Přijetí dramat Heinricha von Kleista v Čechách a na Moravě (1814–1990)
The Reception of Kleist’s Plays in Bohemia and Moravia, 1814–1990

Summary/Abstract: This article is concerned with the reception of the plays of Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811), both in Czech translation and in the German original, in Bohemia and Moravia from 1814 to 1990. In the introduction the author discusses Kleist’s life and works, and provides a historical overview of the process of reception, from the first German performance in Brno, in 1814, and from the first Czech-language production in 1838 to Czech productions during the Second World War. Particular attention is paid to Katinka Heilbronská (1857), František Doucha’s Czech translation of Das Käthchen von Heilbronn oder Die Feuerprobe (1807–08). Breaking with contemporaneous custom, Doucha did not adapt Kleist’s original text to commercial theatre, but created a translation close to the original. In the next part of the article, the author praises Otokar Fischer’s translation and presents in detail Hugo Karel Hilar’s acclaimed 1914 production of Kleist’s Penthesilea (1808), one of the first examples of expressionist drama in the Czech milieu. The next part of the article discusses two Kleist productions at the National Theatre in 1942 and 1944 and the highly acclaimed Kleist anthology Záhadný nesmrtelný (1980), which was compiled by Jindřich Pokorný. It comprises Rozbitý džbán (Der zerbrochene Krug, 1806), Katynka z Heilbronnu (Das Käthchen von Heilbronn), and Princ Bedřich Homburský (Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, 1809–11).

• Details
• Contents