# Czechoslovak Stories/Introduction

CZECHOSLOVAK STORIES
INTRODUCTION
THE CZECHOSLOVAKS AND THEIR LITERATURE
The literature of the nation of Czechoslovaks is as ancient as its history. For a period of over a thousand years, the literature of no nation is more closely entwined with its history than is that of the people composing the new Czechoslovak Republic.
When the first despatches began to appear in English and American newspapers relative to the exploits of the Czechoslovak troops in Russia and Siberia, the average reader asked: “Who are these new people? What new nation is this that has sprung into prominence as a friend to the Allies?”
It was necessary to enlighten many even of more than usual intelligence and to inform the general public that it was no new, strange race of whose brave deeds they were reading but only the old and oft-tested nation of the Czech inhabitants of Bohemia in northwestern Austria and of the Slovaks of northern Hungary, the name “Czechoslovak” being formed by combining the ​two words “Czech” and “Slovak” by means of the conjunctive “o.” The Czechoslovaks are, therefore, the direct descendants of John Huss, Komenský (Comenius), Kollár, [[Portal:František Palacký|Palácký, Havliček and a thousand other staunch upholders of the truth and right, torchbearers of Europe.
The Czechs had chafed under Austrian misrule since the fateful day when, in a period of Bohemia’s weakness, the Hapsburgs gained control of the little country which, geographically, forms the very heart of Europe and in many another way has been the organ which sent the blood pulsating freely and vigorously through the body of the Old World. The Slovaks have suffered even greater persecutions with no chance of redress from the Magyar (Hungarian) population which forms the southeastern portion of what was once the Dual Empire.
It was no wonder, therefore, that the Czechs and Slovaks, enduring for ages the persecutions of German and Magyar, and in past periods knowing too well that they were but tools for Hapsburg ambition which forgot the promised reward of independence when its own selfish objects were attained, lined themselves to a man on the side of justice and democracy when the clarion call went round the world. There was no written summons, not even an uttered determination but when the man power of Austria-Hungary was mobilized, the Czechs and Slovaks, forced into the Hapsburg armies, looked significantly at each other. That look meant ​“We shall meet in Serbia, Russia, Italy, France”—according to the front against which they were sent.
The story of the Czechs and Slovaks, subjects of Francis Joseph, fighting on the side of Serbia and Italy to whose armies they had made their way in some inexplicable manner, drifted through now and then to the American public. But, most marvelous was the feat of those thousands of Slav soldiers, who, at their first opportunity, deserted to Russia—there to reorganize themselves into strong fighting units on the side where lay their sympathies.
Then came the downfall of the Russian Revolution and the collapse of the whole national morale. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk freed hundreds of thousands of German and Magyar war-prisoners in Russia. The Red Army was formed, threatening the vast supplies on the Trans-Siberian railway.
Separated, by thousands of miles, from their homes, the Czechoslovaks, a mere handful in the midst of the millions of German and Magyar freed war-prisoners of Siberia who led the vast armies of the Bolsheviki, present a picture of unexampled dauntlessness, of splendid courage with only the hope of the attainment of their country’s freedom to spur them on amidst their bleak and bloody five years’ isolation. It is, indeed, a theme for an epic. It remains to be seen whether that epic shall be written in the Anglo-Saxon tongue or in the language of those whose noble efforts achieved the recognition and the independence of Czechoslovakia.
​A nation producing the quality of men who never forgot what they were striving for even though the struggle was centuries old arouses the interest of the thinking public. Whence came the strength of purpose of these representatives of so small a country? The Czechoslovak Republic comprises, with the combined areas of the former kingdom of Bohemia, margraviate of Moravia, duchy of Silesia and province of Slovakia but 50,000 square miles of territory and some 12,000,000 of people. Where then is its power? Surely not in the extent of its realm or the number of its inhabitants.
“Not by might, but by the spirit shall ye conquer” is the motto that has been sung by every Czechoslovak poet and writer. Its philosophers have added “Only of free and enlightened individuals, can we make a free and enlightened nation.”
It can truly be said that the writers among the Czechs and Slovaks have been the teachers and saviours of their nation.
In no land has literature as such played a greater part in educating and developing national instinct and ideals. In countries untrammelled by the rigors of a stiff Austrian censorship of every spoken word, it is possible to train patriots in schools, auditoriums, churches. The confiscation of Czech newspapers for even a remote criticism of the Hapsburg government was a regular thing long before the exigencies of war made such a proceeding somewhat excusable.
​It was then through belles-lettres that the training for freedom had to come. And the writers of the nation were ready for they had been prepared for the task by the spiritual inheritance from their inspired predecessors. And so it came about that in their effort to express the soul of the nation they told in every form of literature of the struggles to maintain lofty aspirations and spiritual ideals.
The literature of the Czechs and Slovaks groups itself naturally into three main periods—just as does the history of their land.
1. The Early period beginning with the inception of writing in the Czech language to the time of John Huss (1415) with its climax in the fourteenth century.
2. The Middle period reaching its height in the sixteenth century and closing with the downfall of the nation after the Battle of White Mountain, in the middle of the seventeenth century. (Only a few desultory efforts mark the early part of the eighteenth century.)
3. The Modern period opening with the renaissance of the Czech literary language at the end of the eighteenth century and including the marvelous development of the present century.
Only a few names of each period can be included in this brief survey.
EARLY PERIOD
The oldest writings in the old Slavonic which was brought to Bohemia by the missionaries, Cyril and ​Methodius, date back to the ninth century, when the Czechs and Moravians accepted Christianity.
The Chronicles of Kristian telling of the martyrdom of Saint Ludmila and Václav belong to the tenth century, the historical writings of Kosmas, dean of the Prague chapter (1045–1125) following soon after as did also “The Chronicles of Dalimil.”
The authenticity of the beautiful poems composing the famous Kralodvorský Rukopis (Queen’s Court Manuscript) has been questioned by the Czechs themselves and cannot, therefore, be included in a list on which no doubts can be cast.
The oldest authentic single piece of literature is the stately church song “Hospodine Pomiluj ny” (Lord, Have Mercy) belonging to the eleventh century. Some years later came the epic “Alexandrine” telling of the Macedonian hero and a whole series of the legends of the saints. Magister Záviš, composed many liturgies as well as worldly poems. He was later in life a professor in the University of Prague which was established in 1348, being the first institution of higher education in Central Europe, antedating the first German university by half a century. The Czech language for the purposes of literature developed several centuries in advance of German which did not become a fixed literary language until the sixteenth century when Luther completed his translation of the Bible.
Smil Flaška, a nephew of Archbishop Arnošt of Pardubice, composed in 1394–5 poetry both didactic ​and allegorical, under the titles “Nová Rada” (New Counsel) and “Rada Otce Synovi” (Advice of a Father to His Son). He presents the ideal of a Czech Christian gentleman of his period.
