Czech culture through the Prism of Czech Humanists, Thinkers and Artists

2.10.23

Czech Inventors Throughout the History: Overview of the Ground-breaking Inventions

Inventions

1) lighting rod - beginning of the 18th century

2) ship propeller - 1827
3) sugar cube - 1843

Discoveries
1) contact lenses - 1961
2) blood types (introduced by numbers in 4 main types) - 1907
3) fingerprints (unique nature of individual fingerprints) - 1823

Otto Wichterle – contact lenses

- Developed an absorbent and transparent gel for eye impants (soft, flexible material
for contact lenses that did not irritate the eyes)
- Suspended from the Prague Institute of Chemical Technology due to political reasons
(continued at home and made machines for lenses contruction) *The idea came while
stirring coffee
- Laid the foundation for smart biomaterials

Propok Diviš – Lightning rod

- Studied Theology and philosophy
- Denis d’or : first musical instrument in history that involved electricity
- Lightning rod → because of the death of one of his professors who was killed by
lightning in attempt to measure the electrical field in atmosphere, he became intrigued
by the possibility of preventing electrical storms. He raised a pole upon which he
mounted his “machina meteorologica” with 400 metal spikes and many tin boxes

Jan Jánský – 4 types of blood

- Mainly psychiastrist
- Medicine at UK in Prague
- Worked in a pshychiatric clinic in Prague – tried to find correlation between diseases
and blood types
- Classified blood in four groups = A, B, AB and 0 (before transfusions did not work well,
sometimes they worked and sometimes not but they did not know why)
- 14 years later acknowledge in comparison with Karl Landsteiner (classified blood into
3 groups)

*Collected blood from 3000 people to solve the question but he concluded that there
was no correlation between blood and diseases, instead he discovered the four blood
types. Her thesis was rejected just because he was a psychiatrist.

Josef Ressel – ship propeller

- Born in east Bohemia (Chrudim)
- Studied chemistry, technology and natural sciences at the University of Vienna
- Had to leave university (money problems) and became a forester after graduating
from a forestry school
- Interested in sea navigation
- Invented “a never-ending screw which can be used to drive ships both on sea and
rivers”
- Most efficient propeller (between the helm and the stern, worked under water)
patented and stolen, given back to him 10 years after his death

Jakub Kryštof Rad – sugar cube

- Head of a sugar refinery in Dačice (came from Vienna)
- Born in Switzerland
- Introduced new technologies (new director)
- Sugar in the form of smalls units (his wife’s idea), since the huge loaves of sugar were
inconvenient for everyone
- Invented sugar press (manufacturing cubed sugar at Dačice)
1 cube = 1 teaspoon

Jan Evangelista Purkyně – fingerprints

- Musical talent (choirboy at the Piarist monastery in Moravia)
- Started studying philosophy (left the order, walked 300 km to Prague)
- Studied medicine, with interest in physiology (thesis admired by Johann Wolfgang
Goethe)
- Position at the University of Wroclaw
- Contributed to the establishment of the first physiological institute in Europe
- Realized that fingerprints can be used for identification purposes
- Returned to Prague
- Supported development of the Czech language

Supported women
Country where they study and then they come back and develop their

9.10.23

Who is the greatest Czech inventor?

Jára Cimrman
- Fictional character (Zdenek Sverak and Ladislav Smolijak) - "greatest Czech
inventor, artist, explorer and musician of all time"
- Forgotten but rediscovered (late 60s)
- Mixed Czech-Austrian 2nd half of 19th century
- Renaissance man
- Range of subjects (little bit of everything, very Czech)
- Nobody knows how he look like (just a pic from his childhood + self-sculpted
bust)
- Places named after him (weird ones)
Typical Czech?
- Relevant in 1967
- Cult hero, kind of lifestyle
- Reflect Czech mentality and culture
- Greatest Czech ever (voted unofficial winner)
- Represents typical Czech humor
- Forgotten genius (Czechs would like to be better than they are?)

