Emanuel Lešehrad

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Emanuel Lešehrad
before 1929

Emanuel Lešehrad (born November 15, 1877 in Prague , Austria-Hungary , † May 30, 1955 in Prague) was a Czech writer, poet, literary critic and translator. He was also interested in the occult and secret societies .

Lešehrad's name

Emanuel Lešehrad , real name Josef Maria Emanuel Lešetický , also known as Emanuel Lešetický z Lešehradu , also used numerous pseudonyms such as Jiří Zachar, Karel Frýs, K. Mahr, Quido Jarník, Zdeněk Krušina and others.

Emanuel Lešehrad comes from the Netolice family Lešetický, one member of which, Josef Lešetický (army officer and brother of the poet Vojtěch Lešetický), was ennobled and received the title "z Lešehradu" ("from Lešehrad"); his son Emanuel partly used his father's title and changed it to his frequently used name Lešehrad.

Life

Emanuel Lešehrad grew up in Prague. He studied at the German Commercial Academy and the Czechoslovak Commercial Academy (Českoslovanská obchodní akademie) in Prague. After graduating from high school, he worked first in the state pawn office and 1900–1902 in the Prague City Administration. From 1903 to 1932 he embarked on a civil service career as archivist, then archivist, in the Landesbank in Prague. As a part-time job, Lešehrad worked in a number of literary editorships, including at the Sfinx and A. Srdce publishers, in the magazine Literární listy u. a.

Lešehrad is considered a poet and narrator with a decadent-mystical orientation that reached into the fantastic; he also wrote literary studies. His work is quite extensive; the publisher A. Srdce published his work in 15 volumes and his essays in 9 volumes between 1930 and 1940.

His interest in the occult and mystical was also expressed in his work. He was an active Freemason and wrote for the magazine Svobodný zednář (Freemasons), edited Okultní a spiritualistická revue (Occult and Spiritual Review), wrote historiographical treatises on Freemasonry. He is considered an important propagator of Freemasonry in Czechoslovakia.

Lešehrad was gifted with languages ​​and translated works by Baudelaire , Verlaine , Mallarmé, among others, from German, French, Russian, English, Italian and Japanese . Lešehrad also edited 12 volumes of the lexicon Ottův slovník naučný nové doby 1931–1943 .

Lešehrad is buried in the Olšanské hřbitovy cemetery in Prague.

Archives Lešehradeum

Lešehrad collected and archived literary historical documents of all kinds from around 1910 until almost his death. As head of the archive of the Prague Landesbank, he founded an archive with these documents in 1926, which was named Lešehradeum. It was the first literary historical archive in Czechoslovakia. The collection contained around 35,000 documents of all kinds, such as books, documents, photographs, pictures and graphics, letters, manuscripts and private items. The personalities whose documents were represented here included Byron, Flaubert, Garibaldi, Goethe, Ibsen, Marx, Rolland, Shaw, Tolstoy and others. a. Lešehrad first made the collection accessible to the public in his villa in Prague, and later dedicated it to the National Museum in Prague .

After the communist takeover of power in 1948, the archive suffered: Lešehrad's orientation towards Freemasonry, esotericism and secret clusters did not fit into the new worldview. The collection has been moved to other rooms, some of it has been transferred to various other collections, and a number of exhibits have been lost. The archive is currently being restored.

Works

czech, selection
  • Démon a jiné příběhy, Prague, 1924
  • Kosmická pout, 2 vols., Prague 1931 and 1932
  • Tajemný dům, Prague, 1930
  • Mys Dobré Naděje, Prague, 1945
  • Smutné kraje, 1898
  • Květy samoty, 1899
  • Atlantis: Básně, 1899
  • Esoterní význam recepce, Prague, 1936
  • Hledači mystických pramenů, 1922
  • Stručné dějiny svobodného zednářství, 1937
German
  • The Planets (symphonic triptych), translated from the Czech by Franz B. Steiner, Prague, Orbis, 1935
  • Solstice, Prague, Karl Zink, 1930
  • Two cosmic seals, translated from the Czech by Paul Eisner , Prague, Orbis, 1936
English
  • Music of the Heart (Selected poems), translated from the Czech by Paul Selver, Prague, Karl Zink, 1929

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Emanuel Lešehrad, in: ADAMOVIČ, Ivan; NEFF, Ondřej, Slovník české literární fantastiky a science fiction [Dictionary of Czech literary fantasy and science fiction], Praha, R3 1995. ISBN 80-85364-57-3 , cit. from www.legie.info , Czech, accessed on January 12, 2010
  2. ↑ a b postreh.com / Emanuel Lešetický z Lešehradu , Czech, accessed on January 12, 2010
  3. ↑ Information about the archive, online at pamatniknarodnihopisemnictvi.cz/

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Lešehrad, Emanuel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lešetický, Josef Maria Emanuel (real name); Lešetický z Lešehradu, Emanuel (pseudonym); Zachar, Jiří (pseudonym); Frýs, Karel (pseudonym); Mahr, K. (pseudonym); Jarník, Quido (pseudonym); Krušina, Zdeněk (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech writer, poet, literary critic and translator
DATE OF BIRTH November 15, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 1955
Place of death Prague