In fact in the period just preceding John Huss, practically all writing was religious or chieﬂy instructive though satire and a bit of worldliness crept even into the writings of certain famous Prague priests notably the Augustinian Konrad Valdhauser and Jan Milič of Kroměříž who inspired Tomáš of Štítný (1331–1401), the earliest really great prose writer of the Czechs. The latter was among the ﬁrst students of the University of Prague, founded by Karel IV. (the same Charles I. who ruled the Holy Roman Empire). He wrote in the spirit of Milič, his ﬁrst work being “Reči Besední” (Social Talks) in which he philosophizes and gives information about God, the creation and fall of man, of man’s struggles to shun sin and attain wisdom. He wrote many other volumes on the same order, in a pleasing and careful manner which remain as examples of pure and correct Czech of his time.
MIDDLE PERIOD
The second period of Czech literature was ushered in by the greatest ﬁgure in Bohemia’s eventful history, Jan Hus (John Huss). His birth date is variously given—1364 to 1369. Hus was at once a preacher, writer, teacher, reformer, patriot, prophet, martyr. To him truth was the most sacred thing on earth. Not one ​jot would he recede from a position once taken for the cause of that one white changeless essential—Truth. Every sermon he preached as minister of the Bethlehem Church, every address he uttered as rector of the University of Prague had the essence of the shining spiritual, moral and intellectual progress for which he lived and for which he was burned at the stake on the 6th of July, 1415, at Constance. While numberless volumes by Hus were destroyed in the course of a systematic search undertaken with the purpose of exterminating them, his wonderful Letters, written from Constance, his “Postilla Nedělní” (Sunday Postilla), “Dcerka” (The Daughter) showing the right path to salvation, “Zrcadlo Člověka” (Mirror of Man), “Svatokupectví” (Simony) have been preserved as a heritage to the world. As the leader of the Bohemian Reformation which took place over a hundred years before the far easier one of Luther’s time, as a patriot and writer upholding his nation’s rights and ideals, he stands preeminent.
The simpliﬁcation of the Czech written language is also to the credit of this ceaselessly active man who devised the present system of accents for vowels and consonants to take the place of endless and confusing combinations of letters. The nation owes him a further debt for the introduction into the church service of many beautiful hymns of his own composition and others which he translated.
A successor of Jan Hus in the ﬁght for a pure and ​unsullied faith was Petr Chelčický whose works, the Postilla or Sunday readings, “Siť Víry” (The Net of Faith) and O šelmě (Of the Beast of Prey) largely influenced Count Leo Tolstoi in forming his non-resistance theory. The Net of Faith especially expounded a simple religion free of the hypocrisy and evil of the nobility and of the cities, living on the labor of the producing class. He advocates at that early date (1390–1460) the separation of church from state. Jan Rokycana, archbishop of Prague, on his return from exile after George of Poděbrad gained control of the capital, though not a prolific writer, was an inspiring speaker and left as a monument the church of the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren which carried out in its tenets the essentials which he advocated for true Christians in his writings and speeches. Strangely enough, in later years, he turned against the Brethren whose first firmest supporters were his own pupils.
The contention of all these writers and leaders of thought in Bohemia in the Middle Ages was to the effect that the only true source of the pure law of God was the Bible. It is not to be wondered at that the translation of the Bible, completed near the close of the fourteenth century, was distributed in innumerable hand-written copies, some of which were most beautifully ornamented as, for instance, the Dražďanská Bible (Dresden) made in 1400–1410, and the Olomouc copy in two parts (1417). The first printed Bible in the Czech language was from a new and improved transla​tion and appeared in Prague in 1488 though the New Testament had already been printed in 1475.
The Bohemian and Moravian Brethren maintained printing houses in Mladý Boleslav and Litomyšl from which were issued catechisms, bibles, song-books, sermons and other religious works urging the simple Christian faith and spirit of brotherly love as a sure means of securing the Kingdom of God on this earth. Throughout there was close observation of the humanistic teachings of Chelčicky whose popularity served to make every one eager to read with the result that the literary language became more stabilized and literary activity was enthusiastically encouraged.
For a century and a half writers of varying degrees of power produced a great quantity of books largely religious, didactic, polemical, philosophic, historical, political, and scientific but there was relatively little of poetry or of purely creative literature in this period.
One name stands pre-eminent in connection with the disastrous crisis of the Battle of White Mountain. John Amos Komenský (Comenius) 1592–1670—last bishop of the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren and first apostle of scientific education—the father of modern educational methods—belongs among the shining lights of all nations and not alone to the land that gave him birth. Being the last bishop of the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren, he fell a victim to the orgies of hatred practised by the conquerors of the Bohemian Revolt when on November 8, 1620, the adherents of ​complete independence from Hapsburg jurisdiction were overwhelmingly vanquished. On the battle-field of Bílá Hora (White Mountain), Bohemia lost its independence and the devastation wrought by passing and repassing armies in the dread Thirty Years War left the country prostrate for two full centuries. There were no means, in those days, of summoning a sympathetic and open-handed world as was done in 1914 to the aid of a suffering Belgium. Bohemia in 1620 was, like Belgium, the victim of wars in the forming of which its chief crime(?) was its geographical location. But in the seventeenth century, means of communication, of transportation for bounteous supplies to succour the needy were not developed as they were three centuries later when organized relief for a wronged nation was the united response of all but the offenders against international law.
It was in the early days of that period that John Amos Komenský, encouraging his nation to the last, preached a doctrine of universal peace, of settlement of international differences by arbitration instead of by wars, of a peace and joy securable only through the practice of true and genuine Christianity. He urged education for all classes and training of the heart as well as of the mind as a means of overcoming future ills, misunderstandings and national catastrophes. But he was not merely a preacher, he was an enactor of his own doctrines whose efficacy has been proved by three centuries of practice.
​Komenský’s most noteworthy contributions to the literature and culture of his people and of all nations include an elaborate Czech-Latin and Latin-Czech dictionary; a versified version of the Psalms in the Czech language; “Labyrint Světa a Ráj Srdce” (The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart), published in 1681, the predecessor of Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” giving in exquisite form the struggles of man to attain perfect happiness and harmony of soul, the work being more distinctly pure literature in a technical sense than any of his other writings. It was translated into English by Count Francis Lutzow in 1905. The “Magna Didactica” or Great Didactic was written originally in the Czech language and Englished by M. W. Keating. In this he lays out a system of education forming the basis of all modern progressive plans to-day. The “Janua Linguarum Reserata” or Gate of Tongues Unlocked simplified the process of learning Latin and other tongues. It was written in exile in Poland after Komenský like thousands of other non-Catholics had been expelled from his native land by the edict of 1627 directed against the Brethren and was translated into twelve European languages and also certain eastern tongues as the Persian, Arabian, Turkish, etc. The Orbis Sensualium Pictus or the World in Pictures, the first illustrated school text-book for children ever published, prepared the way for the magnificent pictorial features in educational texts of the present day. ​The “Informatorium Školy Matěrské” gave invaluable aid in the rearing of young children in the so-called “Mother School.”
Komenský might have been numbered among the educational reformers of our own country for Cotton Mather writes of his visit to the famous educator whom he invited to become president of the then newly organized Harvard College in the American Colonies. For some reason Komenský did not accept though his wanderings, after his exile from Bohemia were many and varied. His life’s pilgrimage ended in 1670 at Amsterdam where he had lived during the last fourteen years of so busy and useful a life of service to education that he has been entitled, without challenge, the “teacher of nations.”