Tomáš Garrique Masaryk and Váslav Havel Shaping Czech Cultural and Academic
Environment

Brief overview of the Czech history

1. End of the 5th and beginning of the 6th century – arrivial of Slav tribes to the
territory of Czech Lands
2. Beginning of the 9th century – arrival of Christian missionaries
3. From second half of the 9th century to 1306 – a gradual strengthening of the
Czech state during the reign of the Premyslid dynasty
4. 1346-78 - peak in the prestige and power of the Kingdom of Bohemia (Charles
IV ruled)
5. Beginning of the 15th century – a crisis of state leads to the Hussite movement
6. 1526 – the Habsburg (Czech - German) dynasty succeeds – formation
multinational empire
7. 1620 – defeat of the Czech Estates at the Battle of White Mountain, continued
centralization of the Habsburg Empire
8. 28.10.1918 - Czechoslovak Republic (the end of Hungarian empire)
9. From 15.3.1939 to 8.5.1945 – German occupation
10. 25.2.1948 – Communist takeover
11. August 1968 – Soviet Union led Warsaw Pact troops in an invasion of
Czechoslovakia to bring an end to the “Prague Spring” and the attempt to build
“Socialism with a human face”
12. 1989 - fall of the Communist regime
13. 1993 – Czech Republic and Slovakia

First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938) – Golden era (period of democracy and

economic growth)
- From 17th century till 1918 (Austria Hungary empire) → strive for political
emancipation supported by industrialization (negotiation outside Czech
Republic)
- Maffia (Czech secret political organization, founded after Masaryk
emigration by politician Beneš, over 200 members, contacts w/ Masaryk)
- Manifesto of Czech writers (may 1917, signed by over 200 writers,
journalists and scientifics)

Masaryk (first president of Czechoslovakia)

 - Studied languages and philosophy at Vienna (one year Leipzig)
- International perspective
- Professor at UK (Czech-German divided in two parts)
- Wife: Charlotte Garrigue (wealthy American)
- Son: Jan Masaryk – Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia 1940-1948 (killed or
committed suicide?)

Dvur Kralové and Zelená Hora

- Literary hoaxes pretending to be old Slavic manuscripts
- Masaryk one of the researchers examining the genuineness
- Appeared in early 19th century (supposed to be from 9th-14th century)
- Czech National Revival (18th and 19th century) - Czech people tried to renew
their language (emotional time)
- People wanted to believe these were true but Masaryk was fired from UK
and rejected by society * Masaryk realism programme (1890): rigorous and
critical view of the political and scientific reality

TGM becoming president

- Became active on public
- Achieved considerable respect as a scholar, professor and cultural politics
- Exile in 1914 (Italy, Switzerland, France)
- Joined negotiations in England and Russia
- Succeed in gaining the support of American President Woodrow Wilson
- Initiated the Pittsburg Agreement and Washington Declaration
- Selected 4 times for president (1918-1920-1927-1934)

First Republic – golden time

- 1919 – he established Masaryk university in Brno
- Masaryk Academy of Labour
- Supported Jews into Israel and the Jewish state
- Supported cultural and sports organizations
- Developed international relations
- Supported multiculturality (Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Hungarians, Poles,
Ruthenians and Ukranians)

Golden era myth?

- Only true democratic period
- Two peaceful decades
BUT
- Corruption did not disappear
- Society much divided
- Gap between the poor and the rich

16.10.2023

Communism in Czechoslovakia
- Until 1948, last democracy in Eastern Europe (over 40 years totalitarian rule)
 - Trigger: acceptance of the Marshall Aid (USA)
- 1968 – Prague Spring (socialism with human face)
- Negotiations between the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia failed
- 1988 – Soviet invasion
- 1969 – Jan Palach (protest against soviet invasion, student of Faculty of Arts
– 10 people who burned themselves)
- Times of percecution, censorship, isolation…

