WRITERS AND COMPOSERS
1. Franz Kafka
Although he wrote in German and almost none of his work was published in his lifetime, Franz Kafka is Prague. Many of his disturbing novels seem to foresee the Communist years. His peripatetic wanderings across this city, brooding features and death by tuberculosis all add to the mystique.
Franz Kafka was born in Prague
2. Božena Němcová
One of the greatest Czech writers of the 19th century, Božena Němcová was a founder of modern Czech prose. She was particularly interested in folklore – her work consists of short stories and more extensive prose against a rural backdrop. She is known for her novella Babička (The Grandmother), regarded as a classic of Czech literature.
3. Karel Čapek
This Czech writer is best known for his science fiction and psychologically penetrating novels. With his 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) he gave the world a word for an automaton, from the Czech word robota, meaning “forced labour”.
Karel Čapek
4. Jaroslav Hašek
A notorious joker and the author of the celebrated satirical dig at the Austrian army, The Good Soldier Švejk (published in 1921), Hašek was also the creator of the Party for Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law.
5. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Prague and Vienna continue to duel over the legacy of the musical genius, with the Czechs always claiming that Mozart loved them better. The composer premiered his opera Don Giovanni in Prague’s Estates Theatre and Prague residents mourned his death in 1791. Regular Mozart concerts are held in the city.
Mozart
6. Bedřich Smetana
The composer wrote his opera Libuše, based on the legendary princess, for the reopening of Prague’s National Theatre in 1883. Smetana vies with Antonin Dvořák for the title of best-loved Czech composer; the former’s ode to beer in The Bartered Bride gives him a certain advantage.
7. Antonín Dvořák
The works of Dvořák, such as his Slavonic Dances, regularly incorporate folk music. He composed his final New World Symphony while he was director of the National Conservatory in New York City.
Antonín Dvořák
8. Bohumil Hrabal
The poetic author used to sit in the Old Town pub U Zlatého tygra, taking down the stories he heard there. He died falling from his hospital-room window in 1997.
A portrait of Bohumil Hrabal
9. Václav Havel
The former Czech president was known as a playwright and philosopher before he became a civil rights activist protesting the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968 (see Prague Spring). His absurdist works and his fame helped draw international attention to the struggles of his country.
Václav Havel at an awards ceremony
10. Květa Legátová
A writer and novelist, Legátová is known for Želary, a collection of short stories that explore the harsh reality of early 20th-century life in a remote fictional Czech village. In 2002, she was awarded the State Prize for Literature and published Jozova Hanule, her autobiographical novel.
TOP 10 WORKS OF ART, MUSIC AND LITERATURE
1 Slav Epic
Art Nouveau master Alfons Mucha celebrates the Czech mythic past in this cycle of 20 large canvases.
Detail, Alfons Mucha’s Slav Epic
2 The Castle
Kafka worked on this novel of social alienation while living in Prague Castle’s Golden Lane.
3 The Good Soldier Švejk
Hašek was so effective in sending up the army and the Austro-Hungarian empire that Czechs still have a hard time taking authority seriously.
4 Home Cook
At the start of the 19th century, M D Rettigová became a pioneer in the field of culinary literature with this book.
5 R.U.R.
Karel Čapek’s science-fiction play is a sometimes dark study of labour relations and social structures.
6 The Grandmother
Author Božena Němcová based the narrator in her 1855 novella Babička on her own grandmother, from whom she heard many of these stories.
7 Vltava
Smetana’s Má vlast (My homeland) is a set of six tone or symphonic poems celebrating Bohemia. The second, Vltava, follows the eponymous river’s course.
8 New World Symphony
With his ninth symphony, composed in 1893, Dvořák incorporated the style of black American folk songs.
9 Disturbing the Peace
Havel meditates on Communism and the values underlying Central Europe’s pursuit of democracy.
10 The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The novel is Kundera’s non-linear tale of love, politics and the betrayals inherent in both.
