Czech novel at the ti me of the »friends of freedom«

Abstract

The study Český román v čase »kamarádů svobody« (Czech novel in the times of ´friends of friedom´) is devoted to the first period of writings of Fráňa Šrámek and Jiří Mahen (1905–1924). Both authors who belonged to the anarchistic bohemian goup roused interest by the expressively lyrical style of both their playwright and early prosaic works. Their first larger works, Šrámek´s novels Stříbrný vítr (Silver wind, 1910) and Křižovatky (Crossroads, 1914) and Mahen´s Kamarádi svobody (Friends of freedom,1909), represent a new variant of the novels of lost illusions. This type of novel was introduced to the Czech literary context during 90^ths by the generation of “moderna” (Mrštík, Svobodová, Svoboda, Sova). The generation that debuted at the beginning of the 20^th century connected this literary type with the easing of fixed composition and with aiming on capturing emotional state and sensual experience of the literary characters.