Vaclav Havel
- Born into de 2WW (hard childhood) – family not communist
- Education denied due to the incompatible cadre profile
- Became active writer
- Personally met Jaroslav Seifert, Vladimir Holan… (intelectuals)
- Studied dramaturgy at the Academy of Performing Arts (playwright and then
assistant director)
- Most famous pieces: The Garden Party (1963) - young man from quite
strange family that told him how he should be in society, he doesn’t know
what to say so he just repeats things he have heard from others - The
Memorandum (1965), Largo Desolato (1984, semi-autobiographical),
Leaving (2007)
- Main features: Theatre of the Absurd style, critique of the bureaucratic
system, clichés, parallels to the political situation

1968-1989 (2nd period of communism)

- Several open letters to the leading Communist rulers
- Drawing attention to the need for respect of human rights + release of
political prisoners in Czechoslovakia
- Charter 77: Document designed/written by Havel – all about respecting
human rights (1977) – all of the people that signed it were fired (they are
heroes)
- Critique of the ruling party + emphasis on the Helsinki International
Conference statements upholding human rights
- VH became a representative of the Chartists and Czech dissent abroad
- Disseminated information about the anti-communist opposition in the
former Czechoslovakia, facilitated forbidden contacts (spreading it among
other European countries)

Palach Week 1989 (bc students organized it – 17th November)

- Demonstration against the totalitarian regime (protestors beaten by police,
Havel imprisoned)
- Subsequent European events (collapsed of the pro-Soviet bloc, the fall of
the Berlin Wall)
- Havel the leader of political negotiations ab democracy
- 1989: last communist president (he was against communism – 6 months
before free elections)
- 1990: president Czechoslovak Republic
- 1993: president Czech Republic
 - 1998: president Czech Republic again

What did Masaryk and Havel have in common?

- Visionaries who determined the development of the two new countries
(Czechoslovak Republic and Czech Republic)
- Focus on humanities (philosophy, literature)
- Focus on international relations
- Both tried to design politics as a service for citizens and the state (happiness
of society)
- Both elected 4 times (impossible now)
- Similar attitude to religion: both critised the formalism of the Catholic
Church

Havel’s inspiration by Masaryk?

- Mentioned him in his speeches
- Encourage citizens to follow his policy based on morality
- Havel admired Masaryk’s reputation at US university (according to the book
Disident – Daniel Kaiser)

Masaryk and Havel in Prague

Statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk at the Hradčany Square
Prague Castle Gardens (opened for public by Masaryk)
The Lucerna Palace (“built” by Vácslav Havel, Václav Havel’s grandfather)
Barrandov Studios (built by Miloš Havel, Václav Havel’s oncle)
National Memorial on Vítkov Hill (reated in honour of Czechoslovak Legionnaires, communists wanted
to turn the monument into a mausoleum for the first Communist president, Klement Gottwald.)

The Most Translated Representatives of Czech Literature

Antimilitarism: Karel Capek, Jaroslav Hasek and Buhumil Hrabal

Who wrote what?

Milan Kundera – The Joke
Jan Neruda – Prague Tales
Jaroslav Hašek – The Good Soldier Švejk
Bohumil Hrabal – I Served the King of England
Arnošt Lustig – A Prayer for Katerina Horowitzova
Karel Čapek – R. U. R.
Václav Havel – The Garden Party
Jaroslav Seifert – City in Tears

Franz Kafka : Czech/ German (his parents had a shop in Prague and her nanny was
Czech: ties to Czech language)

Jaroslav Hašek (1883-1923)

- Most translated Czech book (into 58 lang)
- Born at a time of rising Czech national consciousness
 - Participated anti-German riots in Prague (14 yo) – joined the anarchist
movement – conflict with authorities
- Beatnik lifestyle, drinking exploits and arachic, “embodiment of Dada or
surrealism”
- Well known in Prague cultural circles
- Good entertainer and storyteller
- The Good Soldier Švejk (inspiration – fight in 1915 for the Austro-Hungarian
Empire IWW)
- His lifestyle is very similar to Švejk’s – bothe ended up surrendering to the
Russians just a few months after joining the army
- Spent couple of years in Russia
- Became a Bolshevik, working as a Soviet Comissar
- Back in Prague – developed Švejk’s character in 1921
- Died young (only one book)

