Vídeňský exil Pavla Kohouta
Pavel Kohout's Vienna Exile

Summary/Abstract: The study depicts the exile chapter in the life and work of the prominent Czechoslovak and Czech writer Pavel Kohout (*1928), focusing on his dramatic works from that period and their presentation and reception in German-speaking countries. Kohout entered literature as a prominent poet of the young, idealistic generation of the 1950s. Later, as a reformist communist, he contributed to the cultural destalinization of the 1960s and gained recognition with his theatrical plays. After the defeat of the Prague Spring, he was expelled from the Communist Party and public life. As a dissident, he became one of the initiators of Charter 77. In 1978, he legally travelled to Vienna for a one-year engagement at the Burgtheater, but the Czechoslovak authorities revoked his citizenship and prevented him from returning to his homeland. The author sheds light on the circumstances of Kohout’s involuntary exile and his deep involvement in Viennese theatre life: almost until the end of the1980s he worked as a playwright at Austria’s leading theatre. The study highlights Kohout’s fruitful collaboration with the then director of the Burgtheater, Achim Benning (1935–2024), and explores the staging and performance of his plays in Austria and beyond, his participation in international cultural dialogue, and his efforts to promote other silenced Czechoslovak writers and intellectuals. The author tracks the critical reception of Kohout’s plays and productions, touches on his prose work and other artistic activities, summarizes a wealth of archival sources, and evaluates them to form a comprehensive picture of Kohout’s exile, which he sees as the source of a qualitative shift in his work. In doing so, he pays special attention to the plays written during this period – their genesis, themes, dramatic concepts, and first stage productions. He also examines how Kohout’s choice of topics, their dramatic treatment, and how the conception of characters evolved in relation to his earlier work, and seeks to clarify the ways in which the experience of exile contributed to the transformation of Kohout’s poetics. Pavel Kohout is an example of an artist who, having been expelled from his homeland at the age of fifty, was forced to assert himself not only in a different linguistic environment but also within a completely different system of cultural politics and market. As the author notes, he became the most frequently performed Czech playwright in the West and achieved significant success as a novelist as well.

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