Czech Literary Authors
Our literature and first writings are from the 10 th century. In the following centuries, the literature
has come through its “golden age” during the Renaissance and steady decline throughout Baroque.
In the 18 th century, authors rose and brought the “national revival”, as they wanted to improve our
dying language. In around half of the 19 th century, the “national revival” ended and our literature was
finally able to compete with international writings. And that´s all about the history for now.
I am going to mention some important authors of our history and say something about them.
Jan Hus (1370 – 1415)
An unsuccessful reformer and priest of Roman Catholic Church. He was
writing during the rule of House of Luxembourg. He criticised the church
because of high corruption and selling of indulgences. He was then
banned from doing religious rites and expelled from Prague. When he
arrived at the Council of Constance, he was immediately arrested. A trial
was held and Hus refused to abandon his beliefs, so in the end, he was
burned at the stake for heresy. It was one of the main causes of the
Hussite wars fought against Emperor Sigismund.
Jan Ámos Komenský (1592 – 1670)
C zech teacher and writer. He was trying to reform our education. His writings
come from era of thirty-year war, when he had to emigrate from the Lands of
the Bohemian Crown in year 1628. We should mention at least some of his
writings: Orbis Pictus (textbook for learning Latin) and Labyrinth of the
World and Paradise of the Heart (where he used the phrase “looking through
pink glasses”, which means see the world in pink).
Josef Dobrovský (1753 – 1829)
Our so-called “grey abbot” (sometimes blue, but don´t ask me why), he was a
writer and a priest. Literally, we could say that he started the “national revival”,
but then he had an argument with “later generation” of authors and was critised
and forgotten, because he wasn´t nationalist enough. Probably because he was
the real “enlightened” person.
Karel Hynek Mácha (1810 – 1836)
He is one of our biggest poets and writers in the 19 th century without any
doubt. He died very young of cholera. He was a dedicated traveller, who
walked even to Italy. We don´t actually know what exactly he looked like
(the portrait is fantasized).
His best well-known writing is a poem called Máj (very romantic indeed).
But because he was more romantic than nationalist in that time, nobody
liked Máj. He was also a painter and painted lot of our castles.