Josef Lada (1887-1957)

- Painter that illustrated Švejk

Švejk’s reception
- Popular from the outset: translated into many languages
- Very hard to translate: a lot of vulgarisms in the texts
- Hašek died young and could not enjoy the fame of his book
- Full translation into English in 1973
- Last volume it is unfinished

Plot summary
Hasek's episodic novel describes the adventures of a soldier who is drafted into the Czech army despite
the fact that he has been certified as retarded. Svejk becomes a kind of servant to Lieutenant Lukas. He
constantly gets himself and the Lieutenant into trouble because he always follows instructions to the
letter. When he is told to wait at a railroad station, he misses the troop train, and begins to try to find
his regiment by walking in the wrong direction. He is arrested as a deserter but is sent back to his
regiment where he is promoted to orderly. Later when he is sent to find billeting for the troops, he tries
on a Russian uniform he finds and is arrested as a spy. He is threatened with hanging until an officer
from his regiment recognizes him. Svejk's misadventures are meant to show the follies of the military.
Hasek died before he was able to complete the book.

23.10.2023

Revision

1. When was the first Republic established? 1918

2. Steps done?
3. Masaryk’s realism programme?
4. Why golden era? Period of democracy and economic growth
5. Who was Jan Palach? He was a student of Faculty of Arts and he protested
soviet invasion.
6. How long communism regime in Czecholovakia?
7. Features of Havel’s plays? Theatre of the Absurd style, critique of the
bureaucratic system, clichés, parallels to the political situation
 8. Why is the revolution 1989 called Velvet Revolution?
9. What do Masaryk and Havel have in common?

Class activity:

1st text
Related to the IWW
The good soldier Švejk intervenes in the great war
Very humourus
Direct – like television speech
Satirical and dark
(Švejk) is playing the role of a storyteller
Jokes ab Ferdinand (lack of respect)

2nd text
The White Plague
Related to the IIWW
(Antimilitaristic)
Retribution - punishment by God
Reminds of covid
Ability to find synonyms

Švejk as a cultural symbol?

- Originally: symbol of non-violent resistance to cultural and political
domination by more powerful neighbours
- Hašek’s wonderful affinity with the Czech language

Metaphor to a typical Czech personality?

- Ambivalent
- Hero without typical heroic qualities
- Protesting against bureaucracy
- Someone who survives everything
- Is he idiot? Is he genius? Pretending to be genius or idiot?
- Autobiographical?

“verb” – Švejk ovat = to protest against something by pretending stupidity (1946)

Similarities between Švejk and Cimrman?

They are fictional, both are seen as heroes without these heroic features, and both get
through everything in their own way.

Karel Čapek (1890-1939)

- Studied philosophy at Prague University
- Wrote dissertation on pragmatism
- Worked as a tutor and librarian (well paid job)
- Prosaist, dramatist, publicist, poet, columnist, critic and translator
- Cooperation with his elder brother Josef (writer and painter) – Joseph Čapek
invented the word robot (“machine that looks like a man and can do much
more work”) – humanoids = not machines but people that behave like
robots, so they were more similar to us
Biggest fears = upcoming war and that the consequences could be dangerous

Main feature of capek’s style

- Values of the human existence
- Searchin for definition humanity
- Skepticism against the human technological progress (robots)
- Science fiction, timeless
- Atmosphere of an upcoming collapse, catastrophe
- Creating standard, simplified characters
- X individual hero – incorporation of all human values
- Aim: to write literature for a broad audience

