Vladislav Vančura
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Vladislav Vančura | |
---|---|
Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia | |
Occupation | Writer |
Nationality | Czech |
Notable works | Rozmarné léto Marketa Lazarová Obrazy z dějin národa českého |
Vladislav Vančura (Czech: [ˈvlaɟɪslaf ˈvantʃura]; 23 June 1891 – 1 June 1942) was a Czech writer. He was also active as a film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was murdered by the Nazis.
Early years
Vančura was born on 23 June 1891 in Háj ve Slezsku in Austrian Silesia (today the Czech Republic). He was a descendant of an old noble Vančura of Řehnice family. His father Václav Vojtěch Vančura, born 1856 in Čáslav, was a Protestant and worked as an administrator of sugar refinery. His mother, Marie Svobodová was Catholic, born 1863 in Kluky. In 1896, the family moved to Davle, where they lived in a large country house. His broadminded father became a director of a brick factory. In Davle, young Vladislav was educated by a tutor between 1898 and 1904. In 1905, he and his older sisters moved to Prague to study there; Vladislav entered the fifth class of Primary School in Josefská Street.
First prose-works and teenage years
In 1907 Vladislav entered the Royal
The studies in Benešov ended in 1910 by a consilium abeundi because of his membership in a secret student club. His parents sent him to Vysoké Mýto to be an apprentice to a bookseller Čermák. He felt depressed and dreamed of becoming a painter. In 1911, he studied the technology of photography in Prague and also began courses at Arts and Crafts School; he was unsuccessful in his attempt to enter the Royal Academy of Arts and start a career as a painter. He considered suicide because his parents wanted him to be a marine officer or soldier. Due to the illness of his mother, Vladislav returned to Davle. In 1912 he studied privately at home and completed the exams of 4th and 5th class of the gymnasium. The next year he entered Royal Gymnasium on Křemencová Street in Prague and finished the 6th class. Between 1914 and 1915 he was again a student at Prague Malá Strana Royal Gymnasium where he took the final exam on 6 June 1915.
University studies, journalism
In October 1915, Vladislav entered the Faculty of Law of
1920s and great novels
On 2 June 1921 Vladislav and Lída graduated as doctors of medicine and married on 16 August that year. In autumn, they moved to Zbraslav, where they opened a surgical practice. In 1923, Vladislav published a book of short stories Amazonský proud ("Amazon Stream"). More important was his second short stories book, published in 1924, Dlouhý, Široký a Bystrozraký ("Long, Thick and Sharpsighted"), containing excellent texts like Cesta do světa (Journey to the World) or F. C. Ball. The third book, Pekař Jan Marhoul ("Baker Jan Marhoul"), published in 1924, introduced him as a great author to the public. It is Vančura's first novel and maybe also his best - story of tragical life of a wealthy baker who is continuously declining into destitution and death despite his gentleness and goodness. The story is written with extraordinary language and a brilliant style. In 1925, Vančura published the novel Pole orná a válečná ("Fields of Plough, Fields of War") and the following year the novel Rozmarné léto ("Summer of Caprice"), became a bestseller.[1] It is a humorous story of three men – a colonel, a priest and a bath-keeper – during rainy summer holidays. In 1967, the book was successfully filmed as Capricious Summer by the Czech director Jiří Menzel who also played the role of Arnoštek in this movie. In 1928 Vančura wrote his fourth novel, Poslední soud ("Last Judgement"), published in 1929 and built his new white functionalistic villa in Zbraslav designed by architect Jaromír Krejcar, the husband of Franz Kafka's friend, journalist and translator Milena Jesenská.
1930s and great novels
Vančura's fifth novel Hrdelní pře aneb Přísloví ("Criminal Dispute or The Proverbs") published in 1930 in Aventinum Publishing House, Prague, was not very popular in its time; it is the most complicated of Vančura's novels, the genre of which lies between a
1940s, political crisis and war
In March 1938, Adolf Hitler annexed Austria. Vančura's friend, playwright Otokar Fischer died of a heart-attack when he learned about it; Vančura wrote an obituary about him to Literární listy magazine. In 1938, Rodina Horvátova ("Horvát Family"), a novel about life of three generations of a gentry family was published which did not attract any reader interest, due to the political crisis. In December 1938, Vančura took part in the burial of his friend Karel Čapek, the famous writer.
Vančura entered the strong anti-Hitler cultural movement and started to write the book Obrazy z dějin národa českého (Pictures of the History of the Bohemian Nation); its first parts were published and then became a bestseller and symbol of resistance. On 15 March 1939 the rest of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Hitler and a week later, on 22 May, Jiří Mahen committed suicide in a protest against Nazism.
Vančura was a member of the
Selected works
Novels
- Pekař Jan Marhoul (1924)
- Pole orná a válečná (1925), English Ploughshares into Swords. Prague: Karolinum Press (2021). ISBN 978-80-246-4814-9
- Rozmarné léto (1926), English Summer of Caprice. Prague: Karolinum Press (2006). ISBN 978-80-246-3289-6.
- Markéta Lazarová (1931)
- Obrazy z dějin národa českého (1939–1940)
Plays
- Alchymista (1932)
- Jezero Ukereve (1935)
- Josefína (1941)
Filmography
Director
- On the Sunny Side (1933)
- Bursa práce (1933)
- Marijka nevěrnice (1934)
- Naši furianti (1937)
- Láska a lidé (1937)
References
- ^ Summer of Caprice. Modern Czech Classics. Karolinum Press, Charles University.
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- ^ Riskoval život, tajně zapisoval jména obětí nacistů. Teď o tom promluvil
External links
- Complete list of Vančura translations (English, French, Spanish, German and other translations)
- A four minutes recording of part of the Peevish Summer (in Czech)