After Komenský, there were no great writers in the Czech language until the close of the eighteenth century. It must be remembered that every effort was made to suppress not only the language of the Czechs but to prevent the publication of any work in that tongue. The Jesuit, Antonín Koniáš (d. 1760) boasted that he alone had destroyed some 60,000 Czech books. He published a “Key to Heretical Errors of Doctrine” which comprised the names of objectionable religious books to be consigned to the flames on sight.
Those who owned Czech Bibles or other books in the language of their fathers, were punished for having them in their possession. Hence they took the greatest precautions in secreting such volumes as, despite ​the terror, they were able to treasure and hand down from father to son.
MODERN PERIOD
RENAISSANCE
The modern period of Czech and Slovak lterature divides itself automatically with the history of the nation into two natural groupings:
1. The literature of the national renaissance, from the close of the eighteenth century to 1848. This in turn, is subdivided into the period of enlightenment (1780–1815) and the period of romanticism (1815–1848).
2. The literature of the revivified nation, from 1848 to the present day.
The retrogression, in a national sense, brought about by Maria Theresa and Joseph II. in the wholesale introduction of the German language in place of the vernacular was counteracted, in a sense, by the truly great social, economic and religious reforms which were brought about by the enactments: in 1774 of a law organizing public schools; in 1775 of the annulment of serfdom and of feudalism; in 1781 by the passing of the Toleration Patent permitting religious freedom.
Almost immediately scientific and literary organizations and writers sprang up in Bohemia and among the Slovaks. The efforts of Joseph II. at centralization in the Hapsburg Empire by means of the exclusive use of the German without recognition of the language of the ​numerous linguistic groups composing the realm, led to political opposition. The voice of the newly awakened Czech nation refused to be hushed and the result was the re-establishment at the ancient Czech University of Prague of a chair of the Czech language and literature, by royal decree, on the 28th of October, 1791. František Martin Pelcl was the first professor in charge of the work, laying the foundation for national self-consciousness among the brightest intellects of the land. The significance of the Hapsburg concession of 1791 is evident to-day in the enlightened and intelligent national coherence of the Czechoslovaks every one of whose responsible leaders in the movement for absolute independence were university trained men.
Joseph Dobrovský, a member of the Jesuit order, prepared valuable critical studies of the Czech, Slovak and other Slavonic languages dealing with their value as literary vehicles without a shadow of chauvinistic tendency. Indeed, though he rendered inestimable aid by his philological studies, he failed to foresee the rich literary future for the languages into whose intricacies he delved as a scientist.
The popularization of history, philosophy, of all sciences and arts and knowledge occupied such men as Václav Matěj Kramerius, founder of numerous newspapers and other periodical publications; Antonín J. Puchmajer, writer of many lovely lyrics expressed in purest Czech; Antonín Bernolák, noted Slovak and advocate of a separatist policy who chose as the vehicle ​for his valuable discussions the West-Slovak dialect; Václav Thám, author of many popular dramas and other plays instrumental in awakening the national spirit.
The romantic period of the renaissance affected not only Czech and Slovak literature, but it left its imprint on all the arts—on philosophy, religion, the sciences, and political, social and moral life. The protest of rich imagination, of unfettered freedom in feeling and expression against the cold reasoning and polished conventionality of the eighteenth century found its outlet among the Czechs and Slovaks in an enthusiastic exaltation of their nation and language—two concepts never separated in the mind of the true patriot of that land.
Gradually the idea of nationality broadened to include all that was Slavic. The poetic and prose enthusiasts wove beautiful and inspiring tapestries with the background of Panslavism but few, indeed, among them carried the idea through, even in thought, to a practical platform of mutuality in culture, science, industries and politics. The romantic period exemplified and enriched the resources of the native tongue for lyrical purposes while supplying grammarians and philologists with material for scientific national expansion. Political progress was prepared for by the advancement made in the popularization of historical works. Invaluable publications like the Journal of the Museum of the Kingdom of Bohemia, the “Matice ​Česká” (Mother of Čechia), “Česká Včela” (Czech Bee), “Krok,” “Květy České” (Czech Blossoms) and “Czechoslav” gathered and presented to the public the really worthy writings of that and preceding periods.
Among the chief writers in this significant era certain men are representative.
Prof. Jan Nejedlý was the successor of Pelcl in the chair of the Czech language and literature at the University of Prague. Nejedlý’s chief service does not rest so much in his worthy translations into Czech of the Iliad and of modern writings such as Young’s “Night-Thoughts,” but rather in his assembling in his quarterly publication “The Czech Herald” all the older authors and of practically all the younger exponents of romanticism.
Joseph Jungmann, was the composer of the first Czech sonnets in which he sang of love, patriotism, public events, of the chivalrous deeds of the early Czechs, of the ideals of Slav unity. A whole school of poets clustered about Jungmann and followed his leadership. He translated into richly flowing Czech many works of Oliver Goldsmith, Alexander Pope, Gray, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, Chateaubriand and Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” A monumental “Dictionary of the Czech Language and its Relationships to the other Slavic Tongues” is the master work of Jungmann’s life. It was the labor of fully thirty-five years and ordinarily would have occupied the time of entire faculties of universities. It was published in October, 1834.
​Jan Evangel Purkyně although best known in science as a pioneer physiologist especially for his studies of the human eye, and as the founder of the laboratory method which he formulated as professor of physiology at Vratislav and later established in the University of Prague in whose medical faculty he served as the most prominent European authority for fully twenty years, was nevertheless active in a literary way, producing many essays, some poems and valuable translations of Tasso’s “Jerusalem” and Schiller’s lyrics.
Jan Kollár, the idol of Slovak literature, after a thorough education completed by careful theological studies devoted himself to the cause of his people in the Protestant church in Budapest which he was called to serve and where he remained for thirty years despite frequent attacks from both Germans and Magyars. His chief bequest to the Czechoslovak people is his collection of poems entitled “Slávy Dcera” (The Daughter of Sláva). The word “Sláva” admits of two interpretations—“Glory” and “Slavia,” the allegorical representation of the entire Slavic group just as “Columbia” stands for America. In the poems, Kollár addressed his inspired sonnets to Slavia in whom are at once blended the conceptions of the daughter of the mythical goddess of the Slavs and of his sweetheart, Mina. In this collection, printed a hundred years ago, Kollár, in numerous songs argues for the union of all the Slav groups and predicts that vast progressive changes and wondrous achievements will be realized by each of ​the Slavic peoples a century hence. He foretells the recognition and use of the Czech and other Slavic tongues at mighty courts and in palaces where the Slav speech shall no longer be a Cinderella as in times past. The distinguished feats of his countrymen on many battlefields in the Great World War and the attainment of the independence of the Czechoslovaks as a result, would seem to show Kollár was a true prophet as well as a great poet.