R. U. R. (1920)
- Factory: Rossum’s Universal Robots
- Most famous play (over 30 languages)
- Robots were not just monsters but artificially created humans without
emotions

The White Disease (1937)

- Warning against the dangers of fascism (prophetic play)
- Marshal (Hilter) x doctor Galen (democratic resistence)
- Pandemic of the White Disease, affects those older than forty-five, killing its
victims within 3-5 months
- X Government more focused on using the pandemic as an opportunity for
war than finding a cure

War with the Newts (1937)

- Species of giant, intelligent newts are ruthlessly exploited, and finally turn
into human oppressors
- Written over the summer of 1935, two years after Hitler came to power
- Starts as a travel adventure story – salamenders discovered on a remote
Indian Ocean island friendly, clever creatures able to open oysters and
search for pearls
- Salamenders trained them, sold as a cheap working power
- They were trained to protect the countries that have bought them
- They became dangerous army fighting agains its owners

Bohumil Hrabal (1914-1997)

- Loved by readers and critics
- X banned after 1968
- Milan Kundera called him the greatest living Czech writer
- At school: misbehaved and had no interest in the Czech language or Czech
literature
- Studied law at CU – worked as a railway worker, insurance salesman, travel
agent, and theater sound engineer
 - Published his first work Perličká na dně (1963)
- Settled down as a full-time writer

Main features:
- Grotesque, absurd, irreverent humor and anecdotes
- Best known for creating the pábitel, sometimes translated into English as
palaverer – a dreamer living on the outskirts of society
- Conversational tone, as if the reader is being told a story by someone they
met in a pub, or street

I Served the King of England (1971)

- Written during a period of intense censorship
- Oficially published 1983
- Social satire in the form of a memoir
- During the Nazi occupation of Prague and the tragic events that occur
- Main figure: Jan Dítě – young man working as a waiter, inferiority complex,
behaviour strongly depends on the context – falls in love with rich German
teacher LisaLisa dies – Jan builds his own hotel – communist takeover of
Czechoslovakia, the hotel is nationalized, and Jan Dítě is thrown into
“millionaire's prison” – ends up in mountains, isolated from the world,
reviews his life
- Film adaption in 2006 directed by Jiri Menzel

Too Loud a Solitude (1976)

- Published in 1989, translated into over 30 languages, the most famous of
Hrabal’s novels
- Single character: Haňt’a who works in a trash compactor facility, outsider –
maintains a deep love for the books that he is destroying – secretly rescues
the books (Power => decides on the books’ destiny) – replaced by socialistic
brigade – Haňt’a commits suicide
- Solitude in the title is an allusion on the intangibility of thoughts expressed
in books
- Hrabal’s most biographical work

Famous pubs and cafés

- U České koruny (Hašek)
- Café Louvre (Čapek)
- U Zlatého tygra (Hrabal)

Czech literature after 1968

Building novels
Samizdat = self-publishing
Exile literature

Milan Kundera (1929-2923)

1985 im not going to give more interviews
Exam:
10-15 questions
Small essay ab 3 topics (200 words)
Recommendation: read 2 books
90 minutes

27th November 16:00 – 1st excursion / meeting point: Charles University, “Karolinum”
(50 kc)

Exam dates: before Christmas - 18th December (15:50)

Prague as the European Centre of Lingustics

Prague linguistic circle (Prague school)

- Group of linguistics, philologists and literary critics in Prague
- Czechoslovak and Russian linguists
- Founded in 1926
- Rapid deacrease after 1948
- Renewed in 1990
- First meetings in Cafe Slavia
- Focus on the theory of function
- Formulated theories and tested them empirically
- Interdisciplinarity + dynamics

Key Concepts of the Prague School

- Functional approach – in order to understand sub-language phenomena, it
is necessary to understand the system, to which it belongs
- Language = system of signs
- Communication as a goal-oriented intentional action/activity
- Communication is happening in a socio-historical context
- Aesthetic norm is changing by its each application – rejects the idea of the
incompatibility of synchronic and diachronic linguistics
- Some inspiration from Russian formalism, but at the same time rejected its
basic tenets
- X Russian formalism stressed form, ignoring everything else (content,
context)

