy Director of the Centre for Economic and Social History. As an assistant professor, her scientific work focuses on urban transport as a complex phenomenon from the mid-19^th century to the present. He also works on the history of business, environmental history and the history of everyday life. She has published a number of studies on this topic and participated in a number of conferences. In 2016, she was awarded the Josef Pekar Prize for her monograph on the history of urban transport.

A river (un)bound? History of the dams construction on the Odra River during the 20^th century
The paper focuses on the historical context of the dams construction on the Odra River during the 20^th century by analysing the regional authorities approaches before year 1918, the reasons for the construction of the dams and their perception by the state authorities and the public. It also follows the perception of dams as the major construction projects of socialism after year 1945. Using the example of a transboundary river, the paper aims to reflect on how ideological approaches change the perception of landscape and how the ideology is reflected in the use of water power. The paper will also outline the history of the Nové Heřminovy dam construction.

Jan Malura (Department of Czech Literature and Literary Studies at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ostrava). His research focuses on Renaissance and Baroque literature, comparative studies in the Central European context, regional culture and Czech-Polish relations. In particular, he studies representations of landscapes and cities in older literature, as well as in the 20^th century. He is the author of several monographs, including Písně pobělohorských exulantů [Songs of the Post-White Mountain Exiles] (2010). He is the co-author of Literární mapa Ostravy [Literary Map of Ostrava] (2022) and the editor of a series of publications on representations of space, including Příroda vs. industriál [Nature vs. Industry] (2015). He currently leads research teams dedicated to literature and the culture of borders and border regions, as well as the cross-border mapping of industrial and postindustrial culture.

Literary images of rivers as borders in the Central European context
Rivers can represent connections between regions, ethnic groups, and state entities, but also their divisions on a geographical, political, symbolic, and psychological level. Literary works often depict rivers as borders and the act of crossing them. They tell of movement between two banks, which is often associated with a transition to another space, not always a foreign one. This paper uses the concept of bordering to interpret the experience of borders as mental and emotional categories in literary works, capturing the specific dynamics of border zones (re-bordering and de-bordering). The paper will have a comparative dimension, intentionally selecting a group of Czech, Polish, Slovak, and German authors from different periods of the 20^th century (J. Cirbusová, L. Hořká, A. Scholtis, H. Bienek, O. Filip, A. Stasziuk). Their work reflects specific border rivers (Odra, Olza, Opava, Vistula, Bug) as well as anonymous watercourses.

Ondřej Elbel: Postdoc in the field of human geography. In my research I focus on the Czech-Polish border (primarily in the region of Cieszyn Silesia). Building upon experience in communication science and political science, I analyse the symbolic landscape and social ties that connect borderland areas.

Between the right and the left bank of the same river (Olza/Olše)
The narratives in the news media contribute to the bordering processes that influence the meanings attributed to the border. The discourse shapes the re-bordering / de-bordering tendencies in the borderlands.

In my paper I will compare the media representations of river Olše / Olza in the selected Czech and Polish news media. The river Olše / Olza belongs to the most important parts of the borderscape in the region of Cieszyn Silesia. It demarcates the border between Czechia and Poland in the town of Český Těšín / Cieszyn and in the surroundings. After WW1, the river became a symbol of division of the historic town and region. The passage on the bridges was strictly limited. The liberalization on the Czech-Polish border emerged after several decades as a consequence of the paths of European integration.

My research concentrates on the media representations of the river in the news media. Therefore, the critical discourse analysis will be applied to inspect main threads of storytelling about the same river. What kind of stories related to the river are narrated in the news media? How does the portrayal of the same river differ regarding the perspective of the journalists?

My paper wants to contribute to the growing debate on the character of memoryscape of Cieszyn Silesia that has important consequences also in our contemporary society. The findings may indicate whether the symbolic strength of the river contributes also to the current issues debated in the news media (either Czech or Polish). A special focus will be put on the news media issued by the Polish minority in Czechia.

Jiří Brňovják: Ph.D. 2004, Habilitation 2018. Since 2008 works as associate professor of early modern history, auxiliary historical sciences and archives. His long-term research focuses on social or spatial mobility in the state society of the Habsburg monarchy. He also deals with the transformations of regional aristocratic society in Bohemian Silesia and Northern Moravia from the early modern period to the mid-19^th century. He studies the political, social and cultural impact of the border region and the spatial migration on aristocratic elites.