František Palácký stands foremost among the historians of Bohemia, his work “Dějiny Národu Českého” (History of the Czech Nation) being accepted as absolutely authoritative and quoted as such by scholars of all nations. Palacký’s previous writings show his wide range of culture and knowledge. He founded and edited the Journal of the Museum of the Kingdom of Bohemia, as well as several other publications significant of the spirit of the awakening in Bohemia. His scholarly work “The Beginnings of Czech Poetry Especially of Prosody” mark his early Slavonic inclination. Many philosophic and critical essays deal mainly with esthetic development. His political writings, particularly his discussions of “Centralization and National Equality in Austria” and “The Idea of the Austrian State,” have been widely quoted. It was Palácký who in 1848 asserted with the vision of a seer “We existed before Austria and we shall exist after there will be no Austria.”
The Slovak writer, Pavel Josef Šafařik, is second only to Kollár in the affection of his countrymen. He began ​his literary career as a poet at nineteen when his collection “The Carpathian Muse with a Slavonic Lyre” was published. Later, through the assistance of Palácký, he removed from Slovakia to Prague devoting himself indefatigably to a work of rare quality—“Slovanské Starožitnosti” (Slavonic Antiquities) in which he showed the ancient origin of the Slavs, and proved by an enormous number of authoritative documents and other evidence their early civilization and culture and their linguistic, topographic and historical relationship to the members of the Indo-European group of languages.
František Ladislav Čelakovský, intended for the priesthood like so many Czech literary men, early gave up the plan of his parents and devoted himself to Slavistic and poetic studies. He had gathered great numbers of folk songs, poems and sayings which last were eventually included in a collection entitled “Mudrosloví Národu Slovanského v Příslovích” (The Philosophy of the Slavic Nation in its Proverbs). His first original work was his collection of epics “Ohlasy Písní Ruských” (Echoes of Russian Songs) which he later augmented by his lyrical “Ohlasy Písní Českých” (Echoes of Czech Songs). Palácký regarded this work as of equal worth with Kollár’s “Slávy Dcera.”
Karel Jaromír Erben collected a vast quantity of folk songs and tales which he wove into delicate and beautiful poems. His first collection “Kytice” (The Bouquet) by its beauty and harmonious arrangement gave earnest of the treasures to come. This collec​tion was translated into practically every European language. His “Folk and National Songs of the Czechs,” were followed by “Sto Prostonárodních Pohádek a Pověstí” (One Hundred Folk Tales and Legends) and by the “Vybrané Báje a Pověsti Národní Jiných Větví Slovanských” (Selected National Myths and Legends of Other Slavic Branches).
Karel Hynek Mácha, the gifted Czech successor to the peculiar spirit and genius of Byron, is a pioneer in the romantic movement in his country. Though he died in his twenty-sixth year, he had given incontrovertible evidence of his leadership in this ﬁeld in his lyrics, ballads, and hymns and in his longer production “Máj” (May) which aroused at once a chorus of approval from the Byronic rhapsodists and of stinging censure from the critics, who because they did not admire his philosophy refused to evaluate properly the beauty and perfection of Mácha’s poetic art which did not win appreciation until long after his death. Of his short stories, the best is “Márinka,” a daring and realistic genre of the proletariat.
To this period also belong the early dramatists, Václav Kliment Klicpera (1792–1859) author of a series of historical plays and comedies some of which are still performed and Josef Kajetan Tyl who early left his university studies to organize a traveling theatrical company producing only Czech plays. Tyl wrote and produced over thirty exceedingly popular plays many of which like certain ones of his novels were summarily ​criticized by Havlíček for an extreme sentimentalism in their patriotic teachings.
In one of his comedies, Tyl inserted a poem entitled “Where is My Home?” which from the initial presentation won instant favor and was adopted as the national hymn of the Czechoslovaks.
WHERE IS MY HOME? (KDE DOMOV MŮJ?)
Where is my home? Where is my home? Waters murmur o’er its fair leas, Hills are green with rustling fir-trees, Flow’rets bright with Spring’s perfumes, A Paradise on earth it blooms, That’s the land of loveliest beauty Čechia, my motherland! Čechia, my motherland!
Where is my home? Where is my home? In God’s beloved land are found True gentle souls in bodies sound, A happy peace which clear minds sow, A strength defying warring foe. Such are Čechia’s noble children ’Mongst the Čechs, my motherland! ’Mongst the Čechs, my motherland!
To the present day, Tyl’s “Strakonický Dudák” (The Bagpipe Player of Strakonits) a beautiful fairy drama, his “Paličova Dcera” (The Incendiary’s Daughter) and “České Amazonky” (The Czech Amazons) are still favorites.
Prokop Chocholoušek, journalist and correspondent, led an adventurous life whose rich and varied experi​ences are frequently utilized in his stories. In his collection of short stories “Jih” (The South), he first opened to Prague readers the story lore of the Slavs of the Balkans whose struggles for liberty he had witnessed.
František Jaromír Rubeš, at first wrote poems of a patriotic nature the best being his “Já jsem Čech” (I am a Czech) but his chief contribution to his nation’s literature is in his distinctive and deliciously humorous stories of the provincials of city and countrylife. His best stories are “Pan Amanuensis” (The Amanuensis), “Pan Trouba” (Mr. Fool) and “Ostří Hoši” (Clever Chaps).
Ludevítú Štúr, a Slovak poet and publicist, did much through his essays, poems and stories to defend his people against the violent Magyarization practised sedulously by the Hungarians.
Jos. M. Hurban, a Slovak realistic writer, rendered invaluable service to his nation not only by his own well-conceived and excellently presented stories of his people but by the founding of a Slovak review which became the repository of the most worthy literary treasures of the language.
FROM 1848 TO THE PRESENT DAY
In the second part of the modern period of the literature of the Czechs and Slovaks or that which is expressive of the nation after 1848, an impressive host of writers appears. In no other equal space of time has a ​nation produced so many literary works of unquestioned merit. The revival of letters is complete. Standards are established but constantly advanced by the demand not only of critics but of the authors themselves and their very readers. Critics demand sincerity and depth instead of mawkish sentimentalism, forcefulness and energy instead of the old time “beautiful resignation” or Oblomovesque inertia.
Karel Havliček Borovský undeniably stands foremost as intolerant of the patriotism of the lips which never reaches the reality of deeds. Just as bitter is he in his judgment of authors drifting aimlessly in their work. He was in his early youth an intense Russophile thinking to attain Slav unity by the submergence of the other Slavic dialects. But after a year spent in Russia he returned fully cured of the idea. He brought back, however, a keen admiration for N. Gogol whose stories he translated and a study of whose style made Havliček the best epigramist of his times. His “Pictures from Russia” show his keenness of observation and clear conception of true democracy. Undertaking the editorship of the Pražské Noviny (Prague News) and “Česká Včela” (Czech Bee), he made them the leading literary and critical publications, the latter journal being universally known as “the conscience of the Czech Nation.” He was active politically being a representative to the Vienna parliament in 1848-1849. In his Národní Noviny (National News) which he began to publish April 5, 1848, he was the voice of the ​nation which responded as only a politically awakened and intelligent national constituency can respond. Undaunted he attacked the great hulking body of the Austrian government, reeking with sores and ugly with its age-old unfulfilled promises to the nations which composed it. He demanded a constitution with full political freedom but he was as firm in his denunciation of a radical revolution. He urged separation of church and state, insisted on full educational opportunities for all clasess—in rural districts as well as in cities. He rejected Russian paternalism and sympathized with the Poles and Southern Slavs.