Cafe Slavia
- Opened in 1884 (same year National Theatre)
- Built in front of the National Theatre
- Intellectuals as artist Jiří Kolář, poet Jaroslav Seifert, writer Arnošt Lustig or
playwright Václav Havel…

Structure in the Czech Structuralism

- The concept of structure developed to interconnect form and content
- Most important findings in phonology, morphology and syntaxt – dynamic
definition of a “sign”
 - The literary work as a sign between author and reader + literary work as a
unity of particular signs
- Link between literature and linguistics
- Theory presented mostly on poetry

Vilém Mathesius
- Founder of the Prague ingustic Circle
- Studied English and literature at Prague
- Considered father of contrastive linguistics (method of analytical
comparison)
- Comparative approach: English / Czech
- Focus on contemporary language
- Loss of sight – moved from the literary science to linguistics (spoken
language) and began to see the issues of language on a larger scale

Innovative ideas
- Sentence structure (theme and rhyme) – the most important information in
the end of the sentence
- Synchronous diachronic approach to the language research (already in
1911, before Ferdinand de Saussure)
- “Linguistic potentiality”: language as a dynamic system changing in a
particular society
- Distinction between language and speech independently of Saussure's
langue and parole
- The importance of statistical data for linguistics

Jan Mukařovský (1981-1975)

- Studied Czech and French in Prague
- 1948-53 rector of CU
- Teaching at grammar schools and Facaulty of Arts CU and Bratislava
- Friendly contacts with important Czech writers (Vančura, Nezval…)
- Member of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences
- Active in politics

Innovative ideas
- Creation becomes a work of art when the aesthetic function in it
fundamentally prevails over the other functions
- Link between the aesthetic impact of the work and its form
- Concept of form defined by Russian formalists replaced by the concept of
structure – negation of the strict dichotomy between form and content
- Structure is a result of dynamic tension between form and content
- Aesthetic norm = result of a collective awareness
- Role of individual in the art creation and interpretation
- Demonstrated on a variety of analyses of Czech literary works written by
Karel Hynek Mácha, Božena Němcová and Vítězslav Nezval
Roman Jakobson
- Linguist and literary theorist
- Studied at Moscow University
- Born in Russia, left in 1920 (political situation) and came to Prague
(Bohemistics – German University / Habilitation – Masaryk University)
- 1939 forced to leave Czechoslovakia – Denmark (Copenhaguen University) –
Norway – Sweden – USA (1941)
- “Founder of the European movement in structural linguistics known as the
Prague school” (Britanica)

Innovative ideas
- Founder of the modern phonology – distinguishes sound as an objective
physical fact, as an idea and as an element of a functional system
- Adaptation of structural analysis to disciplines beyond linguistics,
including philosophy, anthropology, and literary theory
- Concept of underlying linguistic universals – Noam Chomsky
- Language = system of signs
- Rejects barriers between synchronic and diachronic methods

Class notes:
Russian formalism mostly on the form of the text) but as soon as he started the cooperation with the
Prague linguistic circle he found out that not only the form but the context and the message that
contains is important
Czech formalism = everything is important (when you do translation)

Six communication functions

1. referential (: contextual information)
2. aesthetic/poetic (: auto-reflection)
3. emotive (: self-expression)
4. conative (: vocative or imperative addressing of receiver)
5. phatic (: checking channel working)
6. metalingual (: checking code working)

One is always dominant according to the text type

Jiří Levý (1926-1967)
- Translation theorist, founder of Czech translation Studies
- Literary translation, historiography, methodology
- Teacher at the Masaryk University and University of Palacký (Olomouc)
- Vice-chairman at the Translation section, Union of Czechoslovak Writers
- FIT ambassador

