Věnceslava Hrdličková also Věna (September 15, 1924,

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

- January 20, 2016, Prague) was a leading

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

sinologist Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilizatio ...

and Japanese

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 species; as well as the ...

Biography

Professional life

Věnceslava Hrdličková graduated from the Faculty of Arts of

Charles University Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...

in 1950, where she also received a doctorate in

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

, in 1967 the title of candidate of science, and in the early 1990s the position of an associate professor. Professionally, she was mainly interested in Chinese and Japanese oral literature, or the aesthetics of Chinese and Japanese gardens. She also received a number of awards, for example in 1994 she was awarded a gold plaque by F. Palacký AS CR for merits in the social sciences, in 1995 a gold medal of the Masaryk Academy of Arts or the

Order of the Rising Sun The is a Japanese honors system, Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge feat ...

awarded by the Japanese emperor in 2006 for merits in the field of spreading Japanese culture in the Czech Republic. Additional honors included being the honorary chairwoman of the Czech-Japanese Society and was an honorary citizen of Prague.

Personal life

She is married her husband PhDr. Zdeněk Hrdlička, former

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or so ...

to Japan.

Publications

* History of Chinese Classical Literature (1980) * Stories of Judge Ōoka (1984), collection of stories about

Ōoka Tadasuke was a Japanese samurai in the service of the Tokugawa shogunate. During the reign of Tokugawa Yoshimune, as a magistrate () of Edo, his roles included chief of police, judge and jury, and Yamada Magistrate () prior to his tenure as South Ma ...

* Demon's Flute (1989) * The Art of Japanese Gardens, Prague (1996) together with Zdeněk Hrdlička * Laughter is my craft (1997) together with Zdeněk Hrdlička * The Art of Chinese Gardens (1998) together with Zdeněk Hrdlička * The Wisdom of Ancient China (2002) * The Most Beautiful Chinese Stories (2005) * The Wonderful World of Bonsai (2008), collaboration with P. Herynek, illustration by Miroslav Pinc, photo by Zdeněk Thoma

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hrdlickova, Venceslava Czech sinologists 20th-century Czech historians 21st-century Czech historians Czech women historians 1924 births 2016 deaths Chinese–Czech translators Historians of Japan