Border (un)closed: the river as a border dividing and uniting the fates of members of the noble society on the periphery of the Habsburg monarchy
The paper will focus on the impact of the creating of the modern state border between the Habsburg Monarchy (Austrian Empire) and the Kingdom of Prussia in Upper Silesia from the middle of the 18^th century to 1918 on the formation of careers and identity transformations of the local landed aristocracy in the context of changes in the international politics of Central Europe. The topic will be demonstrated by the fate of the owners of the Bohumín (Oderberg) border dominion/estate and the transformation of their political and social careers. A selected example of the Henckel von Donnersmarck, Gusnar von Komorna, Rothschild, Rudnicki, Heydebrand-Lassa and Larisch-Mönnich families will be used. The examples of the owners of the Bohumín dominion (estate) allow us to trace the formation of an especial local mentality of the border aristocracy, which in the period under study is otherwise generally considered to be transnational and far from the modern nationalism of the 19^th century. In the case of the Henckels of Donnersmarck, the slowly disappearing effects of belonging to a non-Catholic denomination will be shown.

Natálie Rusiňaková
The author is currently completing her master´s degree in Czech language and literature and social sciences at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ostrava and this year she wants to start her doctoral studies in the field of theory and history of Czech literature at the same university. The topic of her dissertation will be a new contextualization of the work of Karel Dvořáček with regard to environmental, social and regional themes. Currently the author is working on her thesis, which explores Karel Hynek Mácha´s sources of inspiration in older literature.

Fascination with the Olza River in Karel Dvořáček′s prose about old Karviná
The proposed contribution aims to analyse and interpret the prose of Karel Dvořáček, in which the Olza River appears as an important motive and defining element of the space of old Karviná and its surroundings. In Dvořáček′s prose, the river fulfils several intertwining functions. In addition to its role as a geographical border, it also takes on symbolic significance, where it is thematized as a border space between life and death. At the same time, it acts as an instrument of higher power, which can be perceived as both a force of justice and punishment. The river is also an important witness to human destinies and changes in the landscape, while at the same time becoming a victim of the region′s advancing industrialization. Attention will be focused primarily on the story cycle Olza, the collection Stará píseň, and the novel František chce být spravedlivý. The analysis is based on a thematic interpretation of the river motive in the context of literary representation of space and changes in the industrial landscape.

Tymoteusz Król (Centre for Regional Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava)
Sociolinguist, ethnologist and folklore researcher in Centre for Regional Studies of University of Ostrava and in Institute of Slavic Studies of Polish Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on the borderland of Silesia and Lesser Poland, especially on Vilamovians, an ethnic group living in the town of Wilamowice, which has resulted in a series of journal papers and the monograph Góry, pagórki, przykryjcie nas. Analiza obrazów swoich i obcych w opowieściach Wilamowian o volksliście i powojennych prześladowaniach (Mountains, Hills, Cover Us. Analysis of Images of Oneself and Others in the Stories of Vilamovians about the Volksliste and Post-War Persecutions). He is currently working on publications concerning the myths of origin of Vilamovians, including a deconstruction of the nationalistic discourse in texts of Polish and German authors in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. He is also an activist for revitalization and a teacher of the Wymysorys language at the Museum of Vilamovian Culture in Wilamowice.

The topos of “great river” in Vilamovian folklore
Vilamovians are a small ethnic group living in the town of Wilamowice on the Silesian-Lesser-Poland borderland. There is a widespread legend in the community about the Flemish or Dutch origin of the settlers who founded the town in the 13th century. Today, the main markers of the ethnic distinctiveness of Vilamovians are their specific culture (including their Germanic language called “Wymysorys”), their awareness of their own distinctiveness from both Poles and Germans, common history and their belief in a common Flemish origin.

The “great river” appears in many tales about Flemish origin of Vilamovians. According to it, a Flemish river was supposed to be the cause of the cataclysmic flood. The great river is depicted in Vilamovian folklore as a deadly danger. It functions as a topos to explain the choice of location for the establishment of a village, as well as the contemporary behavior of the Vilamovians.

In memoir-based stories about the beginning of the World War 2, Vilamovians crossed the Soła river to flee from Germans, and then again to flee Soviet Army.

