Prague’s Museum of Czech literature showcases 19th and 20th literary developments in 10 rooms on two floors via manuscripts, books, film, videos, interactive displays, soundtracks, artwork and objects. Located for 70 years at Strahov Monastery, the museum moved to the grandiose Petschek Villa in the Bubeneč quarter during 2022. The comprehensive exhibition illustrates how literary and artistic trends play a significant role in today’s national identity.
Visitors learn why, during the 19th century, Czech patriots celebrated the everyday life and folk traditions of peasants. Museumgoers will come to understand how discovering that the manuscripts of Dvůr Králové and Zelená hora were fakes greatly affected Czech national identity. The musicality and spirituality of Otokar Březina’s poetry becomes apparent.
On the lower level, a pantheon of Czech writers features busts of the scribes and intriguing objects associated with them. The 19th century Czech historian and prominent politician František Palacký is honored with a death mask and cast of his right hand. Exhibits also include a small iron once used in the household of Božena Němcová, whose novel The Grandmother captured world-wide attention. A quill that Josef Dobrovský used is also on display. Influencing Czech literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, Dobrovský was a priest, philosopher and historian who founded the field of Slavic studies.
Milada Součková’s poignant poem “Woman in the Pantheon” introduces the pantheon exhibits. Her name disappeared from Czech literary history after she emigrated to the USA following the 1948 Communist coup. The writer and literary historian taught at Harvard University, among other prestigious schools.
The exhibition highlights the influence of The Critical Monthly, a periodical that showcased literary and artistic criticism of both Czech and foreign works from 1938 to 1942 and again from 1945 to 1948. An interactive display allows visitors to print out writings from contributors, such as those by poets Ivan Blatný and Vladimír Holan. The editor, Václav Černý, was imprisoned twice by the Nazis for his roles in the resistance and again by the Communists during the 1950s. The totalitarian regime continued to persecute Černý long after his last incarceration.
The museum makes a point of stressing how artwork played significant roles in literary developments and how the two fields often overlapped. For instance, both symbolist landscape painting and poetry focus on the emotional landscape that mirrors the soul. On display are paintings by Josef Váchal, an early 20th century painter, writer, printmaker, sculptor, typographer and photographer who was very active during the First Republic of Czechoslovakia, which lasted from 1918 to 1938. His mystical works were influenced not only by symbolism but also by expressionism, naturalism and Art Nouveau.
Much space is devoted to Karel Teige’s book covers and typographical accomplishments. Leader of the avant-garde movement in Czechoslovakia during the interwar period, Teige established the prominent Devětsil artistic union. Exhibits emphasize Teige’s creation of the Poetism movement that focused on everyday life and objects with an optimistic outlook. Its works include text and pictures that make up visual poems. Founded shortly after World War I, Poetism served as a sort of catharsis to wartime psychological trauma.
Teige’s covers decorate the books of Vítězslav Nezval, Vladislav Vančura, Karel Čapek, Josef Čapek and Jaroslav Seifert, for example. Visitors can admire the covers of Karel Capek’s Marsyas or On the Edge of Literature (1931) and Seifert’s The Nightingale Sings Badly (1926). Teige was responsible for the photo-collages, typography and illustrations in Nezval’s revolutionary book Alphabet, consisting of poems and large letters of the alphabet juxtaposed with pictures of a woman in various dance poses. This work contributed greatly to the Poetism movement.
Displays are described in both Czech and English. Exhibits in this museum are dynamic, giving visitors a sense of the poignancy and power of Czech literature from the 19th century National Revival through the second half of the 20th century. Visitors come away with a clear understanding of Czech literary accomplishments as transcending the written word by becoming a major voice for national identity.
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10 am to 6 pm
Pelléova 44/22, Praha 6, 160 00
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Tracy A. Burns is a writer who has lived in Prague for more than 25 years. She has written about travel for her blog Tracy’s Travels at www.taburns25.com, Private Prague Guide Prague Blog and The Washington Post, among others. She has also published theatre, film and art reviews. Her book reviews and essays on Czech and Slovak literature have appeared in Kosmas, a Czechoslovak academic journal. Her articles in Czech and Slovak have appeared in numerous publications, such as Listy, Literární noviny and Reflex.