Translation Theory by Jiří Levý

- Empirical – it is a theory derived from practice
- Application of the Czech ‘functional’ structuralism on translation studies
- 1957: history of Czech translation in the European context from the Middle
Ages to 1945
- 1963: The Art of Translation
- Not in-line with the translation turns
- Theory isolated behind the Iron Curtain
- Written in a minor language – Czech
- First international transfer: German edition

Key Ideas in The Art of Translation

Theoretical Concepts
- Free x faithful translation
- Classic translation
- Translativity
- Hybrid nature of translation
- The principle of selective accuracy

Practical advice
- Translation of book titles
- Drama translation
- Translation analysis and criticism
- Dealing with cultural and historical spe
- ‘Translating’ foreign languages in the original

Translation History of The Art of Translation

Original (1963) – German Translation (1969)
- Adjustment of the Czech Version for German translation + addition
theoretical passages
- Cooperation between Levý and the German translator
- Problems due to political situation
- 1967: Levý’s sudden death – the work finalized by the translator
- German version as a source for other translations and Levý’s international
reception
- 1983 back translation from German into Czech (second editon)

Brno
Villa Tugendhat
- One of the pioneering prototypes of modern architecture in Europe
- Built between 1928 and 1930
- Added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 200
Špilberk Castle
- Built in the 13th century by King Přemysl Otakar II
- Served as a massive Baroque fortress, the heaviest prison of the Austrian
monarchy
Moravian Museum
- Silver and Golden Highlands
- The Celts, Brno and the Stars
- Extinct life in Moravia
- Prehistory of Moravia
- Great Moravia
- Moravia in Middle Ages
- Moravia in the 20th century

Jan Amos
Theatre of All Things (was partially destroyed in a fire)

4.12.2023
Cxech philosophers?
Bernard Bolzano

Revision
Why did Jan Hus criticize the Catholic Church
Why is Jan Amos Komensky called “The teacher of nations”? bc he was very popular
and his philosophy was spread outside of Czech Republic. Also, his methods were very
modern for the time.
What is the main concept of Jan Patocka’s philosophy?

Milestones of the Czech Drama and Filmography

Brief History of Czech Theatre

- 14th century: the oldest Czech play The Ointment Seller (Mastickar)
- Merchant convinces three ladies all called Mary to buy his products
- Written in a mix of Czech and Latin
- Religious plays became profane performances – secular drama
- Oral tradition
- 16th century: theatre for broader audience, celebrations
- 17th century: Jesuit Theatre (in Latin), against reformation

First Theatres
- First Theater not in Prague but Brno (today Reduta) – Oldest Theatre
building in Central Europe – 1967: concert by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (11
years old)
 - Prague: 1973 Divadlo v Kotcích – German and Italian (only 1 play in Czech) –
Drama, pantomime, ballet and puppet theatre – Until 1783

First Czech Language Theatre

- Bouda
- 1786-1789 (DESTROYED DUE TO FIRE)
- Relocated in Wenseslas Square (horse market at that time)
- Small and wooden
- Plays only in Czech language (weird at the time bc everything was in
German, Russian…)
- Czech translations of Shakespeare and Molière
- Mostly ab Czech history (only plays written by Czech autors)
- Low interest in Czech plays – financial problems – closed only 3 years after
opening

The Independence of Czech Theatre

- 1862: Prague Provisional Theatre
- Predecessor of the National Theatre
- 1868: construction of the National Theatre began
- 1881: opened
- 1983: reopened after devastating fire + New Stage
- National money collection for the reconstruction
- Fire perceived as a “national catastrophe”

Bedřich Smetana – Libuše opera

- Libuše – Legendary ancestor of the Přemyslid dynasty
- The youngest but wisest of three sisters, who became queen after their
father died
- Married a ploughman Přemysl
- Founded the Přemyslid dynasty
- Founded the city of Prague in the 8th century
- The story of Libuše and Přemysl recounted in the 12th century by Cosmas of
Prague

Josef Kajetán Tyl

- Playwright (20 plays), actor and writer
- Politically active in the revolutionary year 1848
- One of the most outstanding figures of the Czech National Revival
Movement
- Started to be active in theatre as a student – escaped from school and
became a member of a travelling theatre troupe
- Stove to create a theatre with national character
- His most famous play: Fidlovačka
- Where is my Home – Czech national anthem ?

