Johannes Urzidil (3 February 1896 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

– 2 November 1970 in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

) was a German-Bohemian writer, poet and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

. His father was a German Bohemian and his mother was

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Life

Urzidil was educated in

, studying German,

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

, and

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...

before turning to journalism and writing. His initial efforts in poetry were influenced by Expressionism, and were published under the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

Hans Elmar. He also worked as a writer and editor of the monthly journal '' Der Mensch''. Among his acquaintances during this period were Franz Werfel,

Ludwig Winder Ludwig Winder (7 February 1889 in Šafov – 16 June 1946 in Baldock) was an Austrian-Czech German-language writer, journalist and literary critic. He escaped Nazi persecution at the start of World War II when he and his family moved to the UK w ...

and

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...

. From 1922 until 1933 he advised the press section of the German

embassy A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually den ...

in Prague. When

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

was occupied by

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

Germany in 1939, he was dismissed from employment by the German embassy because of his being "Halbjude" ("half-Jewish", a Nazi designation) and this situation caused Urzidil to emigrate to Great

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

. There he was financially supported by the British writer

Bryher Bryher ( kw, Breyer "place of hills") is one of the smallest inhabited islands of the Isles of Scilly, with a population of 84 in 2011, spread across . History The name of the island is recorded as ''Brayer'' in 1336 and ''Brear'' in 1500. Ge ...

. In 1941 he and his wife, the poet Gertrude Urzidil, came to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, acquiring American citizenship in 1946. Although he published poetry, Urzidil is best known for his

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the ...

which, though written in exile, reflects his Bohemian heritage just as well as his new American environment. Among his more notable works are the story ''Der Trauermantel'' (1945, Trauermantel is the German name of the Camberwell beauty) about

Adalbert Stifter Adalbert Stifter (; 23 October 1805 – 28 January 1868) was an Austrian writer, poet, painter, and pedagogue. He was notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing and has long been popular in the German-speaking world, while ...

′s youth, and his collections of short stories like ' (1956; the title refers as well to Prague which he had to leave behind when the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia as to his first love), ''Prague

Triptych A triptych ( ; from the Greek adjective ''τρίπτυχον'' "''triptukhon''" ("three-fold"), from ''tri'', i.e., "three" and ''ptysso'', i.e., "to fold" or ''ptyx'', i.e., "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided ...

'' (1960, whose composition is derived from that of an altarpiece), or ''Kidnapping and Seven Other Incidents'' (1964, whose eight stories are situated in the USA). Urzidil's only novel ''The Great Hallelujah'' (1959) shows as literary collage in the tradition of

John Dos Passos John Roderigo Dos Passos (; January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his ''U.S.A.'' trilogy. Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as a young man, visit ...

, Thomas Wolfe, and Alfred Döblin a manifold panorama of the United States as he experienced them since his arrival in 1941. He wrote also books and essays about cultural history, e. g. ''The Fortune of Presence.

Goethe's Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tre ...

View of America'' (1958), ''America and the Ancient World'' (1964), and ''There Goes Kafka'' (1965, enlarged 1966), or monographs about artists and poets he admired, such as '' Hollar, a Czech émigré in England'' (1942, revised and abridged translation of his German book ''Wenceslaus Hollar - the Engraver of the Baroque Era'', 1936), or his opus magnum in this genre ''Goethe in Bohemia'' (1932, revised and enlarged 1962 and 1965). More over Urzidil translated texts and books from Czech and English into German; worth mentioning is especially his translation (1955) of ''By Avon River'' (1949) by the American poet H.D., the companion of Urzidil's life-saver Bryher. Urzidil won a number of prizes in his career, including the Charles Veillon Prize (1957) and the Großer Österreichischer Staatspreis (1964). He died in

in 1970.

Legacy

The

main-belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

asteroid 70679 Urzidil is named after Urzidil.

References

Johannes Urzidil at Answers.com

Biography at the Český Krumlov Encyclopedia

External links

''Guide to the Papers of Johannes and Gertrude Urzidil''
at

Leo Baeck Institute, New York The Leo Baeck Institute New York (LBI) is a research institute in New York City dedicated to the study of German-Jewish history and culture, founded in 1955. It is one of three independent research centers founded by a group of German-speaking J ...

Website of the Johannes Urzidil Society
with detailed biography, bibliography etc.
Website about Urzidil
by the Urzidil researcher

an
Vera Schneider
with detailed bibliography of secondary literature, annotated collection of links, news about Urzidil and his work, and much more information
''Athalia Montez, Advice'' (1964)
an American story by Urzidil, translated into English b
David Burnett

Detailed Biography
by Klaus Johann at www.exil-archiv.de
''Prague author Johannes Urzidil remembered 40 years after his death''
b
Rob Cameron
for '' Radio Prague''
''The Fictional Country You Build When Your Home No Longer Exists''
comprehensive article about Urzidil b
James Reith
in ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

''
About the word ''hinternational'', coined by Urzidil
- an essay by Djelal Kadir in '' World Literature Today'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Urzidil, Johannes 1896 births 1970 deaths Czech writers in German Czech poets German Bohemian people Jewish Czech writers Czech male poets Czech journalists Czech expatriates in the United Kingdom Czechoslovak emigrants to the United States American people of German Bohemian descent Writers from Prague 20th-century Czech poets 20th-century male writers 20th-century journalists