Josef Skružný (15 March 1871 in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
– 12 May 1948) was a
Czech writer and journalist. As well as writing under his own name, he used various pseudonyms, including Venouš Dolejš (alternatively Venoušek Dolejš),
Matouš Česnek, and Venouš Huňáček.
Biography
Skružný was born in 1871 in
Dolní Krč, which was later merged into Prague.
He was trained as a stone-cutter before becoming a journalist for ''
Humoristické listy'', a political satire magazine, where he contributed with short stories and cartoons. During the 1910s he was a friend of other satirists including
Josef Lada
Josef Lada (born 17 December 1887 in Hrusice, Bohemia – 14 December 1957 in Prague, buried at Olšany Cemetery) was a Czech painter, illustrator and writer. He is best known as the illustrator of Jaroslav Hašek's World War I novel ''The Go ...
and
Jaroslav Hašek
Jaroslav Hašek (; 1883–1923) was a Czech writer, humorist, satirist, journalist, bohemian and anarchist. He is best known for his novel '' The Fate of the Good Soldier Švejk during the World War'', an unfinished collection of farcical incide ...
. During the
First Republic of Czechoslovakia, Skružný was a popular author of dramatic and satirical novels, many of which were made into films. He named his villa in
Zbraslav near Prague, "''Venoušek a Stázička''", after one of his most successful works.
Skružný began writing film scripts with his nephew,
Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos (26 January 1910 – 19 July 1993) was a Czech film director who collaborated for 17 years with his Slovak colleague Ján Kadár and with him won the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for the film ''The Shop on Main Street' ...
, in the 1920s.
Together, they wrote five scripts that later developed into feature films, directed by
Svatopluk Innemann.
Skružný died in 1948 in
Zbraslav.
References
External links
Filmography(in Czech)
1871 births
1948 deaths
Czech male writers
Writers from Austria-Hungary
Czechoslovak writers
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