In stories about postwar persecutions of Vilamovians, a great river is also present. The protagonists, who decided to flee, were forced to cross the Danube river. If they decided to stay, according to Vilamovian stories, they were imprisoned in labor camps in Poland. There are plenty of stories about the camp of Mikuszowice, where bodies of the tortured inhabitants were thrown into the river.

In my paper I will show, that even if the recorded tales and stories concern different historical events, the great river is interpreted as a threat, as well as a liminal place – a border between “our” and “foreign” land, as well as between life and death. I will analyze the data collected in frame of ethnographic fieldwork, as well as the literature.

Vratislav Karpíšek (Oddělení slovanské jazykovědy, Slovanský ústav AV ČR)
His research focuses on Slavic dialectology, dialect literature, and Slavic microlanguages, with a primary current interest in Podlachian. A major part of his current work is the GAČR project Nářeční kontakty na západoslovansko-východoslovanském pomezí (2025–2027), which explores dialect contact and related patterns of variation and change on the West Slavic–East Slavic borderland.

The River in Podlachian Literature: Mediating Nature, Memory, and Meaning
This paper examines the representation of rivers in contemporary Podlachian literature through the works of Halina Maksimjuk and Viktor Stachvijuk. The river, as portrayed in their texts, emerges as more than a geographical feature: it functions as a complex narrative and symbolic device, mediating between personal memory, collective identity, and the natural environment. Through a close reading of selected passages, this study explores how the river acts as a chronotope (Bakhtin), a convergence of temporal and spatial dimensions that allows the narrative to move between past and present, childhood and adulthood, stasis and change.

Drawing on memory studies, the analysis demonstrates how rivers are sites of autobiographical recollection and cultural transmission, often embedded in stories of childhood, local history, and affective attachment to place. Simultaneously, from an ecocritical perspective, the river is shown to be a living element, reflecting both the resilience and fragility of the Podlachian landscape. It stands as a silent witness to environmental transformations and the erosion of traditional lifeways.

This paper also engages with the notion of peripheral voices in literary production. Writing in Podlachian, a marginalised and endangered microlanguage, these authors not only preserve a linguistic tradition but also inscribe regional experience into a broader cultural and literary space. In doing so, they affirm the river as a key element of local epistemology and worldview. The analysis underscores the importance of recognising and theorising regional and minor literatures not only as linguistic artefacts but as bearers of unique ecological, mnemonic, and symbolic knowledge increasingly at risk of disappearance.

Tereza Chlaňová (Department of East European Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University)
She publishes articles about Ukrainian interwar emigration and contemporary Ukrainian literature. She is an editor of the book Putování současnou ukrajinskou literární krajinou (2010) and co-editor of publications concerned with contemporary Ukrainian literature (Setkání s ukrajinskými spisovateli I., Brno 2016; Setkání s ukrajinskými spisovateli II., Brno 2017) and Ukrainian emigration (Історико-культурний феномен Української господарської академії в Подєбрадах, 2025). She translates from Ukrainian and Russian into Czech, mainly contemporary literature (Taras Prokhasko, Yurii Vynnychuk, Tania Maliarchuk, Artem Chekh, Myroslav Laiuk, Volodymyr Rafeienko etc.), including poetry (Halyna Petrosaniak, Yurii Darahan, Marianna Kiyanovska). She cooperates with Czech publishing houses as a consultant and language editor.

Rivers as symbols and metaphors in Ukrainian literature
In Ukraine rivers (especially the Dnipro River) have functioned as powerful symbols and metaphors, leaving a distinctive imprint in Ukrainian folklore as well as literature of all periods and at the same time fulfilling multifaceted functions. Although within folklore (songs, “dumy”, ritual texts) river often represented sacral power, liminal space or metaphysical symbol, in literature, especially during the 19^th century (the period of national revival), the Dnipro assumed a particular role, being associated with consolidating functions. The strong connection between Cossacdom and the Dnipro foregrounds issues of collective memory. During the Romantic period, it became associated with the homeland and the nation, acquiring a monumental dimension, particularly in Taras Shevchenko´s poetry, forming an integral part of his imagery. Having the function of a national identification symbol, it does not lose its metaphysical and mystical significance. A specific situation arises during the Soviet era in the context of industrialization, when gigantic constructions on the Dnipro became symbols of “progress” and human domination over nature. The creation of the Dnipro Cascade led to the flooding of Cossack settlements, leaving a traumatic imprint on Ukrainian society. This period provided material for “socrealistic construction novel”, where historical memory and elements of Ukrainian identity clashed with the ideal of a new “Soviet citizen”. This aesthetic frame produced a new “nest” of metaphors. The Dnipro continues to play a role in the mental space of Ukraine today, acting as a geographic and symbolic frontier in the ongoing war. The destruction of Kakhovka Dam must not be overlooked, actualizing another important issue – ecological. Lat but not least – the Zbruch River has to be mentioned, because it historically marked the boundary between Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire. The river serves as a symbol of national division, while simultaneously functioning as a liminal, transition space.