Alois Jirásek
- Author of historical novels and plays
 - Emphasis on freedom and justice
- Studied history at the CU
- High school history teacher in Litomyšl and later in Prague
- Member of Czech Academy of Arts and Sciences
- One of the first to sign the Manifesto of Czech writers
- Member of parliament in the Revolutionary National Assembly – senate
member
- Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1918, 1919,

Literary Style
- Nationalistic and patriotic
- Broad range of historical events
- Mythical periods, changes in bohemia from the beginning of the hussitess,
recatholzation pressure, Kingdom of Bohemia in the 18th century
- Chronicles
- Drama: Jan-trilogy

Mikoláš Aleš
- One of the most important personalities of the “Generation of the National
Theatre“
- Painter, decorator and illustrator
- Romantism – Art Nouveau (Jugendstil)
- Studied Academy of Visual Arts in Prague
- 1879 won the competition for the decoration of the foyer of the National
Theatre
- Went for inspiration to Italy

Czech filmography
Brief history
- First movie Czechoslovakia: the Horitz Passion Play (1897)
- Made by American production
- Silent film until 1930
- 1930s: 1 Czechoslovak film for 7 foreign movies
- After 1938: emigration of Czech actors and directors
- After 1939: strict censorship, Germanization of Czech kinematography
- 1947: first colour film: Jan Roháč z Dubé (drama written my Jirásek)
- 1947: foundation of Film Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU)
- 1948: second emigration wave – film as a tool of communist propaganda

Jan Werich & Jiří Voskovec

- Founders of the Liberated Theatre (1926-1938) – theatre section of Czech
avant-garde artists Děvětsil
- Influenced by dadaism, futurism, pietism
- Aim: to bridge the gap between stage and audience
- Performed works by Appollinaire, Breton
- During the wartime occupation the two men escaped to America
- Werich returned home, Voskovec decided to stay in the USA
 - Worked for the Voice of America radio

Miloš Forman (1932-2018)

- Born into a teacher’s family
- His parents were arrested and killed during Nazi occupation
- Attended a boarding school for war orphans
- Fascinated by theatre since childhood
- In the early 1960s bought his own movie camera in East Germany – began
to shoot a documentary about the Semafor theatre in Prague
- 1967: came to the USA
- Taking Off – commercial failure – financial problems

The most successful films

- One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) – 5 Oscars (9 nominations) –
became a successful American director almost overnight – directed the
musical Hair (1979)
- Amadeus (1982) – opportunity to return to his homeland – 8 Oscars (13
nominations) – famous places in Prague

Czech Oscar Movies

Ostře sledované vlaky (Closely Watched Trains)
- Based on the novel written by Bohumil Hrabal
- Directed by Jiří Menzel
- The story takes place during the Protectorate
- Partly authobiographilcal: Hrabal worked as a dispatcher
- About young man Miloš Herma, who is going through a difficult time in his
adolescence – starts working at the Railway station – problems at work and
in personal life

Kolija
- 1996, commedy
- Directed by Jan Svěrák (Zdeněk Svěrák´s son)
- Introduced in 40 countries
- Main protagonist František Louka (Zdeněk Svěrák) – fake marriage to a
Soviet woman – she has to leave behind her 5-year-old son, Kolja –
communication problems – become “friends“ – Velvet Revolution: Kolja is
reunited with his mother
- Two worlds, two different approaches, different visions of the world

Fairy Tale Tradition

- Closely related to Christmas and other holidays
- Since 1993 every year a “Christmas fairy tale”