Matliarský deník = The Matliary Diary [Translation]

Stern, J. P. and Culik, J. (1985) Matliarský deník = The Matliary Diary [Translation]. Svědectví, 19(75), pp. 721-732.

Abstract

This is a translation into Czech of a short story by Josef Petr Stern (1920-1991), Professor of German literature at UCL in 1972-1986. This short story was originally published in English in a publication entitled The World of Franz Kafka, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London 1980. Jan Culik was approached by Professor Stern with a request to translate it for a leading Czech emigré cultural and literary journal Svědectví [Testimony], which came out in Paris. Jan Culik met Professor Stern in the 1980s as a young lecturer in Czech Studies at the University of Lancaster, where Professor Stern was an external examiner in the then Czech and Yugoslav Department, before Margaret Thatcher closed it down (shortly before the Yugoslav wars, when expertise in former Yugoslavia would have been sorely needed.) Jan Culik also included an interview with Professor Stern in his award winning Channel 4 documentary "Orpheus through the Ages" (1985). - The Matliary Diary is a "report" by a fighter from a guerilla anti-Nazi unit operating in the Slovak mountains in 1944, about Prague writer Franz Kafka, who did not die in 1924, as happened in reality, but survived until WW II and then joined the guerrilla unit along with some other, impractical, Jewish intellectuals who were escaping from the Nazis. - Jan Culik's translation was published anonymously in Svědectví, there is only a footnote "Translated by JC" - it would have caused him and his family in Prague political problems from communist Czechoslovakia had he admitted he had collaborated with an emigré journal.

• Item Type: Articles
• Keywords: Czechoslovakia, emigré culture, Josef Petr Stern, Franz Kafka, Svědectví, testimony, Pavel Tigrid, Jan Culik, Jan Čulík, Czech literature.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: No
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Culik, Dr Jan
• Authors: Stern, J. P., and Culik, J.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > Slavonic Studies
• Journal Name: Svědectví
• Publisher: Amis de Svedectvi
• ISSN: 0039-6419