Michal Místecký works at the Department of Czech Language, Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava. He professionally focuses on the field of quantitative linguistics with applications in literature, geography, didactics, history, journalism, and neuroscience. Recently, he was mainly involved in developing quantitative onomastics (he was a member of the team of the project GA22-09310S Quantitative Onomastics: Background, Concepts, Applications) and in quantitative studies of word formation and sociolects. He has been a co-investigator of SGS (student-focused and university-funded) projects that thematically concentrate on the use of quantitative linguistic methodology in various research areas (applied collocation analysis, proper names, digital literacy). He has published papers and chapters in prestigious international publishing houses (De Gruyter, John Benjamins, Routledge, Taylor & Francis, Peter Lang, Springer), in leading journals (Slovo a slovesnost, Acta onomastica, Glottometrics, Glottotheory, Journal of Quantitative Linguistics), and is a co-author of the OnomOs corpus, which is part of the databases of the Czech National Corpus.

Agata Reclik is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Czech Language, Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava. Her research focuses on onomastics, folk linguistics, and teaching Czech as a foreign language. She has long been engaged in the study of the reflection of proper names in literary and journalistic texts, using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. She also deals with Czech–Polish translation, especially in the context of proper names. She is the author of numerous scholarly studies published in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes, including Acta onomastica and Bohemistyka, and a co-author of several research papers focused on corpus-based analysis. She actively participates in national and international conferences, contributes to research projects, and is also involved in the popularization of linguistics.

Branching Rivers: Advanced Collocation Analyses of Top 10 Czech Streams
The contribution focuses on the cultural perception of the names of the 10 greatest Czech rivers (Labe, Vltava, Morava, Odra, Dyje, Ohře, Berounka, Svratka, Otava, and Sázava) from the perspective of corpus linguistics. It studies the ways these names can be clustered on the grounds of their collocates, thereby constructing a symbolic profile of each river based on its linguistic behaviour. To this end, the contribution introduces – for the first time in Czech linguistics – three types of post-hoc collocate grouping, which may be seen as extensions of the standard quantitative collocation extraction. Specifically, the research makes use of (1) the selective approach, which takes into account the shared collocations only, and two counts of the holistic approach, namely (2) the binary procedure, considering the mere presence/absence of a collocate, and (3) the insertional procedure, which accounts for the non-shared collocates by postulating that their collocation association value is 0. The analysed collocations comprise units of primary morphology (parts of speech), secondary morphology (cases), lexicology (lemmas), and syntax (clause members). Since we suppose that all the parts of speech and all the cases will participate as collocates of the river names, in case of these markers, we employ the (1) procedure only. Altogether, 8 collocation analyses are thus conducted. The investigation is carried out on the grounds of the SYN2020 corpus, which is a well-balanced sample of three stylistic spheres of contemporary Czech. The resulting dendrograms show clusters of river names that reflect their symbolic roles in language and culture, providing insights for the study of hydronyms, literary texts, and cultural discourse, and opening new avenues for advanced collocation analysis.

Jan Staněk (*1976) is a lecturer at the Faculty of Arts and the Pedagogical Faculty of the University of South Bohemia. Among the recent publications there are for example following studies: „Eliot o vkusu“ (In: Kubíček, Tomáš – Papoušek, Vladimír – Skalický, David [eds.]. Slovníky modernistů a paradigmata moderny, Praha: Akropolis, 2020) or „Zápach a pravda: Poznámky o čichu u Zoly“ (In: Gilk, Erik, Tureček, Dalibor [eds.]: Naturalismus v české kultuře, Olomouc: Vydavatelství Filozofické fakulty Univerzity Palackého v Olomouci, 2024).