His style is simple, clear, direct, forceful. He never missed making his point. By the clarity and precision of his short incisive sentences, he made it possible for the people to follow him in teachings of the most progressive and advanced sort. But the Austrian government could not, of course, brook the untrammelled presence of a man of Havliček’s imposing and inspiring personality. His paper was confiscated again and again. Journals which he founded elsewhere did not long elude the censor. Prosecution and persecution followed ultimately. At the end of 1851 Havliček was deported to Brixen in the Tyrol where he contracted tuberculosis. It was here he wrote his unequalled satires “Tyrolské Elegie” (Tyrol Elegies) and “Král Lávra” (King Lávra). Practically a dying man he was permitted to return to his native land where he found that in the meantime his wife ​had died. His own death soon followed on the twenty-ninth of August, 1856.
In the first years of this period Václav B. Nebeský wrote poetry of a strain whose innate beauty alone makes it valuable, to be sure, but whose chief interest rests in the fact that it became a sort of standard of modern tendencies for all the younger poets as Jan Neruda himself acknowledges. He encouraged a whole host of young writers as for instance Němcová to earnest literary effort.
Karel Sabina wrote short stories and novels in which sociological questions are brought up as in his “Synové Světla” (Sons of Light) which was later published under the title “Na Poušti” (On the Desert) and also in his story of political prisoners “Oživené Hroby” (Enlivened Graves). He wrote clever librettos for a number of popular operas among them Smetana’s “Prodaná Nevěsta” (The Bartered Bride) in which the Czech prima donna, Emma Destinnova, has sung the leading part in American performances.
Jan Neruda is usually classed with Vitězslav Hálek because they were the leaders of the enthusiastic literary men of the period—in the main, youths of twenty or thereabout who devoted every ounce of energy to their muse and their nation. They made the new literature reflect their own ideals of social equality, religious liberty, better advantages and fairer treatment of the laboring classes, emancipation of women, free self-expression.
​Vítězslav Hálek wrote many ballads and lyrics, the collections entitled “Večerní Písně” (Evening Songs) and “V Přírodě” (With Nature) having been models for many writers and as much quoted as Longfellow. An allegorical representation of the struggles of the nation in the seventeenth century is his long poem “Dědicové Bílé Hory” (Heirs of White Mountain). An idyll of the Slovák mountains is his “Děvče z Tater” (The Girl from the Carpathians). His short stories present some intensely interesting character studies as well as plots depending on incident for their interest.
NOT ANY OF THESE HAVE AS YET BEEN TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH
Adolf Heyduk stands nearest of kin to the Hálek-Neruda school in his beautiful lyrics “Ciganské Melodie” (Gypsy Melodies), “Cymbál a Husle” (The Cymbal and Violin) “Ptačí Motivy” (Bird Motives). He ever sings of the happy life, of young love, family joys, loyalty to the homeland, the beauties of nature especially of the Slovak and Šumava mountains. He is wholesome and cheerful without ever overstepping into rhapsodical inanities.
Realistic writers arose who would not follow the old romantic trend and who depicted more and more of the individual home and national problems with a devotion which was bound to wean the public away from the conventional novel of pure sentiment and unreal figures. Chief among them was Božena Němcová ​whose nearest rival in the field of the realistic novel is another woman—Karolina Světlá.
Gustav Pfleger Moravský’s best work is his novel of the laboring classes “Z Malého Světa” (From a Small World) which is significant as the first psychological study in literature of the struggle of labor with capital and the attempt to create a new social order.
Václav Vl. Tomek, called “the Historian of Prague,” is the successor as an authority in the source method as well as of literary style of his distinguished predecessor, Frant. Palácký. Antonín Gindely organized the Czech archives and drew on them as well as on the documentary sources in France, Germany, Belgium, Holland and Spain for the material for his histories of the period of John Amos Komensky and the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren. Joseph Emler published hitherto unknown “Original Sources of Czech History.” August Sedláček’s chief contribution is a monumental work on “The Castles, Palaces and Citadels of the Kingdom of Bohemia,” written in interesting literary manner as was also his “Historic Legends and Traditions of the Czech People in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia.” Dr. Arne Novák, Dr. J. V. Novák and J. Vlčeh have written extensive and valuable histories of Czech and Slovák literature.
MODERN DRAMATIC LITERATURE
Joseph Jiří Kolar (1812–1896) is called the “Father of Modern Dramatic Literature” among the Czechs. ​He was the first Czech to translate Shakespeare’s plays and to stage them. Numerous translators of the English bard have appeared at frequent intervals in Bohemia but Kolar’s poetical adaptations of Hamlet, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice were the accepted stage versions for many decades though his translations of the other Shakespearean dramas failed of as favorable a reception. Goethe's Faust, Goetz von Berlichingen and Egmont and Schiller’s trilogy on the life of Wallenstein and his “Robbers” also were translated by Kolar. It was later that the playwright who was likewise a successful actor and director wrote, using the plan of the Shakespearean dramas, a series of original plays—namely tragedies and historical dramas which have survived the test of time. The best are “Královna Barbora” (Queen Barbara), “Moníka” (Monica), “Pražský Žid” (The Jew of Prague), “Zižkova Smrt” (The Death of Žižka), “Mistr Jeroným” (Magister Jerome).
František A. Šubert, the real organizer of the Czech drama, has paid glowing tributes to Klicpera. He has written many thoroughly excellent dramas with historical or semi-historical backgrounds, among them “Probuzenci” (The Awakened Ones), “Petr Vok Rožmberk,” “Jan Výrava” a five act drama of the period of the closing days of feudalism, translated into English by Šárka B. Hrbkova. Problems of live social and economical interest which are unsolved to-day are considered in his “Praktikus” (The Practical ​Man); “Žně” (The Harvest), and “Drama Čtyř Chudých Stěn” (A Drama of Four Poor Walls) translated into English by Beatrice Měkota.
Ladislav Stroupežnický has written many frequently produced realistic comedies as “Pan Měsíček,” “Paní Mincmistrová” (The Mintmaster’s Wife), “Naši Furianti” (Our Braggarts).
M. A. Šimáček sketches some interesting factory types in his studies of the sugar-beet industry which he also uses in his plays.
Gabriella Preissova brought the Slovenes of Carinthia into Czech and Slovák literature and is the author of the delightful “Obrázky ze Slovácka” (Pictures from Slovakia) as well as of very successful Slovak plays “Gazdina Roba” and “Její Pastorkyňa” (Her Stepdaughter).
Joseph Štolba has written ten plays chiefly comedies which continue to win audiences as well as readers.
