This article presents a retrospective view of the activities of six scholars (Josef Hrabák, Jaroslav Kolár, Milan Kopecký, Eduard Petrů, Emil Pražák and Zdeňka Tichá), who between 1956 and 1996 took ...an interest in the Renaissance and Humanism in the Czech lands. It might appear that the Marxist ideology of the time must inevitably have distorted the researchers’ professionalism to varying degrees, but this article
convincingly proves that this was not entirely unavoidable at least for an interpretation of the period between Hussitism and the Battle of the White Mountain, as in 1956, thanks to Hrabák’s “programme”, this research orientation acquired a strong focus
on Josef Dobrovský, and thus on a patriotic assessment of the meaning of Czech history, as had been required by the First Republic. Because postwar Communist
doctine paradoxically intersected the same milestones as Masaryk’s nation-building programme, based on the ethos of Hus, Palacký and Havlíček, none of the six scholars under review needed to resort to the political vocabulary that was characteristic of the latter half of the 20th century. Marxist ideology required the emphasis to be at best on progressive trends and the
people, the latter term being understood ad hoc to mean both the townspeople and the rural population. On the other hand, the religious question was brought down to just the anti-Habsburg and anti-Rome sentiments of the Unity of Brethren, so that politically deferential research into the 16th century must have missed the most valuable aspects, i.e. the reconceptualization of the inherited canon, whereby the
patriotic (i.e. the sole correct) interpretation of literary development was enhanced by dual Catholic-Utraquist and all non-conformist literature. The actual term humanism was overused as need required but without a strict definition, implying identification with humanity in the modern sense of the word. Curiously, this interpretational vagueness then allowed the term humanism to be confused with the Renaissance
(and vice versa), thus covering the entire period between Hussitism and the White Mountain within these categories. This sleight of hand was based on a Marxist interpretation of Hussitism, which beyond the obvious positive aspects did not allow for an examination of the negative effects of this revolutionary movement on the subsequent development of bourgeois society (in particular). Hence what was
known as the first, Hussite Reformation was declared to be the primary basis for the Renaissance and Humanism in the Czech lands. From the 1980s Eduard Petrů devoted himself to an alternative conception of
Humanism. Its alternative and seemingly apolitical nature stemmed from the fact that this conception was not associated with the politically topical interpretation of Hussitism, but then in contrast the Humanism of the Czech lands was enthusiastically found to include a seemingly special feature known as the information explosion. Basically, however, this was a final stage of Humanism for popular consumption (involving its diffusion and imitation), strongly influenced by the printers’ economic standpoint, and inevitably responding to human knowledge and development in all
16th century European literatures.
Our ideas regarding the origins of humanism in the Czech lands are based onKristeller’s now classic “narrow” view of this school as a philological and philosophicaltrend. At the turn of the 16th ...century an active role in the literary scene was taken (withonly some exceptions) by Utraquist priests, who with the aid of translations interalia were endeavouring to reform the declining post-Hussite society. Emphasis wasplaced on religious education and the cultivation of morality in accordance with theearly Christian church. This trend, which we have described with the new term proto-Revival, has for the most part nothing to do with scholarly humanism either at thelevel of translation or in occasional original works – but this does not detract fromits exceptional importance. Religious rigorism and linguistic patriotism were notunique to conservative Utraquism, but can also be found in non-conformist religiouscommunities. These small churches, motivated by confessional priorities, also rejectednon-religious education and the tuition of foreign languages (Greek and Hebrew),while their leaders’ activities were incompatible with humanist interests. Only thereligiously syncretic centre in Náměšť aimed to keep pace with the rest of Europe. Itwas here for the first time, if only very briefly between 1533 and 1535, that the potentialfor undiluted humanism emerged, thanks to Erasmus’s critically reformed methodof translating, as well as to the domestic scholarly interest in the Czech language.At the level of Biblical translation the Unity of Brethren did not emerge from theirCzech isolation until relatively late in comparison with the German reformation inthe early 1560s. During the post-Hussite period, the substantial minority of Catholicscame closest to the antique tradition and humanist thinking thanks to their studies atuniversities abroad, while the needs and readership skills of the primarily Utraquistsociety were not suitable, so