Ferdinand Peroutka

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Ferdinand Peroutka (born February 6, 1895 in Prague , † April 20, 1978 in New York ) was a Czech journalist and writer.

Life

Memorial plaque in Prague- Smíchov , Matoušova ulice

Peroutka left high school in Prague-Vinohrady in 1913 without a high school diploma and worked as an occasional publicist. Three months after the founding of Czechoslovakia, he began working for the Jewish newspaper Rozvoj . In 1919 he received an offer from the publishing house management to take on the role of editor in charge of the new newspaper Tribuna , which at the time was one of the most independent newspapers alongside Lidové noviny . Jaroslav Hašek and Karel Poláček , among others, contributed to this paper .

On January 17, 1924 Peroutka changed as editor-in-chief to the newly launched newspaper Přítomnost , which was financially supported by President Masaryk and represented the opinions of his party. The democratic paper, popular among intellectuals, quickly won well-known journalists, correspondents and writers who expressed their views there. These included Karl Kraus , publisher in Vienna, Foreign Minister Kamil Krofta and Karel Čapek , František Langer and Fráňa Šrámek . Within three years, the weekly newspaper was one of the most popular publications in the Czech Republic.

Under President Masaryk , Peroutka became his spokesman, and the close professional relationship turned into personal friendship. His relationship with President Edvard Beneš , who was elected in 1935, was even stronger , whom he admired and whose views and policies Peroutka defended in his journalistic activities.

In the second half of the 1920s Peroutka was a participant in the meetings of the informal regulars' table group Prague intellectual Pátečníci . From 1924 to 1939 he also worked as a political commentator for the Lidové noviny newspaper . During the Second World War he was arrested by the German occupiers during the arrest of Albrecht I and imprisoned in the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps.

After the war he worked as editor-in-chief for the daily newspaper "Svobodné noviny" (an interim name for the "Lidové noviny" 1945-1948) and the weekly magazine "Dnešek" (1946-1948). He became a staunch opponent of communism in his column . After the communist coup , he left Czechoslovakia in 1948 , first seeking exile in England and later in the USA. From 1951 to 1961 he headed the Czech department of Radio Free Europe .

Peroutka published some political writings in Czechoslovakia since 1932 , after his emigration to the USA the plays Šťastlivec Sulla (Sulla the Happy) and Oblak a valčík (cloud and waltz, later adapted into a novel) as well as the fiction Pozdější život Panny about Jeanne appeared d'Arc .

Fonts (selection)

  • Adieu, Jeanne or: The Virgin's Second Chance . Elfenbein Verlag, Berlin 2011 (original title: Pozdější život Panny , New York, NY 1980, from the Czech and with an afterword by Mira Sonnenschein), ISBN 978-3-941184-07-7 .
  • Cloud and waltz , with excerpts from Ferdinand Peroutka's diary from April / May 1945. Elfenbein Verlag, Berlin 2015 (original title Oblak a valčík . Translated from the Czech by Mira Sonnenschein), ISBN 978-3-941184-32-9 .

Web links

Commons : Ferdinand Peroutka  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Václav Stehlík: Stari Friday Men Novodobí a Zpátečníci! , online at: vasevec.parlamentnilisty.cz / ...
personal data
SURNAME Peroutka, Ferdinand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech journalist
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague , Bohemia, Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1978
Place of death New York City , New York, United States