Karel Havlíček »away from journalism«: what’s next?

Abstract

Letters of Karel Havlíček (to F. Palacký, F. Kavan) from the second half of 1851 reflect his decision to quit journalism, to stop publishing magazine Slovan and to devote himself to farming and literary work at the rented court. In the letters to F. Kavan and also to Havlíček´s brother František, in addition to the informative function (dominating the letters to F. Palacký), the conative function is applied, in the letters to Kavan realized by the deliberate use of strategies of politeness: the addressee’s thinking and actions (with Count Chotek about the lease of the court) are directed towards the fulfillment of the writer’s goal, unrealized, probabaly, because of Havlíček’s public activity. Significant application of the conative function in the letters to Kavan shows that Havlíček may have abandoned his journalism, but he did not abandon the means and procedures used in the newspaper to influence the addressee.