In this blog post, we’d like to introduce you to Josef Kajetan Tyl.

Romanticism

In the 18th century, the major European countries were dominated by the Enlightenment, which generally continued the classicism established in France in the 17th century and emphasized reason as the sole means of perception. Classicism was an aristocratic culture that set strict rules based on universal and absolute notions of beauty and valued simplicity over complexity, the static over the dynamic, the urbane over the vernacular, the elegant over the brazen, and the uniform over the unconventional. But by the mid-18th century, with the relaxation of absolute monarchy and the rise of the bourgeoisie, the desire to see people as they really are erupted, and the Enlightenment itself, with its revelation of the irrationality of reason, led to a movement to find the truth of humanity in hitherto ignored sensory phenomena. The French Revolution of 1789, which occurred during this period, left people disillusioned.
The crowning achievement of the Enlightenment had been the overthrow of irrational political systems by reason, but the revolution’s revelation of human frailty left people despairing. They were bewildered by the chaotic changes around them, and the collapse of all principles led them to distrust everything. It is the essence of the Romantic spirit that they tried to build a culture that suited their minds on top of the ruins of this spirit, and as a result, the affirmation of the self and the retreat into the interior began. In Jena, Germany, brothers A.W. Schlegel and W. Schlegel founded the “Athenaeum” in 1798, and in England, Wordsworth and S.T. Coleridge published “Lyrical Folk Songs” in which they sang of spiritual unity with the universe through imagination while contemplating nature, thus fulfilling the effect of romanticism in their respective countries.

Czech context of the time (National Revival)

From the 15th to the end of the 18th century, Czech literature existed strictly for religious purposes and did not develop in the normal, pure sense of the word as in Western Europe, such as France, England, or Germany. From the end of the 18th century onwards, nationalist ideas began to dominate, and, like in Korea during the Japanese occupation, the ideas of patriotism and national self-awareness, as well as political and linguistic self-awareness, attracted the attention of writers.
The above two Romantic currents of perception began to join the idea of the endeavor to learn and poetically enrich the national past, the longing to penetrate into the essence of the national soul and the desire to penetrate the intimate contact with its features into new creative principles, while the other intellectual stream of Romanticism joined the patriotic awareness of Pan-Slavism. The Romantic perception of these different ideas eventually became recognized as literary and linguistic interdependence, later as cultural Pan-Slavism, and finally as political principles. In particular, movements based on these perceptions gave Czechs courage and support, and at the same time served as a check on their one-sided dependence on foreign cultures, especially Germany.
Planned and carefully organized movements for national self-awareness and cultural, economic, and political independence penetrated deep into the masses, from the ranks of the working class. Academia, the press, and literature, which had to create a literary language from nothing, were now broadened in character to include activism for national causes.

The life of Josef Kajetan Tyl

Josef Kajetan Tyl’s mother, the daughter of an entrepreneur living in the suburbs of Prague, had a secret marriage to a young oboist in the military band and gave birth to Josef Kajetan Tyl on April 4, 1808. His birth and his parents’ marriage were apparently not blessed, as his grandmother did not contact Josef Kajetan Tyl until a teacher in secondary school informed her of his genius.
Enrolled in the philosophy department of Karel University, Josef Kajetan Tyl was more active in the theater than in his studies, and in 1829 he left Prague to become a member of a German traveling theater company, traveling the country for about three years.
Returning to Prague in 1832, he joined the German military treasury and began his literary career by translating foreign plays into Czech. He then moved to the Estates Theater, where he continued to work as an actor, director, and organizer.
It is not known whether Josef Kajetan Tyl knew Palácsky, but it seems that he shared Josef Kajetan Tyl’s views on Austro-Slavism. Austro-Slavism was the idea of learning from Austria and gradually increasing the Czech Republic’s influence and position within the empire, including autonomy. He became politically active in the year of the Revolution of 1848, becoming a member of the Austrian Parliament in Vienna, but stopped his political activities when he became increasingly restricted and interfered with the operation of the Estates Theater and his traveling troupe, as well as his work for Czech independence.
He had a unique family. Josef Kajetan Tyl married a fellow traveling troupe member named Magdalena, but she was interested in his financial interests and was unfortunately infertile. For this reason, he entered into a second marriage with her sister-in-law, the actress Anna, who took an interest in his literary work, and he and Anna had seven children together before he died in poverty on July 11, 1856, at the age of 48 in Pilsen.

Josef Kajetan Tyl’s artistic career

As a Romantic playwright, Josef Kajetan Tyl organized “patriotic balls and receptions”, knowing that Czechs liked plays in the Czech language during the period of Austrian domination and the predominance of German. The first event in February 1840 was a great success, and it was significant that the nobility and upper middle class realized that they could use the Czech language to communicate at these gatherings. Although these events provided a pretext for attacks by the Germans, the unexpected reverse effect was that they began to use Czech more and more.
Josef Kajetan Tyl was a prolific playwright. He often used fragments of the lives of Prague’s urbanites as material for his plays. His most famous play, “A May Dance Is No Time to Brawl” (Fidlovačka aneb Zádný hnév a žádná rvačka, 1834), was based on the May festival of the Prague cobblers, and the song “Where Is My Homeland?” (Kde domov můj?) from the play later became the national anthem of Czechoslovakia after its independence (October 28, 1918), the culmination of the Czech national revival. He published “The Shepherd’s Song” (1835), which centers on a character with a strong personality whose ego is disintegrated by the chaos of his surroundings. In other works, such as “The Arsonist’s Daughter” (Paličova dcera, 1846) and “Pražský flamender” (The Prague Reveller, 1846), he realistically portrayed the bourgeoisie. The Czech popular drama centered on Josef Kajetan Tyl became very popular among Czechs and later led to the establishment of the National Theater (Národní divadlo), a symbol of Czech nationalism.
He also published a masterpiece of short stories, “The Conflicted Man” (1844). In this work, Mahá appears as a character and expresses his defense of the constitutional monarchy, arguing that theater and literature should reflect the nationalist spirit. He also worked to popularize the Czech language by publishing the magazines “The Flower” (Květy, 1833-1845) and “The Messenger of Prague” (Posel z Prahy, 1846-1849).
From 1846, he continued his literary activity as a dramaturg (a profession that advised and evaluated translations of original works), and his plays focused on the degraded lives of rural people who flocked to the cities.