Czech literature: Modern Czech Literature
Modern Czech Literature
After 1890 realism gained force with the writings of the influential critic Thomas Masaryk. Proletarian and rural themes were developed, and writers such as Jaroslav Vrchlický, J. S. Machar, Petr Bezruč, and Otokar Březina won fame at home, while Karel Čapek brought Czech literature into the mainstream of world letters. In the period from 1918 to 1938 Czech literature was the most cosmopolitan of the Slavonic literatures; at the same time native themes were cultivated. A dominant trend was the movement away from the intellectual and the individual toward the abstract and the hedonistic. Jaroslav Hašek produced his classic war satire,
The German occupation saw the destruction of Czech literary art and the death of many outstanding figures. After World War II a reorientation of Czech writing toward Russia ensued, and socialist realism became dominant in Czech literature. Postwar novelists of note include Egon Hostovský and Jan Drda. Some relaxation of the strictures of socialist realism was evident in the 1950s and 60s; the novelist and short-story writer Bohumil Hrabal was popular during the Prague Spring, but his works subsequently were banned. Emigration brought a wider audience to the writers Milan Kundera and Josef Škvorecký, who also found their works banned in Czechoslovakia.
Sections in this article:
- Introduction
- Modern Czech Literature
- The Nineteenth Century
- Early Literature
- Bibliography
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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