Jan Neruda and Jews: Texts and Contexts
Jan Neruda and Jews: Texts and Contexts

Summary/Abstract: In 1869 the most widely read Czech newspaper of the period, Národní listy [The National Gazette], confronted its readers with a series of front-page feuilletons titled “Pro strach židovský” [“For Fear of the Jews”]. Written by the well-known prose writer, poet and journalist Jan Neruda (1834–1891), the feuilletons proved to be one of the most articulate Czech anti-Semitic statements of the nineteenth century. Their author was prominent. Neruda was broadly acclaimed during his life and, in contrast to contemporaries whose significance is today sustained only through textbooks and academic historiography, continues to occupy a major place in the Czech literary canon. His works are widely read, translated and enjoyed, while critics, scholars and readers repeatedly return to him as an example of a democratic mind capable of empathy and social insight.

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