Jakub Arbes

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Jakub Arbes 1884

Jakub Arbes (born June 12, 1840 in Prague ; † April 8, 1914 there ) was a Czech journalist and writer .

Life

Statue on Arbesovo náměstí ( Arbes Square ) in the Smíchov district
Arbes at the ripe old age

Arbes came from the Prague district of Smíchov and attended secondary school together with the later writer Julius Zeyer . The narrator Jan Neruda was his Czech teacher. Then he began to study technology.

Arbes worked as a journalist and was editor-in-chief of the Národní listy from 1868 to 1873 . For his articles he was sentenced to 15 months in prison, which he served in Česká Lípa from 1873 to 1874. From 1876 to 1879 Arbes was dramaturge at the Prozatímní divadlo theater . From 1880 to 1881 he edited the satirical magazine Šotek (Kobold) together with Mikoláš Aleš . Furthermore, Arbes was editor of the magazines Hlas (The Voice) and Politics . He was buried in the Malvazinky cemetery in Prague.

Works

Arbes adored Jan Neruda, whose role model he developed further. The sources of his literary work are on the one hand his preference for fantastic literature and horror stories , on the other hand his interest in technology and science, and thirdly his radical socialist attitude.

This gave rise to its own literary genre , which Arbes himself named Romanetto and which was imitated by others. It is a genre typical of Czech literature that stands between story and novel and has a kaleidoscopic character. All of the Romanettos Arbes' are set in Prague, often in a ghostly setting that is rationally deciphered by the human intellect. There are philosophical questions, radical social criticism and motifs of an anticipated science fiction .

In his works, Arbes sees people placed in a dangerous, mysterious world that they unravel through their intellect. Only in his later novels does the author's view become more pessimistic, he traces the illusion of the changeability of the world and depicts the failure of individual rebellion. The problems of capitalism and industrialization in the Bohemian countries come to the fore.

In his essays, Arbes repeatedly expressed himself anti-German. Volume 13 of his complete edition (Melantrich Verlag, Praha 1946) contains essays that demonstrate the irreconcilability of the two language groups for Arbes.

Romanettos

  • The devil on the torture rack (Ďábel na skřipci), 1866
  • The Gray-Eyed Demon (Sivooký demon), 1873
  • Saint Xaverius (Svatý Xaverius), 1873
  • The Miraculous Madonna (Zázračná madona), 1875
  • The Crucified (Ukřižovaná), 1876
  • Newton's Hirn (Newtonův mozek), 1877 (German version contained in Shadows of the Night. A hundred years of Czech prose , 1962; and in time loops. Czech fantastic stories , 1981)
  • Acrobats (acrobats), 1878
  • The Ethiopian Lily (Etiopská lilie), 1879
  • Mad Job (Šílený Job), 1879
  • The last days of mankind (Poslední dnové lidstva), 1895

Novels

  • Candidates of Existence , 1878
  • Modern Vampires (Moderní upíři), 1879
  • Dyer apprentices (Štrajchpudlíci), 1883
  • The Messiah (Mesiáš), 1883
  • The Angel of Peace (Anděl míru), 1890

Journalism

  • Enigmatic Character (Záhadné povahy), 1909
  • A Czech Paganini (Český Paganini), 1884
  • From the poet's soul workshop (Z duševní dílny básníků), 1915
  • The Germans in Bohemia. Historical-political treatises. From the material on Germanization in Bohemia (Němci v Čechách. Historicko-politické rozpravy. Z materiálu k dějinám germanisace v Čechách), 1946

literature

Web links

Commons : Jakub Arbes  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dílo J. Arbes, Vol. 1–36, Praha, 1940–1981, Melantrich-SNKLHU-Odeon.
  2. ↑ Schamschula, Walter, History of Czech Literature, Volume II, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna, Böhlau 1996, p. 136 ISBN 3-412-02795-2
personal data
SURNAME Arbes, Jakub
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1840
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1914
Place of death Prague