that those individuals capable of literary expressionhad to rely on publishing in Latin abroad. However, while they performed theirsacerdotal service in the Catholic church, the pluralist religious model in the Czechlands outwardly muted their humanist orientation and actually bolstered their activeanti-Reformation stance. Members of humanist circles in Olomouc and Plzeň onlypublished abroad to a very minimum extent, as the predominant form of creativeactivity had come to be unpublished correspondence with the character of privatebut not open literary letters; whence the modern-age aphoristic designation “writers without literature”. The post-1547 political changes did not just provide the literaryand book-printing sphere with a new censorship model, as is often pointed out, but italso accelerated and deepened positive-acting phenomena that occasionally appearedafter several decades. Religious-educational and moral cultivation of society started tobe more motivated by an interest in enlightenment, language education and economicgrowth. New knowledge, passed down from classical antiquity and the Middle Ages,was disseminated among the burghers and aristocrats in the form of translations,or more frequently by means of adaptations of German originals, or less frequentlyby means of original Czech or Latin texts. The intervention by the authorities inthe status of the towns, and so by extension in the mentality of their inhabitants,brought about one more change in the literary sphere after 1547, temporarily relievedof its religious controversies, creating a space for the promotion of Renaissance Latinpoetry. Here antiquity was truly of constitutive importance, although primarily asa source of imitations of classical pre-texts. In this regard an indisputably importantcatalyst was Collin’s reform of pedagogical procedures at Prague University. Ofcourse, the presentation of Latin poetry by Bohemian and Moravian printing houseswould not have been possible without antiqua. This previously unknown associationmight appear strange to paleo-Bohemists and neo-Latinists, but it also shows thatliterary and book culture cannot be separated in modern-era studies. The belatedarrival of antiqua, brought about by disapproving confessional standpoints, came toact as another yardstick for assessing relations between the Czech lands and Europeancultural trends until 1536.
This article carries on from articles recently published by Česká literatura endeavouring to present the main issues surrounding literature in Jagellon Bohemia. As Mikuláš Konáč of Hodíškov (who died ...in 1546) was not just the author of the original works and translations, but first and foremost a printer, it would appear useful to explore his place in Czech culture through the prism of both activities together. The main feature of Konáč’s writing and printing work was not just his service to Czech society, but also to no small extent his ambition to excel, even at the expense of conflicts between slowly and passively adopted early humanistic literary and publishing trends and the as yet not fully developed early Renaissance typography. As a translator, Konáč broadly straddled the medieval and the early modern eras, as living primarily in a medieval manner, this is the way he was moulded by burgher society in the first third of the 16th century. As a tradesman with creative ambitions he sought models to arouse the attention of potential readers while helping to cultivate them, and it was perhaps a matter of indifference to him which cultural areas they came from or how far back into the past they went. With his readers in mind, he substantially bolstered the role of forewords, dedications and other book paratexts. He also extended the genre range of contemporary literature to a small extent. However, phenomena which have been described by previous generations of researchers both in the case of Konáč and of Jagellon era writing as humanistic are considered by us to be manifestations of domestic Irenicism. Konáč’s conception coincides with this European mainstream of thought in its emphasis on the general good and Christian morality, although it parts company with it in its intolerant view of the Unity of the Brethren and Lutheranism. We suggest the rather contentious term national humanism, a survival from a previous era, should be replaced by a new term, the proto-revival of burgher society.
This paper attempts to examine the literary terrain marked out between the end of the 15th century and the year 1553, i.e. the period in which the first true Czech author, Václav Hájek of Libočany, ...author of the Czech Chronicle (1541), translator and adaptor of several Old Czech works, lived and worked. However, for this it was necessary both to confront some of the basically Marxist views held by mid-20th researchers and to try to incorporate the well-known facts into a higher entity called book culture. One of the period-based dangers of Marxist paleo-Czech studies was the evaluation of literary works on their own or without any interest in the specific nature of the communication process or the artistic and workmanlike aspects of publication, distribution and reading technique.
