Jan Zahradníček (1905–60): The Tragedy of a Poet and Prisoner of the Communist Regime

• Authors: Jiří Hanuš
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

PL

The article deals with an outstanding Czech poet Jan Zahradníček (1905–60), who was arrested in 1951 and sentenced for 13 years of prison in a show trial. He was released during the general amnesty in 1960 and died in the same year. His tragic fate is depicted in several collections of poems written in prisons (Pankrác, Brno, Mírov, Leopoldov). The collections were saved and published and his poetic diary was found in Leopoldov prison 55 years after his death. Zahradníček’s poems in combination with the memories of contemporary witnesses and published interpretations of his work (Zdeněk Rotrekl, Rio Preisner, Radovan Zejda, Martin Putna) allow an exceptional view of the inner life of a person who was unjustly imprisoned in the times of communist purges in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s.

Keywords

PL

Czech Catholicism; twentieth century; imprisoned writers; religious faith

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla PAN w Warszawie
• Journal: Acta Poloniae Historica
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 118

Dates

published

2018

online

2019-02-01

Contributors

author

Jiří Hanuš

Identifiers

DOI

10.12775/APH.2018.118.05