Rivers Worldly and Otherworldly
One of the salient aspects of Dante′s detailed construction of the physical reality of otherworldly spheres – Inferno and Purgatorio – is its elaborate hydrography (the key account being that of Inf. XIV, 76–142). It is well known that his infernal rivers are those of classical mythology, at least by names: they are connected in a rationalized river system of an essential importance for the structuring (and also functioning) of Hell and in a lesser extent, the Purgatory. As one of the modern commentators puts it: "Taken as a whole, it is the most prominent feature of the infernal landscape, constituting a visually unifying element in a setting that might otherwise seem too rigidly demarcated into discrete zones." Of  course, the function of rivers in the Commedia is by far not only topographic, they play an important role in the scheme of divine punishments and purgations (the contrapasso, for instance, taking shape of various kinds of unpleasant immersions). The proposed paper will be concerned mainly with one of the most original traits of Dante′s hydrography, which results from his mapping of Italy onto the circles of the infernal abyss: some of the existing rivers acquire notable resemblances with those of the realm of Hades. The Arno, for example, becomes a river that not only figures in Dante′s political polemic, but its downward current also becomes connected with bestial vices of the inhabitants of neighboring regions, in striking parallel with the flow of infernal rivers and its moral and theological significance. The Arno however serves also as a symbol of lost purity and even a kind of a salvific instrument. Some rivers thus become in Dante not only ethically ambivalent (or rather polyvalent), but in a peculiar way both worldly and otherworldly.

Martin Tomášek (Department of Czech Literature and Literary Criticism, Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava)
His research focuses on 19^th-century Czech literature, regional literature, and the didactics of Czech and world literature. His long-term interest in the literary representation of space has resulted, among other things, in the monograph Krajiny tvořené slovy (Landscapes Created by Words, 2016) and a series of multi-authored monographs from Ostrava symposia on space in literature and art. He is currently preparing a publication entitled Učit (se) číst svět (Teaching (and Learning) to Read the World), which offers teachers inspiration on how to work with difficult topics such as the climate crisis and armed conflicts in literature classes.

Submerged Rivers of Boys′ Reading
Submerged rivers disappear before our eyes and reappear somewhere else. It is similar with the books that awakened our passion for reading in childhood – only with the passage of time do we discover how essential they were for us and that they shaped not only our reading, but also the value system to which we remained faithful or disobeyed.

In his small essays dedicated to "running waters" from 1986, Miloš Zapletal combines environmental sensitivity with a desire for adventure. Looking through my own boyhood library, I am surprised to discover that in many of the “matters of heart” the river played an important role. Perhaps the only element that brought wildness to the small-town, suburban environment I grew up in during the 1970s and early 1980s.

In my paper, I return to seven books for children and young people, both Czech and international, analysing the river motif in them and trying to understand its meaning with the distance of almost fifty years and my boyish self.

Michaela Koníková is a PhD candidate at the Department of Czech Literature, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University. Her research focuses primarily on the analysis of fantastic motifs and the representation of liminal spaces within urban literary settings of contemporary Czech prose.

The River as a Threshold Between Worlds in Urban Fantastic Prose: The Case of Bolavá′s Před povodní and Cima′s Vzpomínky na úhoře
>This paper examines the river as a liminal space in contemporary Czech urban prose that incorporates fantastic elements. It demonstrates how, within an urban environment, the river functions as a site where the boundary between consensus reality and a mythologically grounded supernatural dimension becomes blurred.

The analysis draws on a three-axis interpretive model that considers: (1) the integration of the fantastic element into the spatial structure of the fictional world, (2) its authentication by narrators and characters, and (3) its narrative function. The model builds on Lubomír Doležel′s theory of possible worlds, Daniela Hodrová′s literary topography, and Patricia García′s spatial approach to the postmodern fantastic, in dialogue with Stefan Ekman′s cognitive model of the urban fantastic.

