DEMOKRACIE ANTICKÁ A MODERNÍ V DÍLE ČESKÉHO KLASICKÉHO FILOLOGA ANTONÍNA KOLÁŘE (1884–1963)
ANCIENT AND MODERN DEMOCRACY IN THE WORK OF CZECH CLASSICAL PHILOLOGIST ANTONÍN KOLÁŘ (1884–1963)

Summary/Abstract: Both the pedagogical career and the context of the “first” Czechoslovak Republic and Europe in 1920s and 1930s were refl ected in the work of university professor Antonín Kolář (1884–1963) in his numerous considerations of Athenian and modern democracy. Professor Kolář, founder of the Classical Studies programme at the Komenský University in Bratislava, Dean of its philosophical faculty (1928–29) and Rector of the university (1934–35) commented upon the topical political events, warned of the dangers threatening the existence of the young Czechoslovak and European democracy from the right (Fascism and Nazism) and left (Bolshevism and Communism) and compared the then circumstances with the Antiquity. The paper draws on archival sources (personal archives and documents at the universities where he lectured), Kolář’s published works and preserved manuscripts of unpublished studies and monographs in his personal folder in the State District Archive in Litomyšl near Svitavy. It appears that A. Kolář devoted much time to studies of Athenian and modern democracy, especially in state law-focused articles, e.g. Demokracie v názorech klasického starověku – Democracy in Classical Th ought (1920), Fašismus, nacismus a antika – Fascism, Nazism and the Antiquity (1946) and the monograph Demokracie antická a moderní – Ancient and Modern Democracy (1936). Kolář understood classical democracy as a component of the social struggles of the classical period and as a great legacy of those times. He researched this theme in Působení kultury antické na kulturu evropskou – Impact of the Classical Culture on European Society (1924), Sociální otázka ve starém Řecku a Římě – The Social Question in Ancient Greece and Rome (1927), Antika a politická výchova příštích občanů – Antiquity and the Political Education of Future Citizens (1928) and Vztahy evropské kultury k antice – The Relation of European Culture to the Antiquity (1929). Prof. Kolář also commented on public events in the newspapers Národní listy and Národní politika, in university lectures and on radio, all of which were collected and published in the Annual of the Komenský University in 1934–1935 where Kolář worked as a rector.

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