One of the parameters of book culture is the readers' reception of texts, which enables a readership community to be formed and cultivated. Book printing in Bohemia and Moravia played a much smaller role in this process than we have previously presumed, as the foremost church institutions, Prague University representatives and thus the printers themselves did not understand the social impact of book printing and at most thought of it as another form of business. The literary scene was so lacking in writers, translators and potential readers, who were mostly just from the increasingly emancipated middle classes, that books of such typographic standards were not produced in enough numbers to support the habit of quiet reading and thus enable intensive reading to slowly turn into extensive reading. Domestic book printing was greatly affected by the import of books from Germany and the strong scriptographic output of the intelligentsia there.
The present paper aims to linguistically assess Czech bibles published between 1488 and 1715. However, the bibles within this period are not examined so much from a theological, translational or ...linguistic standpoint as from that of book culture. Through research into printing type, decoration, illustrations and also to some extent publishers’ and individual bindings, we shall attempt by means of comparisons with foreign bibles to answer the question whether publishing initiatives of this type contributed to the cultivation of the community of readers and the book printing craft.
Apart from several popularizing works over the last few decades, nobody has yet dealt with this topic in its entirety. As our exploratory “Spravedlnost pro Severinovy bible” Justice for the Severin Bibles (Knihy a dějiny 2012, pp. 70–86) initially outlines, materially and comparatistically conceived research may lead to conclusions which in many respects will not fit in with previous research. This is indicated by the following conclusions:
1) The publication frequency of “Utraquist” versions in this country reflected the limited creative capacity of biblists and the book printing sphere, whereas in the case of Brethren versions it bears witness to a great appreciation for collective intellectual and craftsmanlike work.
2) Publication strategy was responding to the official Czech dual faith (the coexistence of Utraquism and Catholicism) and the existence of the non ‑conformist Unity of Brethren. Synoptic research indicates that most pre ‑1620 publishers and printers had to flexibly respect these specific denominational conditions in such a way that the bible as a book product reached the broadest possible reading public.
3) Bible editions almost invariably had no effect on the illustration scene even taking into account the 1570 illustration series.
4) The 1506 Venetian Bible and two Severin Bibles (1529 and 1537) had greater influence on the future development of book culture than the “Melantrichs”, which as publication copies are only minor innovations, particularly based on the second Severin of 1537.
5) The typographical aspect of the Brethren editions is not original, but draws on Swiss influence. A strongly inspirational and vital role is played by the Kralice edition at the exegetic, translational and linguistic level, but not with regard to its typographic and graphic decorative contribution. In their time these levels did not influence Czech book culture and were only reflected and used for enlightenment purposes much later.
6) The question whether incunabula and pre ‑1620 bible editions influenced book culture in this country cannot be answered with a clear negative, but it can be answered with a considerable degree of scepticism. In comparison with ordinary book production, however, their generally superior graphic standard clearly facilitated the habit of quiet daily reading to a considerable extent.
The essay considers three recently discovered works of medieval fiction with subject matter largely from antiquity (Gesta Romanorum, Asenech Joseph and Aseneth, Kronika o Apolloniovi Apollonarius of ...Tyre), published in Czech in the early sixteenth century. They are, however, preserved only in fragments. The printer was Mikuláš Bakalář of pilsen, who specialized in medieval literature that aimed to amuse.
This text was presented on 9th May 2012 at the Librarian and Information Science Department, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava. The lecture was arranged by this Department, the Book ...Culture History Section at the Slovak National Library in Martin and the Slovak Academy of Sciences History Institute in Bratislava. The lecture demonstrates that the bases of Czech bibliological research are very closely interconnected with national retrospective bibliography and that this continuity carries on to this day due to personnel restraints. Hence even nowadays no difference is felt between historical bibliography and bibliology. However, historical bibliography is lacking a modern national plan for historical book fonds and ways to process them and make them digitally available. New bibliological research needs to be conceived separately and emancipated from routine bibliographical procedures. Bibliology should not be understood as static and positivistically oriented, but as an interdisciplinary field with links to literary history, art studies, musicology and so forth. The sociocultural functions of the book should also be foregrounded, as should research into reading and the readership community from the standpoint of historical development. The pedagogical process should also be motivated by these considerations, which will help it begin to attain a higher standard with regard to bibliology and the history of book culture.
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