PŘÍTEL UTLAČOVANÝCH NÁRODŮ KARL EMIL FRANZOS A ČEŠI
FRIEND OF OPPRESSED NATIONS KARL EMIL FRANZOS AND THE CZECHS

Summary/Abstract: The Galician-born German-Jewish writer Karl Emil Franzos (1848 –1904) wrote mostly about the poor life of Jews and Ruthens under the rule of Polish local gentry and the conflict between orthodox Jews and the modern world. Iin two of his works he, however, thematizes even the Czechs, Bohemia and Moravia. In the short story Altösterreichisches (Old Austrian, in Halb-Asien, 1876) we find a South Russian estate owner on his way home from Marienbad spa via Vienna. The train is full of all kinds of inhabitants of the Eastern part of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. He admires the clean and wealthy Moravian countryside. When he hears that the inhabitants are Czechs, Slavic people, he gets confused: the Czechs complain on their oppression in Austria, and here they have better houses than even the most rich people in Russia.The novel Der Wahrheitssucher (The Truthseeker, 1893) tells us a life story of a German boy from Northern Bohemia called Georg Winter. He attends monasterys in Prague, Graz and Rome and comes back to Prague just before the revolutionary year of 1848. He sees that the Czechs are led to the revolution by Germans who don't really care of their freedom. The Czech intellectual elite looks very odd in their pseudonational clothes and is interested mainly in money. After the revolution Winter starts a new life free from revolutionary ideals.The Czech characters are not treated deeply. Fact, the author needs them to justify the message of the text: there is no need for rebels, it is enough to do good deeds in the nearest neighbourhood. For this aim he needs suitable characters and resorts to the common stereotypes of the time concerning the Czechs.

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