Jaroslav Kvapil is at once a lyric poet uniting gentle, deep emotion with form that is distinctly pleasing. His best collections are “Padající Hvězdy” (Falling Stars) and “Růžový Keř” (The Rose Bush). He has written successful dramas as: “Oblaka” (The Clouds) translated into Russian and German, and into English by Charles Recht; “Bludička” (The Will o’ the Wisp) English translated by Šárka B. Hrbkova; the fairy plays “Princezna Pampeliška” (Princess Dandelion) and “Sirotek” (The Orphan) suggest somewhat the influence of Maeterlinck. He has translated into Czech ​several of Ibsen’s plays in which his wonderfully talented wife, the celebrated actress Hana Kvapilova, played the leading rôle.
Alois and Vilém Mrštík, two brothers, collaborated in the collection of stories called “Bavlnkovy Ženy” (The Cotton Women) and in the play “Maryša” though the former wrote independently many lovely stories of the Slovaks in the Carpathian region and the latter many naturalistic tales.
Karel Pippich has written one valuable drama, “Slavomam” (The Greed for Glory), and some comedies.
COSMOPOLITANISM OF CZECH LITERATURE
The cosmopolitanism of modern Czech literature is apparent in many prodigiously industrious writers not only active in their translations from foreign literatures but remarkable for their output of thoroughly good original matter—poems, novels, dramas and short stories. These writers through travel and wide reading in the literatures of other lands have imbibed the spirit of those countries which they present in literary masterpieces. The Czechs and Slováks no longer are content to be provincial, the local traditions do not suffice. The themes which other nations admire they examine and discuss through the means afforded by their own gifted literary interpreters.
Joseph V. Sládek was one of the first Czech literary men to visit America. As a youth of twenty-four who ​had just finished his philosophical and scientific studies in Prague, he came to the United States, remaining here for two impressionable years, the spirit of which is clearly discernible in many of his best poems particularly his lyrics and sonnets of which several volumes were published. Sládek’s stay in America had another result and that was the translation of Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha” as well as of many single poems by individual American poets. He also translated Bret Harte’s “California Stories” and Aldrich’s “Tragedy of Stillwater” both of which proved very popular among Czech readers. Sládek made translations of “Frithiof” by the Swedish poet Tegner, the romance “Pepita Ximenes” from the Spanish of J. Valera, “Conrad Wallenrod” from the Polish of A. Mickiewicz, the “Hebrew Melodies” of Byron, ballads of Robert Burns and poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Julius Zeyer (1841–1901) though excelling as a lyric and epic poet has to his credit many volumes of successful novels, short stories, and dramas the subjects of most of which are culled from other than home fields. In his travels which included frequent trips to Russia, Vienna, Germany, Paris, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Greece, Constantinople, Spain, the Tyrol, Styria, Carniola, Croatia, the Crimea, he gathered impressions and motives which were later woven into his poems and stories. Thus in his lyric “Igor” and his novels “Darija” and “Ondřej Černyšev” (Andrew Černyšev) there is a clear echo of months spent in Russia; in his ​“Blanka” (Blanche) an intimation of troubadour days in the Provence; in the love of “Olgerd Gejstor” for the Czech Queen Anne, there is the distinctive Lithuanian background; the romance “Gabriel de Espinos” and the tragedy of “Dona Sancha” evince the Spanish influence; in “Ghismonda” and more clearly in his semi-autobiographical novel “Jan Marya Plojhar” appears the Italian influence; the novel “Dům u Tonoucí Hvězdy” (The House of the Waning Star) is the consequence of his sojourn in France; in the “Chronicles of Saint Brandon” and “The Return of Ossian” his Irish studies are evident. Just as faithful is he in giving the Czech and Slovak atmosphere as for instance in “Raduz a Mahulena,” a fairy tale of the Slovak region, “Neklan” and “Vyšehrad” of the pagan Czech period, “Duhový Pták” (The Rainbow Bird) a novel of modern Bohemia.
Jaroslav Vrchlický (Emil Frida) the most prolific and versatile writer of the nation, deserves to be named likewise its greatest cosmopolite. Thoroughly travelled and with deep knowledge of all ancient and modern civilizations to which he gives expression in his works, he fully deserves the title. His original poems alone fill sixty-four generous volumes, his prose tales, novels and dramas are represented in some twenty or more volumes, not to speak of his valuable critical and literary essays of which there are at least a dozen volumes. To these must be added an immense number of unparalleled translations from the literatures of practically all ​cultured nations, ancient and modern, and then only can a fair conception be had of the marvellous labors and the unequalled significance to Czech literature of this indefatigable individual, who has created more real literature than is contributed ordinarily by an entire generation of writers.
The immensity of the task of a review of this author’s activity is apparent. Only the mention of a few of his achievements is possible. His “Zlomky Epopeje” (Fragments of an Epopee) represents the attempt of the author to trace through ballads, romances, legends and myths the development of man from the beginning to the present time, the whole permeated with his own peculiar philosophy of history which insists on the triumph of man over matter and of self-sacrificing love over all other human manifestations. The “Bar Kochba” is a magnificent epic of the desperate and heart-breaking struggle of the Jews against Rome. His “Legenda Sv. Prokopa” (Legend of St. Procopius) employs Czech historical material exclusively. Of five volumes of sonnets, the most popular has been the collection “Sonnets of a Recluse.” Many of his twenty-four books of lyrics have gone into several editions. Among them are “Rok na Jihu” (A Year in the South); “Motýli Všech Barev" (Butterflies of all Tints) “Na Domácí Půdě” (On Home Soil), “Pavučiny” (Cobwebs) and “Kytky Aster” (Bouquets of Asters). Of the volumes devoted to the philosophic contemplation of the basic facts of life, love and ​death, the best are his “Písně Poutníka” (Songs of a Pilgrim), “Vittoria Colonna” “Pantheon,” “Bodláčí z Parnassu” (Thistles from Parnassus) and “Já Nechal Svět Jít Kolem” (I Let the World Pass By).
Vrchlický’s best dramas depict characters and events of ancient times with Czech, Greek, Roman, Spanish, Italian, English or pure mythological backgrounds. The list includes twenty-eight plays-chiefly dramas or tragedies practically every one of which has been produced. A number of these have been translated into English
Of four collections of short stories the most successful has been the “Barevné Střepy” (Colored Fragments). “Studies of Czech Poets” is a most valuable and elaborate work as are also his critical essays on Modern French poets dealing mainly with the school of Victor Hugo of whom he was a great admirer.
Through his truly amazing diligence in translation, Vrchlický opened to the Czech reading public new worlds of literature, his aim being to interest especially the younger generation in the rich treasures of all nations. His superior genius made it possible to give the precious lore of other times and other lands a thoroughly artistic rendering in his mother tongue in which he has been acknowledged master by all the critics of his day.
One stands aghast at the mere linguistic knowledge necessary to comprehend the delicate intricacies of the poetic lore of the French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, ​English, German, Polish, Magyar, Scandinavian and even Chinese without even speaking of his rare ability in presenting in beautiful Czech equivalent the spirit and content of the authors translated. He showed most conclusively the rich possibilities of his native tongue as a vehicle for the noblest of thoughts and technically for the transference of the most difficult rhymes and meters in modern European literature.