The paper focuses on two novels: Před povodní (2020) by Anna Bolavá and Vzpomínky na úhoře (2022) by Anna Cima. In Bolavá′s novel, the river is conceived as a mythological space inhabited by a water sprite and functions simultaneously as a repository of physical and emotional waste. In Cima′s novel, the river is linked to ecological discourse and foregrounds the historical pollution of waterways, exemplified by the decline of eel populations. Its mythological dimension is mediated through Shinto symbolism, in which the eel figures as a sacred guide between worlds. In both texts, the river operates as a permeable boundary between natural and supernatural orders. The motif of the flood, which culminates in both narratives, further intensifies its liminal function.

By analysing the river as a spatially articulated fantastic element, the paper demonstrates how mythological, ecological, and urban dimensions intersect in the construction of hybrid fictional worlds and thus advances a more systematic methodological reflection on the spatial articulation of the fantastic in contemporary Czech prose.

Roman Polách is literary historian focusing on Czech literature of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, particularly on engaged forms and the theory of engagement in literature, or the sociology of literature.

Images of rivers in Czech poetry of the 20^th and 21^st centuries
The aim of this paper is to typologise symbolic representations of rivers in Czech poetry of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, with a focus on poetry from north-eastern Moravia and Czech Silesia.

Pavel Panoch is art historian, worked in the field of conservation. His research interests include the relationship between text and image and cultural imagination in a broad perspective, iconography and visual culture of the early modern period, Central European architecture of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. He is the author or co-author of more than ten books (among others: Karel Řepa. Pardubický architekt ve věku nejistot (2003); Ke slávě Ducha. Sedm století církevního umění v královéhradecké diecézi (2003); Slavné vily Pardubického kraje (2009); Josef Gočár (2010); Barokní umění na Chrudimsku (2011); Hradec Králové. Průvodce po architektonických památkách od středověku do současnosti (2015) a Hřbitovy zmizelých. Průvodce po sudetských hřbitovech východních Čech – Podkrkonoší (2022)).

Last Bath. Rivers and their Saints in Central European Hagiography and Legend
This paper will present the phenomenon of the coexistence of Central European rivers and Catholic heaven, saints, and holy women whose martyrdom was directly linked to flowing fresh water and whose legendary narratives and representative iconographic schemes confront the wet element. Either in the role of protectors against the dangers traditionally associated with water (St. John of Nepomuk /†1393/), or as intercessors for its life-giving quality and protective assistance in times of need (St. Florian /†304/ extinguishing the most common natural disaster of human settlements in the Middle Ages and early modern period – destruction by fire). In the context of medieval hagiography and early modern homiletics, a selected reservoir of symbolic images will be highlighted, presenting the cult of "river" saints and supporting their popularity across the strata of medieval, or later early modern and pre-modern society. The role of rivers and the water element in legends and folk traditions associated with other Czech protectors of the land (St. Vojtěch, St. Prokop etc.) will also be discussed.

Jakub Ivánek (*1983) graduated from Czech Language and Literature and History. He completed his PhD. study in Theory and History of Czech Literature at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ostrava, where he has been a researcher at the Centre for Regional Studies since 2011 (since 2018 its director) and an assistant professor at the Department of Czech Literature and Literary Studies (specialization: older Czech and world literature, 19^th-century Czech literature). His engages in Baroque literature with overlaps into the 19^th century, especially the issue of broadside ballads, as well as regional culture and literature of Czech Silesia and northeastern Moravia, and also documentation of works of art for architecture and public space. His works include, amongst other, a book on pilgrimage songs in Moravia entitled Horo krásná, spanilá! Poutní písně na Moravě 1600–1850 (2019, with Jan Malura), or a web database Ostravské sochy (Ostrava Statues. Database of Works of Art in Architecture and Public Space of the City of Ostrava, 2015).

A Saint on a Bridge? The Role of the River in the Cult of St. John of Nepomuk
St. John of Nepomuk is sometimes called “the saint on the bridge” in folk veneration, as his statues are often seen in the context of a water feature. This is due to the Baroque legend that works with the motif of John′s drowning in the Vltava River and the subsequent miracles of light on its surface. The sacralization of the river is evident in the Baroque texts about him, as is the polysemous correlation of John′s person to the water element and life in it (e.g., John′s silence is compared to the dumbness of fish). John′s patronage of the waters is, however, already mentioned more sparingly in the texts, emphasizing rather his protective role against worldly shame, defense of the poor, the unjustly judged, etc. However, water, especially the river, played a significant role in popular religion and cult practising, whether as a symbol or directly as an object repeatedly sanctified and almost magically controlled.

