Bedřich Václavek (10 January 1897 – 5 March 1943) was a Czech literary theorist, critic, journalist and Marxist aesthetician.

Biography

Václavek was born on 10 January 1897 in

Čáslavice Čáslavice is a municipality and village in Třebíč District in the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 600 inhabitants. Geography Čáslavice is located about southwest of Třebíč and southeast of Jihlava. Most of the muni ...

into a poor rural family. After graduating from high school in 1915, he was drafted into the army, where he served until the end of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Then he entered

Charles University ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , undergr ...

in Prague, where from 1918 to 1923 he studied Germanic and Bohemian studies at the Faculty of Philosophy. His teachers were leading figures in Czech literary studies and folklore such as

Zdeněk Nejedlý Zdeněk Nejedlý (10 February 1878 – 9 March 1962) was a Czech musicologist, historian, music critic, author, and politician whose ideas dominated the cultural life of what is now the Czech Republic for most of the twentieth century. Although ...

and

Otokar Fischer Otokar Fischer (20 May 1883 – 12 March 1938) was a Czech translator, playwright, poet and critic. He was born in Kolín, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He made new translations of Goethe, Shakespeare and Villon. He was a professor ...

. In 1922 he went to Berlin and studied theater and journalism there. After that he worked as a school teacher and librarian at the State and University libraries in Brno. He was a member of the group of avant-garde artists

Devětsil The Devětsil () was an association of Czech avant-garde artists, founded in 1920 in Prague. From 1923 on there was also an active group in Brno. The movement discontinued its activities in 1930 (1927 in Brno). Founded as U. S. Devětsil (Uměleck ...

. A member of the

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Cominte ...

from 1925, Bedřich Václavek was actively involved in the labor movement of his region, organizing actions of solidarity between cultural figures and striking miners in 1932. In 1933, Bedřich Václavek came under police surveillance due to his active communist activities and was transferred away from Brno – to the university library in Olomouc. He was also one of the main organisers of the Left Front. In 1939, he had become an associate professor at the

Masaryk University Masaryk University (MU) ( cs, Masarykova univerzita; la, Universitas Masarykiana Brunensis) is the second largest university in the Czech Republic, a member of the Compostela Group and the Utrecht Network. Founded in 1919 in Brno as the seco ...

, however his PhD thesis was not accepted by the ministry of education. After the Nazi invasion, Václavek went underground, becoming one of the leaders of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which had been banned. Julius Fučík brought him to work in the editorial office of the illegal newspaper of the Central Committee of the party '' Rudé právo''. In 1942, after Fučík's arrest, Gestapo picked up Václavek's trail and he was soon arrested. Bedrich Vaclavek - plaque detail

During the first interrogation he identified himself by the pseudonym "Grdina" (translated as 'hero'). Václavek was tortured by the Prague Gestapo and imprisoned in Pankrác. He died on 5 March 1943 (possibly killed by lethal injection) in the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

at the age of 46, without giving his real name.

Works

Bedřich Václavek was one of the most prominent critics and theorists of avant-garde art and Czech Marxist literature. He analysed aesthetics, literary criticism, popular culture and history from the perspective of a Marxist. He initially belonged to the theorists of the avant-garde and was a representative of

poetism Poetism (in Czech language, Czech: ''poetismus'') was an artistic program in Czechoslovakia which belongs to the avant-garde; it has never spread abroad. It was invented by members of avant-garde association Devětsil, mainly Vítězslav Nezval and ...

and

constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...

but in the 1930s became a proponent of

Socialist realism Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ch ...

. He represented a synthetic and dynamic view of socialist realism as a synthesis of avant-garde and proletarian art with active relationships with life. He also devoted himself to noetic questions in art.

Books

* Od umění k tvorbě, 1928, 1949 * Poesie v rozpacích, 1930 * Česká literatura XX. století, 1935, 1947, 1974 * Tvorbou k realitě, 1937, 1946 * Písemnictví a lidová tradice, 1938, 1947 * Lidová slovesnost v českém vývoji literárním, 1940 * Deset týdnů, 1946, 1958 * O české písni lidové a zlidovělé, 1950 * Tvorba a společnost, 1961 * Literární studie a podobizny, 1962 * O lidové písni a slovesnosti, 1963 * Knihy z Ruska a o Rusku, 1965 * Tradice a modernost, 1973 * Kritické stati z třicátých let, 1975 * Juvenilie, 1978 * Ruská revoluce a literatura, 1980 * Tvorba a skutečnost, 1980 * Korespondence Bedřich Václavek s Hanou Humlovou, 1983.

Collected works

* Společenské vlivy v životě a díle K. H. Máchy, Torzo a tajemství Máchova díla, 1938 * SSSR v československé poezii, 1936 * České písně kramářské, (Mitautor Robert Smetana), 1937, 1949 * Všemu navzdory (unter dem Pseudonym P. Bok), 1938 * Český národní zpěvník, (Mitautor Robert Smetana), 1940, 1949 * Historie utěšené a kratochvilné, 1941 (Pseudonym L. Čivrný), 1950 * Český listář, 1949 * Kniha satir, (Mitautor D. Šajner), 1949 * České světské písně zlidovělé, (Mitautor Robert Smetana), 1955.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vaclavek, Bedrich 1897 births 1943 deaths People from Třebíč District Czech literary critics Czech literary historians Czech folklorists Czech Marxists Academic staff of Masaryk University Charles University alumni Communist Party of Czechoslovakia politicians Czechoslovak journalists Czech anti-fascists Czech resistance members Czech people who died in Auschwitz concentration camp