Victor Hugo, Leconte de Lisle, Corneille, Molière, Beaudelaire, Dumas, France, Maupassant, Balzac, Rostand, Petrarch, Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, Michelangelo, Parini, Leopardi, Carducci, Gracosa, Anno Vivanti, Cannizzaro, Camoens, Echegaray, Verdaguer, Mickiewicz, Arany, Petofi, Hafiz, Shi King, Byron, Swinburne, Browning, Shelley, Tennyson, Whitman, Poe, Schiller, Goethe, Hamerling, Ibsen, Andersen—the masterpieces of all these were worthily made known to his countrymen through the untiring energy of Vrchlický.
While Vrchlický is now more fully appreciated in his own land, he has not escaped criticism which at times has been bitterly harsh, especially in the ’70’s when it was thought he should choose subjects oftener from the history of the Czech nation. Then, too, as the originator of such vast stores of literature, it is not a matter of wonder that the critics charged him with technical and formal errors, with banalities and improvisations. Yet withal Vrchlický stands as a master among masters, who was slave to no school, who felt the deepest, most ​fundamental manifestations of life and expressed them clearly, forcefully, beautifully without the dimming mask of rhetorical flourish
The Vrchlický schools of writers imitate him in his technical verse construction and echo his thoughts of deep-seated world sorrow, wide sympathy for his fellow-men, longing for the moral and social regeneration of mankind, the hope of ultimate freedom from the existent destructive religious scepticism.
Among later poetic translators from the English is Antonín Klášterský who first acquainted his countrymen with the poems of John Hay, Bryant, Lowell, Lee Hamilton, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Oscar Wilde, Joaquin Miller, Sidney Lanier, Stedman.
Eliška Krásnohorská whose real name is Eliška Pechová became a leader of her sex from the time, in 1870, when she entered literature in her twenty-third year. In 1875 she founded and has continued to serve as editor of the “Ženské Listy” (Woman’s Journal). She organized the “Minerva” society which in 1890 founded an advanced school for women students. As the guiding spirit of the Women's Industrial Society organized by Caroline Světlá she has, as has Božena Kunětická in a degree, rendered unmeasured service to the practical cause of women. These activities have lent their spirit to her literary productions, especially her poems which are full of the urge to practical, substantial patriotism, of appeal to aid the cause of the Balkan Slavs or other isolated Slavic groups or to recog​nize the just aspirations of her own sex. She never rhapsodizes without effect and her feelings, sounding deep and ringing true, are ever purposeful. The best collections are “Na Živé Struně” (On a Living String), “Vlny v Proudu” (Waves in the Current), “K Slovanskému Jihu” (To the Slavonic South) “Letorosty" (Sprigs) and “Povídky” (Stories).
She wrote unusually clever librettos for Smetana’s operas “Hubička” (The Kiss) and “Tajemství” (The Secret), for Zděnek Fibich’s “Blaník” (Mount Blanik) and for Bendl’s “Lejla” and “Karel Škréta.” Her translations were chiefly from Alex. Puškin (Boris Godunov) and Selected Poems, Hamerling (King of Zion) Lord Byron (Childe Harold's Pilgrimage), Adam Mickiewicz (Pan Tadeusz).
She has produced great numbers of stories for children and sketches and novels appearing in women’s magazines though by no means limited to that sex for readers.
BOOKS OF SCIENCE
Valuable books of travel and discovery have been written by numerous Czech explorers and “globetrotters.” Among them are: Joseph Kořenský who wrote “A Trip Around the World”; Jiří Guth, “A Causerie of Travel” digesting in many volumes the philosophy of the nations visited; Dr. Emil Holub, who explored South Africa and wrote several volumes on his numerous trips; Pavel Durdik who with wonderful interest discussed his “Five Years in Sumatra.”
​Dr. Jan Gebauer wrote many invaluable philological works and as an authority was ranged on the side opposing the authenticity of the famous Queen’s Court Manuscripts.
Dr. Fr. Drtina professor of pedagogy and Dr. Fr. Krejčí professor of psychology of the faculty of the University of Prague are like Prof. Masaryk, of the positivist school and have written valuable philosophical discussions on the subjects of their life study as has also Prof. Fr. Čáda, likewise a philosopher.
HISTORICAL NOVELISTS
Undoubtedly the foremost figure in this group is Alois Jirásek who has devoted himself exclusively to the rich material offered by the aspirations and struggles of his native land. Třebízský and Winter have been only a little less active in this field.
Václav Beneš Třebízský, completed the theological course in Prague, was ordained in 1875 and served as chaplain from that time until his death. Most of his works are shorter than novels, of which the best are his “Anežka Přemyslovna” a story of the era of Václav I.; “Královna Dagmar” (Queen Dagmar) “Trnová Koruna” (The Crown of Thorns) of the period of the Thirty Years’ War and “Bludné Duše” (Lost Souls) descriptive of the religious strife during the reign of Joseph II. Many collections of his stirring short stories, some ninety in all, based on the events in Czech history appear under the titles “Pod Doškovými ​Střechami” (Under Thatched Roofs) “V Září Kalicha" (In the Glow of the Chalice) and “Z Různých Dob” (From Various Epochs). His engaging and attractive style, the genuineness of his sympathy with his subjects unite in making his works popular for readers of all ages.
Zikmund Winter as professor of history had ample opportunity to collect interesting and valuable material but his decision to use it in literature came in later years when he vividly reconstructed early Prague life from the documents and archives at his disposal, weaving vigorous characters into the ancient atmosphere. His more noteworthy collections are “Rakovnické Obrázky” (Pictures from Rakovnik) “Pražské Obrázky” (Prague Pictures), “Miniatury” (Miniatures) and “Mister Kampanus” (Magister Kampanus) a pretentious story of student life of the period succeeding the Battle of White Mountain which he regards from a partisan viewpoint.
SHORT STORIES
A group of writers arose after Neruda who carried to extremes his declaration that brief genre pictures representing small segments of contemporary life with devotion to every-day detail and with a lively sense for character outline could form an eventual channel for realistic story telling. The result was an almost slavish adherence to insignificant trivialities and a parceling out, among the story writers, of specialized fields of “proficience” forgetting form and real substance for ​fidelity to detail. Then, too, a class of writers arose who consistently surrendered themselves to “temperament” refusing to recognize any law of utilitarianism, or technical form. The middle-of-the-road writers followed the spirit of Neruda’s teaching and renounced the policy of the pure æstheticians.
In the new period were the following writers: František Herites, character delineator in his “Z mého Herbáře” (From My Herbarium) and “Tajemství Strýce Josefa" (Uncle Joseph’s Secret).
Jakub Arbes wrote stories of mysterious or misanthropic, fantastic characters, but endowed them with his own world views. His best stories are “Ďábel na Skřipci” (The Devil on the Rack), “Ethiopská Lilie” (The Ethiopian Lily), “Newtonův Mozek” (Newton’s Brain) “Svatý Xavier” (Saint Xavier).
Sofie Podlipská, a sister of the famous Karolina Světlá, was likewise active though her work was mainly in juvenile and feministic literature.
Alois Vojtěch Šmilovský, another realist, has painted some small town, moralist, and old world types which he has blended into rather attractive romantic settings. His “Nebesa” (Heavens) has been translated. Other very good short stories are in the extensive collections published between 1871 and 1896.
