Kateřina Šolcová

Comenius im Blick

Der Briefwechsel zwischen Milada Blekastad und Dmitrij Tschižewski

Deutsch-Tschechische Ausgabe

libri nigri Band 26

Rezension


Dmytro Chyzhevsky (1894-1977) left an indelible, crucial mark on Comeniological research when in 1934 he discovered, in the library of the Francke Foundations orphanage in Halle an der Saale, a partially printed and partially manuscript parts of Comenius' key work "De rerum humanarum emendatione consultatio cathotica." This was a breakthrough in Comeniological research, and gave an entirely new perspective on the philosophical roots of Comenius' works. This watershed event certainly also contributed to increasing Chyzhevsky's collaboration and correspondence with other Comeniologists. In 1956 correspondence contacts began between Chyzhevsky and the Norwegian Corneniologist, translator and literary historian of Czech origin, Milada Blekastad (1917 - 2003), who descended from the farnily of the leading Prague publisher Frantisek Topic. Thus began the cooperation and friendship of two figures, founded on their interest in the life and works of Jan Amos Comenius.

Milada Blekastad had taken her first steps into the Comeniological world in the mid- 1950s with her translation of Comenius' "Labyrinth of the world into Nynorsk" (New Norwegian), which was received positively by the Norwegian academic milieu. Its publication was supported by the Norwegian Fund for General Scientific Research, which - given the success of this first project - went on to work with Blekastad on the creation of a biography of Comenius in Norwegian. Blekastad accordingly received a stipend and was able to undertake more detailed study, culminating in a doctoral dissertation and ultimately her almost 900-page monograph "Comenius. Versuch eines Umrisses, von Leben. Werk und Schicksal des Jan Amos Komensky". Comenius' life and works were thus to remain a major part of her research until the end of her life.

In her first letter to Chyzhevsky, Blekastad introduced herself and detailed her Corneniological plans. She turned to him with faith in his role as an important research authority, "as the foremost of those who in our time have contributed to Cornenius" and requested certain information regarding Cornenius' pansophy. The main topic of their entire correspondence would be the development, circumstances and various events accompanying the creation of Blekastad's doctoral thesis, with her letters bearing witness to the patient and unyielding efforts required to finish such an opus. To publish her doctoral research in German, Blekastad turned to the publishing house of Quelle & Meyer in Heidelberg, and in one of her letters asks Chyzhevsky to intercede with them on her behalf. While Chyzhevsky did indeed review her work, his position was clear, and for Blekastad not particularly encouraging: "Overall you have done well. However - however - no publisher in Germany can issue a book more than 300 pages long (...). lt would of course be a shame to substantially shorten the work. I am afraid, though, that otherwise it will never be possible to publish the book in Germany". Given that the author repeatedly ignored concerns over the book's length, and indeed continually expanded it, plans for publication ultimately fell through, as Quelle & Meyer abandoned the project at the last minute due to their fears regarding price and sales. Publication was ultimately arranged through the Oslo University Press, in cooperation with Academia Praha, and thus after a complicated process of preparation it finally appeared in 1969. Chyzhevsky even reviewed the book, albeit that his appraisal was not especially positive. Nevertheless, many Comeniologists agree that Blekastad's German monograph rernains even now one of the most exhaustive and highly cited works on Comenius, and is therefore of particular value to any further biographic studies of the thinker.

Blekastad's letters, written in a very modest, direct and humble tone, also ask to meet Chyzhevsky in person (which happened in Heidelberg in 1957), provide information regarding her support for the efforts of a literary historian Antonin Skarka to decipher Comenius manuscript "Clamores Eliae", and describe her successful, and more often unsuccessful and complicated negotiations with the puhlishers. The letters reveal Blekastad's huge interest in specialised studies and Czech literature, and more than once she bemoans the difficulty in obtaining them. All of the letters also show the great reverence that Blekastad had for Chyzhevsky's person, work and contributions, which stretched beyond the field of Comeniology.

The volume reviewed contains 22 letters spanning the years 1956 to 1971, of which seventeen were written by Blekastad and five by Chyzhevsky; the former are lodged in the Heidelberg University Library, and the latter in the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences. lt also contains an eleven page introductory study by Katerina Solcova, which outlines the lives of the two correspondents and, in a very accessible manner describes the background to their relationship. The first part of the book contains all of the letters in German, and the second in Czech. Solcovä has translated the first letters written by Blekastad in Czech (letters 1, 2, 3, 6 & 7) into German, while masterfully rendering Blekastad's other letters, and all of those by Chyzhevsky, into Czech. The notes accompanying both the introductory study and the individual letters are clearly and carefully presented. The entire volume reflects the author's excellent professional and linguistic talents. I am convinced that this interesting book, which also illustrates the intellectual, cultural and political atmosphere of the 1960s, will find a place on the shelves of readers beyond just the ranks of Comenius scholars.

This correspondence, published by Traugott Bautz GmbH of Germany in their "libri nigri" series, relates in some ways to the "Korespondence s komenioIogy I & II editions, and thus forms a complement to the correspondence circles of those researchers linked by an interest in Comenius' legacy as a thinker. Chyzhevsky's Heidelberg papers still contain a large quantity of unpublished and unresearched correspondence between this scholar of Comenius and the Baroque, and oher significant scholarly figures of the last century (e.g. D. Mahnke, J. Hendrich, K. Schaller, A. Skarka). lt would be clearly worth investigating and presenting to the public in a similar way as the present volume.

Jana Stejskalová (Pardubice)


Copyright © 2014 by Verlag Traugott Bautz