The paper will draw on early modern literature as well as historical, ethnographic and visual art sources.

Marie Hanzelková: Assistant Professor in the Department of Czech Literature, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Czech Republic. She has published several articles about disaster sermons, Czech hymn books from the sixteenth century and Czech pilgrimage broadside ballads. With Patricia Fumerton and Pavel Kosek she has co-edited the large collection of  essays Czech Broadside Ballads as Text, Art, and Song in Popular Culture, c. 1600–1900 [2022] and edited special issue of scholar journal Bohemica litteraria, Czech broadside ballads in the international context [2023]. She is currently a member of a project Christological Broadside Ballads in oral tradition. As part of the course Old Czech Theatre, she rehearses early modern dramas with university students, which are then performed for the public.

The River as Gift, Punishment, and Warning: Representations of Rivers and Floods in Early Modern Wunderzeichen Literature
This paper explores the multilayered representations of rivers and floods in early modern Wunderzeichen literature, a corpus that includes sermons, pamphlets, and broadside ballads reporting and interpreting extraordinary natural events. Far from being depicted as mere natural phenomena, rivers in these texts appear as potent signs of divine agency. They are portrayed simultaneously as special gifts from God—sources of fertility and economic prosperity—and as instruments of divine punishment, with floods serving as chastisements for individual or collective sins.

The paper examines how these depictions function as religious and moral commentary, often framing natural disasters as warnings of impending catastrophe and calls for repentance. Special attention is paid to the symbolic significance of the river in this context: as a figure of divine grace and power, but also of sin, transgression, and spiritual instability. The analysis considers the confessional dimension of these texts, comparing Catholic and Protestant approaches to interpreting floods and rivers, and highlighting both shared motifs and confessional and literary divergences.

By situating these narratives within the broader framework of early modern cultural responses to natural disasters, the paper sheds light on how rivers functioned not only as geographic features, but as powerful carriers of religious meaning in a time of profound social and confessional change and climate crisis.

Marta Tomczok – Environmental historian of literature, particularly coal culture and heavy industry. Author of books on Holocaust literature. She works at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Silesia in Katowice. PI of two Polish-Czech projects with University of Ostrava (Images of Black Cities and Mapping the Culture of Europe′s Last Coal Basin). She recently published "Scars. Landscapes After Industry".

Paweł Tomczok – PhD, professor at the University of Silesia, works at the Institute of Literary Studies and leads the Geo-Eco-Humanities research group. Author of the book "Literary Capitalism: Images of Economic Abstraction in Polish Literature of the Second Half of the 19^th Century" (2018), and most recently co-editor of the book "Industrial/Post-Industrial Environments" (in Polish Literature and Culture from the 19^th to the 21^st Century) (2023). He is preparing the books "Understanding Schulz" and "Ideologies of Alternative Histories." He is interested in cognitive narratology and environmental humanities.

Interventions by Czech and Polish lignite mining in the aquatic environment and their cultural traces
Among the environmental interventions, interventions in rivers are among the most common engineering activities undertaken by coal mining. Environmental engineering, encompassing not only destruction and degradation but also deliberate modification, adaptation, and improvement, is a common intervention in nature, particularly since the mid-20^th century. Both Silesian rivers flowing through local coalfields and rivers in central Poland, intersecting lignite fields, have often been regulated, straightened, or even buried in concrete channels due to mining. Images of drought caused by cone depressions and land drainage, especially the disappearance of lakes and rivers, have permeated literature and art in the second half of the 20^th century.

In this paper, we will demonstrate how art and literature remember the hydraulic engineering applied to the landscape by mining in Most and Bełchatów, the two largest Czech and Polish lignite basins opened after World War II. I will be particularly interested in the drying of Lake Komorany around Most in Vera Bartosková′s poem Jezeří, and the so-called shifting of the Widawka, a tributary of the Warta River, to a new bed in Ryszard Binkowski′s novel Eksmisja [Eviction]. The presentation will be accompanied by an analysis of photographs from Josef Sudek′s "Sad Land" and photographs from Most by Emmet Gowin and Ibrahimovič. The adopted perspective of environmental history will allow us to present changes in the rural landscape as a brutal intervention in both the natural environment and the environment of local communities.