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KORNFELD, Paul (1889-1942): Prague-born dramatist, author of major works of expressionism in the theater. Died in a concentration camp in Poland.
KRAUS, Karl (1874-1936): Austrian writer, founder in 1899 of the magazine Die Fackel (The Flame), in which he assumed the role of pitiless judge of social, political, and cultural life in Austria. He produced many volumes of verse, aphorisms, translations, dramas. A pacifist, he wrote a play against war (The Last Days of Mankind, 1914) and a violent indictment of Nazism (The Third Night of Wal-purgis, not published until 1952).
KREJCAR, Jaromir (1895-1950): Studied under one of the fathers of modern Czech architecture, Jan Kotera, espoused ideas of the Constructivist avant-garde (Le Corbusier), realized few of the many projects he conceived. His bohemian marriage to Milena was dissolved while he was in Russia, from which he returned disillusioned. Died in London,
KRICKA, Petr (1884-1949): Traditional poet who wrote movingly of such collective and individual Czech experiences as those of the soldiers in the Great War.
LOOS, Adolf (1870-1933): Architect born in Moravia, established in business in Vienna, he had ties to Bauhaus and became one of the pioneers of modern architecture.
MASARYK, Tomas Guarrigue (1850-1937): Czech politician, philosopher, and sociologist. Fought on the side of the Allies in World War I. Was elected president of the republic in 1918, reelected in 1927 and 1934. Resigned in 1935 for health reasons.
MAY, Ernst (1886-1970): German architect who spent 1930 to 1933 working in the USSR as an urban planner. Emigrated to Nairobi, Kenya, returned to Germany after World War II.
MEYER, Hannes (1889-1954): Swiss architect, succeeded Gropius as the head of Bauhaus, spent 1930 to 1936 working in the USSR as an urban planner, then returned to Switzerland.
MOLNAR, Franz (1878-1952): Novelist and playwright born in Budapest, successful as an author of ironic comedies in Europe between the two wars. After the Nazis came to power, emigrated to the United States. Liliom is his most famous play.
NEMCOVA, Bozena (1820-1862): Among the most popular of Czech women of letters. An early proponent of national cultural emancipation, she recorded the daily lives of the people, collected and updated Czech and Slovak fairy tales, wrote numerous narratives concerning the difficult destinies of young women. Grandmother (1855) was her chef d’oeuvre.
NEUMANN, Heinz (1902-1937): A director of the German Communist party, one of the organizers of the abortive insurrection of 1923. Represented the party in Moscow in 1925, was sent in 1927 on a mission to China, where he was one of the organizers of the Canton commune. Editor in chief of the party paper, Die Rote Fahne, in 1928. After he opposed Stalin’s policies in 1932, was divested of his responsibilities and sent to Spain. Acknowledged his divisiveness in an auto-critique in 1934. Was arrested in Switzerland, deported to the USSR, arrested there in April 1937, and executed without trial.
NEUMANN, Stanislav Kostka (1875-1947): Writer of bourgeois origins whose creative itinerary included “decadent” symbolism; anarchic individualism; the exaltation of life, nature, and modern civilization; and communism, which he abandoned for a time in 1929 before taking up a certain popular traditionalism.
NEZVAL, Viteslav (1900-1958): Principal poet of the “Poetist” avant-garde, then surrealist. Abandoned surrealism in 1938 on orders from the party and was poet laureate of the Communist regime after 1948.
OUD, Jacobus Johannes Piter (1890-1963): Dutch architect, founder of the de Stijl movement.
PEROUTKA, Ferdinand (1893-1978): Great liberal and democratic newspaperman in the tradition of Karel Havlicek, the inflexible adversary of the Hapsburgs; also literary critic and historian. After six years’ imprisonment in Buchenwald, he resumed his journalistic activities, but chose exile in the United States after the Prague coup.
PFEMFERT, Franz: Publisher of the weekly, Die Aktion, founded in 1911, he encouraged the new, nonconformist, revolutionary tendencies of the young artists associated most notably with expressionism. Was radically opposed to patriotic and chauvinistic trends among intellectuals before and during World War I.
PICK, Otto (1887-1940): Editor on the daily, Prager Presse, and translator of numerous Czech dramatists, notably Karel Capek.
PREISLER, Jan (1872-1918): Important proponent of a strongly symbolist, expressive, and poetic art nouveau.
RüHLE, Otto (1874-1943): Professor, psychologist, pedagogue. Militant in various left-wing parties including the SPD and KPD from 1900 to 1933, when he emigrated. Moved to Mexico in 1936. There established close relations with Leon Trotsky.
SCHLAMM, Willi: First publisher of the German leftist magazine, Weltbükne, in emigration. Tried to maintain a leftist socialist line without rallying to the KPD. Was dismissed in 1934 for having published a text by Trotsky.
SRäMEK, Franä (1877-1952): Poet, novelist, dramatist who exalted young, fragile, sensitive souls free of prejudice and convention. In his anarchist youth, Srämek was aligned with S. K. Neumann; after the war, more resigned and melancholic, he moved closer to Karel Capek.
STURSA, Jan (1886-1925): Student, then assistant, of the great classicist of Czech sculpture, Myslbek, he was able to evolve and open new vistas thanks to lessons gleaned from Michelangelo, Rodin, Maillol, and Bourdelle. Notable works include busts of Smetana and Masaryk.
SVOBODOVA, Ruzena (1868-1920): Important Czech novelist and short story writer who responded to dry realism and naturalism with a romantically tinged impressionism.
TEIGE, Karel (1900-1951): Art critic and theoretician, cofounder of the Devetsil group, then editor of numerous art and cultural magazines. Expert in matters of architecture and urban planning, with ties to Bauhaus. Member of the Czech Communist party who made many trips to the USSR after 1925.
URZIDIL, Johannes (1896-1970): Native of Prague. Press attache at the German embassy. Knew Kafka, Brod, and so on. Left Germany with his wife, a Jew, in 1939 and moved to the United States. His works included essays, narratives, novels.
VANCURA, Vladislav (1891-1942): A director of Devetsil, he left the Communist party in 1929 but rejoined later. An important innovator in prose and the theater. After the assassination of Hey-drich he was arrested as a member of the resistance; was executed shortly after the extermination of the village of Lidice.
WELTSCH, Felix: Philosopher from Prague, friend of Kafka and Brod. Editor in chief of Prague’s Zionist weekly, Selbstwehr (Self-Defense).
WERFEL, Franz (1890-1945): Expressionist novelist; a native of Prague. In 1912 published Die Weltfreund (The Friend of the World) and went on to write many novels, novellas, and short stories. Worked for the publisher Kurt Wolff, where he brought together poets of the expressionist generation. From 1915 to 1917 a soldier in the Austrian army. Met and wed Alma Mahler, widow of Gustave Mahler, in Vienna. Emigrated to France after Hitler’s invasion of Austria, and from there to the United States, where he died.
Niemandsland (No-Man’s-Land): film by Victor Trivas, based on an idea by Leonard Frank, 1931.
* The notes were prepared by Alain Brossat with the help of Vladimir Peika.