Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. In the 1920s and 30s he was at the centre of the Czech artistic world and a friend of T. G. Masaryk. He was a prolific writer of plays, poetry and short stories in which science fiction-like themes were often present. He hated the idea of any kind of totalitarianism and dreaded the promise of a future dominated by technology. Ironically, it was he who introduced the word 'robot', meaning mechanical servant, to the world. Who was he?
2. Bozena Nemcova (Bozhena Nyemtsova) was daughter of a laundress and a coachman who had been serfs. Nonetheless, she became one of the leading figures in Czech intellectual and nationalist circles in the 1840s and 50s. Although she wrote poetry and collected folk tales, she struggled throughout her short life to create a modern Czech novel. She succeeded in writing a masterpiece, published on her deathbed. It's the most famous novel in Czech...what is it?
3. Karel Hynek Macha was a wild young Romantic poet who comitted suicide in 1836 at the age of 26. His highly entertaining and very pornographic diaries, published in 1998, led a reviewer to muse that had the poet been alive during the late 20th century, those private works, and not his poetry would have immortalized him. Nonetheless, in 1834 he produced a great lyrical epic considered the first modern Czech poem of genius. What is it called?
4. Pablo Neruda, the Nobel-Prize-winning Chilean poet, was born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose the pen name (later his legal name) Neruda in honour of a 19th century Czech poet who concentrated on themes Pablo Neruda understood and appreciated - poverty and social injustice. What was the Czech Neruda's first name?
5. This alcoholic, suicidal, erratic bon-vivant of an anarchist lived all his life with a sense of humour that just kept getting him into trouble. When he published his masterpiece 'The Good Soldier Schweik' it was condemned in literary circles as frivolous. It made an instant hit on the streets though, and has gone on to be regarded as a great work of world literature. Who was that man who wrote it?
6. Karel Sabina was a young writer who was arrested as a rebel in 1848. He was first condemned to death, but then his sentence was commuted to 20 years imprisonment. When he finally got out of prison in 1857 all his former colleagues were making decent livings, something Karel found it hard to do. In 1868 he was exposed as a police spy by the nationalist party and officially banished from the Czech Nation. He died in poverty and obscurity, but his name (actually a pen-name for obvious reasons) remains on the libretto of Smetana's most famous opera. What is it?
7. The man who wrote 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' is possibly the best-known contemporary Czech author. He left Czechoslovakia in 1975 to live in France, where he still lives and publishes. In the past few years he has taken to writing in French, rather than Czech. A true cosmopolitan, who is he?
8. Another contemporary Czech author popular in Europe and North America actually has been living in Toronto since 1968, where he teaches at York University. In his novels he merges history and the present and a lot of personal reminiscence. The author of 'The Engineer of Human Souls' - who is he?
9. He's the ultimate dissident - remaining in Czechoslovakia during the 70s even when he had the chance to leave. His books couldn't be published except in illegal (samizdat) underground editions until 1989, but since then he has become a well-known figure in modern Czech literature. The author of 'Judge on Trial' and 'Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light' is...
10. His wealthy and prestigious family lost almost everything to the communists in 1948, and our young writer went on to become a bottle-washer in a brewery, a soldier, a prisoner, and above all, a playwrite and political dissident. Although his plays have been well received, possibly the piece that made the most impact was Charter 77, which he co-authored. His final career move was becoming president of Czechoslovakia in 1989, then the Czech Republic in '93. Who is he?
Source: Author
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