Can I see your avant-garde? Early Czechoslovak theatre avant-gardes on the pages of French journals (et vice versa?) on the threshold of the 1920s
Can I see your avant-garde? Early Czechoslovak theatre avant-gardes on the pages of French journals (et vice versa?) on the threshold of the 1920s

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the reception of theatre culture of Czechoslovakia in selected French journals and newspapers in the beginning of the 1920s. And vice versa. The study analyses a paradoxical situation of that time: while Czechoslovak theatre and literature were almost unknown to the general public in France at that time, the French theatre journal Choses de théâtre dedicated a special volume to the theatre in Czechoslovakia (1923). And they did it even before any Czech play was staged in France! The article also takes a closer look at the role of translators, journalists and “cultural stakeholders” of both avant-garde generations, Czech and French; it also considers the roles of the famous playwright Karel Čapek whose play R.U.R. was “the first play staged in France” and that of the translator and scholar Hanuš Jelínek who served as a promoter of Czechoslovak culture in France at that time.

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