Publication details
Dopisy jako svědectví životní křižovatky (Korespondence Tomáše Masaryka a Zdenky Šemberové)
| Title in English | Letters as an Evidence of Life Crossroads (The Correspondence of Thomas Masaryk and Zdenka Šemberová) |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Philologia |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Keywords | Correspondence as an evidence of life crossroads; erotic psychological and ethical rigmaroles of the correspondence |
| Description | The present contribution analyzes the erotic, psychological, and ethical peripeteias of the correspondence of the young Thomas Masaryk (1850-1937) and Zdenka Šemberová (1841-1912) at the background of the life of the university and Czech Vienna, where they both lived, and the adjacent Moravia. Masaryk with his weak knowledge of Czech, Šemberová already a mature lady, recorded in their correspondence their lives, opinions, reading, and demontrated their intellectual maturing. Their letters represent a life crossroad of both: Masaryk has been gradually becoming a scholar and, mainly, a politician, and understood the correspondence that Zdenka regarded as an opportunity for her amorous realization as a practical stylistics exercice and a confrontation of opinions. For Zdenka it was the communication full of erotic and intellectual hopes which were not fulfilled and finally led to her lifetime loneliness a resignation, especially after the death of her father Alois Vojtěch Šembera (1807-1882), professor of Vienna Slavonic studies, one of the first opponents of the medieval authenticity of the famous Czech Manuscripts of Králův Dvůr and of Zelená Hora. The correspondence throws a new, not very positive light on the youth of the first Czechoslovak president. |