Jan Drda

Jan Drda (April 4, 1915, Příbram – November 28, 1970, Dobříš) was a Czech journalist, politician, playwright, screenwriter and author of modern fairytales. He was the Czech State Prize Laureate in 1949 and 1953, and was a nominated again for the same prize in 1965.

Life 
Jan Drda was born April 4, 1915, in Příbram and was the son of a laborer and organizational founder. His parents divorced and his father became an alcoholic and abandoned his children. In 1921, Drda's mother died during the birth of his second sibling. Drda and his sister, Marie, were educated by their grandfather. In 1934, Drda graduated from Charles University in Prague with a degree in philosophy.

From a young age, Drda wrote stories and dramatic plays for , and he began contributing to newspapers and magazines from 1932. Between 1937 and 1942, Drda was the editor of Lidové noviny (People's News) to which he contributed feuilletons () and reporting.

Drda had been a Communist Party sympathizer since before the Second World War, and supported the blacklisting of some writers who were against Communism. He became a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1945. After February 1948, he held various cultural and political offices, was part of several foreign delegations, including to South America, and was elected to the National Assembly, representing the Prague district, where he remained a member until 1960. In 1955, he received the Order of the Republic. From 1949 to 1956, he was Chairman of the communist-controlled Union of Czechoslovak Writers. Jan Drda and , known by the derisive nickname "Drzáč", were against Catholic authors, such as Jakub Deml, Jan Zahradníček, Václav Renč and Bohuslav Reynek.

Drda contributed to many Czechoslovak films, as both a screenwriter and story author. He is credited as a writer on more than 20 films. His screenplay for the 1960 film Higher Principle (), based on one of his short stories in Silent Barricade (), was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize by the International Federation of Film Critics at the Locarno Festival in Switzerland.

In the final years of his life, Drda was the editor-in-chief of Svět práce (), which he founded in 1968. Drda fell out of favour after condemning the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and the subsequent occupation, and was expelled from the Communist Party. He died on November 28, 1970 in Dobříš and was buried at a local cemetery. His funeral was attended by about two thousand people.

Works

Prose 
 Městečko na dlani (1940) – depicting the life of people from a small city named Rukapáň (based on the author's home city of Příbram), shortly before World War I.
 Živá voda (1942) – a novel about the life of a rural boy, set in the post-war years.
 Putování Petra Sedmilháře (1943) – a novel about an orphan searching for his unknown father.
 Svět viděný zpomaloučka (1943) – book edition of the committee from his work for Lidové noviny.
 Listy z Norimberka (1946) – a collection of feuilletons about the Nuremberg trials.
  (, 1946) – 14 short stories about Second World War (including Prague uprising and Liberation), first prose account of the Second World War in literature.
 Kuřák dýmky (1948)
 Krásná Tortiz (1952) – a collection of short stories, winner of the state prize for 1953.
 Dětství soudruha Stalina (1953) – a biographical account of Joseph Stalin's life until the age of 16.
 Jednou v Máji (1958) – a youth novel about the defence of the Troja Bridge during the May Uprising.
  (1959) – 12 folk tales with illustrations by Josef Lada 
 Posvícení v Tramtárii (1972) – three fairy tales, published posthumously as Drda's last work.
 České lidové hádanky v podání Jana Drdy: pro čtenáře od 6 let (1984)
 Nedaleko Rukapáně (1989) – a collection of the author's short stories, published posthumously.
 Milostenky nemilostivé (1995) – a collection of essays written between 1939 and 1940.

Drama 
 Magdalenka (1941) – a one-act comedy
 Jakož i my odpouštíme (1941) – a play about three talks 
 Romance o Oldřichu a Boženě (1953) – a comic love story of two mechanical harvesters, Oldřich and Božena.
 Hrátky s čertem (Playing with the Devil, 1946) – a fairy-tale comedy, adapted into a 1956 film directed by Josef Mach starring Josef Bek, with animated decorations by Josef Lada. In 1979, another adaptation of the film was made in Poland, directed by Tadeusz Lis.
  (1960) – a comedy about eight pictures, adapted into a television film in 1976  by .
 Jsou živí, zpívají (1961) – a play about the Prague uprising

Scripts and story-writing for film 
 Druhá směna (1940) – story
 Městečko na dlani (1942) – story, filmed in Ronov nad Doubravou
 Děvčica z Beskyd (1944) – script
 Znamení kotvy (1947) – story and script, a psychological romance
 Silent Barricade (, 1949) – story and script; a war film directed by Otakar Vávra, about the battle for Prague at the end of World War II. Drda was awarded the 1949 state prize for the story.
 Playing with the Devil (, 1956) – story and script
 Dařbuján a Pandrhola (1959) – story and script; 1960 fantasy film directed by Martin Frič
Higher Principle (, 1960) – story and script; drama film based on the eponymous short story from his book Silent Barricade () written in 1946. Set during the Nazi occupation, the story details the relationship between a group of students and their elderly Latin teacher.
 Golden Fern (, 1963) – story, this fairy tale focuses on the themes of love, loyalty and betrayal.
 Princess Jasnenka and the Flying Shoemaker (, 1987) – story; a fantasy film directed by Zdeněk Troška and starring Michaela Kuklová and Jan Potměšil, based on a fairy tale by Drda. The film was shot in castles in Bohemia and Moravia. The film was later screened at film festivals and is a staple of national broadcaster TV Nova.
 , 2008 – story

See also
 List of Czech writers

References

  

1915 births
1970 deaths
Charles University alumni
People from Příbram
20th-century Czech dramatists and playwrights
Czech male dramatists and playwrights
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia politicians