Jan Herben often in humorous vein yet with a world of sympathy delineates Slovák peasant life. Karel V. Rais, poet and popular short story writer, depicts the conditions of life among the mountaineers and ​villagers in simple but appealing tales. Joseph Holeček an advocate of unity with South Slavonic culture and an opponent of all contact with Germanism, is author of “Hercegovinian Songs,” “Serbian National Epics,” “Montenegro.” Teréza Nováková represents the cause of her sex in many public movements and in her books details the sorrowful fate of women who seek moral self-determination in the midst of a social system that simply does not understand. Karel Klostermann is the novelist and story teller of the glass-blowers, woodmen, poachers, and lumbermen of the border regions. Bohumil Havlasa presents fantastic adventures, exotic experiences. Jan Havlasa, son of Jan Klecanda, after several years spent in the United States wrote some interesting “California Stories.” Jos. K. Šlejhar uncovers in the so-called “best families” a world of petty tyrannies, cruelties and bestialities practised by those wearing the cloak of respectability. Jiří Karásek writes of decadence and occultism. Růžena Svobodová exposes in her masterful and well-nigh scientific manner the frailties and gnawing sores of each social stratum and turns the light on the pitiable condition of so many women who, ignorant of their own purpose in life, live in hopeless dreams until, spiritually famished, they perish in their own illusions, amid the joyless drab of life. Martin Kukučin, the leading Slovák realist, in addition to portraying his own people as he knew them has presented intimate views of the Croatian and Serbian peasantry. ​Svetozár Hurban Vajanský is a Slovák writer, ten volumes of whose poems, short stories and novels have been published in Sv. Martin.
Among poets of high order who expressed the most advanced spiritual interests in the present day stands a trio headed by Joseph S. Machar with Otakar Březina the chief symbolist and lyric visionary and Antonín Sova ever seeking psychological bases and portraying some crisis of the soul. P. Selver, an English poet, and O. Kotouč, an American have translated many typical lyrics by this trio.
Viktor Dyk has written numerous poems in a sceptical, satirical vein and is also the author of some incisive short stories and dramas. Petr Bezruč whose real name is Vladimir Vašek “first bard of Beskyd,” is unqualifiedly the true singer of Silesia whose bitter fate of denationalization at the hands of the Germans and Poles he lamented in lyrical lines inspiring his brother Czechs over the border to render what aid they could before submergence was complete.
No review of Czech and Slovák literature could be counted complete if it omitted Thomas G. Masaryk. The man who to-day is president of the newly created Czechoslovak Republic has been a leader of thought in his native land for nearly two decades. Born March 7, 1850, in Hodonin, Moravia, of a Slovák father and Moravian “Hanák” mother, he had all the experiences incident to laboring families of insufficient means, before he finished the gymnasium in Brno and his ​philosophical studies at Vienna. He traveled in Germany and Russia and upon his return was named a member of the faculty of the University of Prague in 1882, attaining the rank of a full professorship in 1896. In 1902 and again in 1907 he visited the United States of America from which country he chose his bride, Miss Alice Garrigue of Boston. He took an active part in politics as early as 1891 from which time he was a representative, at intervals, of his country at the Vienna parliament. When Austria-Hungary declared war in July 1914, Prof. Masaryk raised his voice against the ultimatum delivered to Serbia. Because it was everywhere known that Prof. Masaryk had already exposed forgeries on the part of Austrian government agents in previous attempts to foment trouble with the Balkan Slav states, and because Masaryk was the acknowledged leader of his people, he was immediately a man marked for imprisonment and even execution by the Hapsburg government. However, the story of Prof. Masaryk’s escape to Switzerland and then his journey to the courts and leading ministries of England, France, Russia, and the United States to present the case for independence of the Czechoslovaks and the record of how the tens of thousands of his soldier countrymen conducted a campaign of separatism from Austria-Hungary though far distant from their homeland, as was their leader also, is now a matter of history. It suffices that all maps of Europe will now bear the name of the free and independent government of ​Czechoslovakia—and that the united action of a thoroughly capable leader and a trained and intelligent nation achieved the consummation of the national aspirations of centuries.
Prof. Masaryk’s contributions to the literature of his country began in 1876 with an article on “Theory and Practice,” his first philosophical essay being “Plato Jako Vlastenec" (Plato as a Patriot) published the following year.
A division took place in the university faculty relative to the methods of philosophy-whether it should be critical or encyclopedic. The first party contended that the work of the Czech scientists should be severely judged according to the strictest foreign standards. The others urged the systematization of all knowledge and its popularization. Thomas Masaryk solved the question for himself and followers by establishing a scientific-critical journal, the Athenæum (1883) and by planning the collecting of all known knowledge to be embraced in the monumental “Ottův Náučný Slovník” (Otto Encyclopedia). This encyclopedia up to 1910 had published over 150,000 titles on 28,912 pages and had employed 1100 literary co-workers.
Three branches of practical philosophy interested Masaryk chiefly: sociology, the philosophy of history and the philosophy of religion. To the period of study of these subjects belong his briefer psychological discussions: “Hypnotism” (1880), “Blaise Pascal” (1883), “A Theory of History According to the Principles of ​T. H. Buckle” (1884), “Slavonic Studies” (1889), “The Fundamentals of Concrete Logic” (1885).
When the struggle to revive and renew Czech cultural life became the most critical, Masaryk presented a series of analytic studies of Bohemia’s literary and political revival. These are widely published and read in America also and included his “Karel Havlíček” (1896), “Jan Hus—Naše Obrození a Naše Reformace” (Jan Hus—Our Renaissance and Our Reformation) (1896), “Česká Otázka” (The Czech Question) (1895), “Naše Nynější Krise” (Our Present Crisis) (1895). His “Otázka Socialní" (The Socialist Problem) analyzes and appraises Marx and his principles. “V Boji o Naboženství" (The Struggle of Religion), “Mnohoženství a Jednoženství” (Polygamy and Monogamy) (1902), “V Boji Protí Alkoholismu” (The Fight Against Alcoholism) (1908), “Česká Filosofie” (Czech Philosophy) (1912), all contain the ripe judgment of a man who had thoroughly digested the problems discussed.
In each article and book Masaryk’s remarkable personality stands forth in his determination, first, to wholly emancipate the Czechs from the German philosophy, accomplishing this by supplanting Kant with Hume, Herbart with English psychology, not merely by interpretation but by a critical reorganization into which his own ethical and religious convictions entered; second, by bringing philosophy down from a plane of mere theory to become the first aid in all sciences, arts, religion and every-day life so that the ​actions of the nation and of the individuals composing it would intelligently, systematically and purposefully lead to a definite goal. In his “Czech Philosophy” Masaryk wrote in 1912 “Pure Humanity, signifying the only genuine brotherhood is the ideal of the Czech renaissance and represents, the national program as handed down from early generations of Czech leaders. The Czech ideal of humanity—the Czech ideal of Brotherhood must become the leading thought of all mankind.”—Thus, through great teachers a nation of earnest students has been trained to effectively carry out a great idea in the practical school of world politics and statesmanship.
Reading maketh a full man.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
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