Karel Hynek Mácha

Karel Hynek Mácha

Grave in the Vyšehrad cemetery in Prague

Karel Hynek Macha (* 16th November 1810 in Prague , † 6. November 1836 in Leitmeritz ) was a Czech poet of romance .

Monument to Karel Hynek Mácha in Litoměřice

Life

Karel Hynek Mácha was born in Prague in 1810 as the son of a miller. He studied law at Charles University , but at the same time played theater in a group around the actor, theater director and author Josef Kajetán Tyl (1808–1856). There, Mácha met the bookseller's daughter Eleonora Somková (Lori), with whom he had a illegitimate son.

During his studies, Mácha made numerous trips to northern Bohemia , the Giant Mountains and also to Venice . His poetic work also dates from this period, although it did not find a large following during his lifetime. The first edition of Mácha's major work, Máj , was self-published in April 1836 and initially received negative criticism. It was not until the second half of the 19th century that Mácha was considered the most important and highly revered representative of Czech Romanticism. In the autumn of 1836, Mácha started an internship in a law firm in Litoměřice. Just a few weeks later, he died shortly before his 26th birthday and three days before the planned wedding with Lori - probably from the consequences of hypothermia that he probably suffered while extinguishing a major fire.

In his honor, the lake in the Bohemian Central Uplands near Doksy was renamed Máchovo jezero .

plant

• Obrazy ze života mého (contains Večer na Bezdězu , Marinka ), 1834
• Křivoklad , 1834
• Diary on the trip to Italy ( Deník na cestě do Itálie ), 1834
• The Gypsies ( Cikáni ), 1835
• Diary from 1835 ( Deník z roku 1835 )
• May ( Máj ), 1836

literature

• Havel:  Mácha Karel Hynek. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 5, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1972, p. 390.
• Constantin von Wurzbach : Mácha, Karl Hynek . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 16th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1867, pp. 193–200 ( digitized version ).
• Sebastian Hennig : The most Czech poet: Karel Hynek Mácha * . In: Metamorphosen (magazine) (new episode) 7/2014, pp. 12–18.
• Siegfried Kapper : Karel Hynek Mácha and the New Bohemian Literature. In: Sunday papers for domestic interests, edited by Ludwig August Frankl № 18, May 1, 1842, p. 313 f.

Czech:

• Bohumir Maraz. Karel Hynek Mácha. Hrady spatřené , Prague 1988
• Karel Sabina . Upomínka na KH Máchu
• Karel Sabina. Úvod povahopisný
• Vladimír Štěpánek. Karel Hynek Mácha , Prague 1984
• Bedřich Václavek . Společenské vlivy v životě a díle KH Máchy, Torzo a tajemství Máchova díla , 1938

Web links

Commons : Karel Hynek Mácha  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature and other media by and about Karel Hynek Mácha in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic
• Literature by and about Karel Hynek Mácha in the catalog of the German National Library
• Oleg Yuryev : Spirit and Fire. In: Der Tagesspiegel from December 25, 2010 ("Jurjew's Classics")
• Mácha's long poem Mai in the translation by Alfred Waldau on vatermoerder.de