Czech Language and Literature Division
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb University
Ivana Lučića 3, HR-10000 Zagreb, phone/fax +385 1 6120 104

History of Czech language studies at Zagreb University

Studies of the Czech language and literature at our University are relatively young. The academic year of 1918/19, when lecturing in the Czech language started, is officially considered to be the year of its forming. The continuous development of the Zagreb Czech studies was considerably influenced, on the one hand, by the long tradition of the Czech-Croatian cultural links, and, on the other hand, by the fact that the beginnings of the contemporary Zagreb University are closely related to names familiar to the Czech academic circles. In 1874, according to the Parliament’s law governing the foundation of the University, the Faculty of Philosophy was established. The country government named M. Mesić, F. Marković and V. Jagić as heads of departments, and the Czech Slavist Leopold (Lavoslav) Geitler had occupied the position of V. Jagić from 1847 to 1885, because of the latters absence. The Department of the Slavic Philology was among the first six formed departments, from which the Department of the Croatian Language and Literature (formerly the Department of South Slavic Languages and Literatures) and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures were developed later on. The founder, of the Department of the Slavic Philology was Prof. Geitler, a follower of Schleicher and a comparative Slavist, who, together wuth his associates T. Maretić and S. Ivšić, laid the foundation of the Croatian Slavic philology. Geitler’s interests in the Czech philology included especially subjects from historical linguistics, as a part of his lectures on comparative grammar (Phonetics of the Main Slavic Dialects, Slavic Syntax, Basis of Slavic Etymology) and literary-historical areas (for example On the King’s Court Manuscript).

The seminars had an important role in the development of the Faculty of Philosophy; in 1886 the Seminar of the Slavic Philology was founded, which grew into the Department of the Slavic Philology, from which the studies of the Czech language and literature were formed. The Slavic studies have kept their continuity from the beginnings of the Faculty up to now.

For the development of the Czech studies in Croatia the main credit goes to the comparative Slavists. The first teacher of Russian and other Slavic languages was Fran Celestin (1843-1895), the founder of the Zagreb Slovene studies. He was educated in Vienna and St. Petersburg. He worked as a gymnasium teacher in Vladimir, Harkow and Zagreb. While teaching in Zagreb, from 1876 to 1892, he worked at the University at the same time. He analysed certain areas of the Czech language and literature as well. The field of his interest and majority of his work were the cultures of Slavic nations and translations of literary classics, including the Czech ones as well.

The regular teaching of the Czech language started in the academic year 1918/1919. The first Czech tutor was a Slavist and a classical philologist Stjepan Musulin (1885-1969). He studied in Cracow, Prague and Zagreb. From 1922 to 1939 he was a principle of The First Male Grammar School in Zagreb. After the War he was the head of the Academy’s newly founded Institute of Language. In 1950 he became associate, and in 1953 a full member of JAZU (Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts). From 1918 to 1935 he worked as a tutor of the Czech language on the Faculty of Philosophy at the same time, and from 1920 to 1930 he taught Czech at the College of Business and Transport. In his Czech Grammar (1924) he gave a detailed and precise overview of the structure of the contemporary Czech language. He edited the Croatian translations of the works of many Slavic literary classics, and in his articles and essays he wrote about some Czech authors, like Machar, Langer, Masaryk, and others.

In 1921 and 1926 Stjepan Ivšić (1884-1862), a well-known Croatian Slavist and at the time the professor of the Slavic comparative grammar at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, delivered several lectures on the historical grammar of the Czech language.

The work of the comparative Slavist Josip Vrana (1903-1991) had a special importance for the development of the Czech studies. He graduated in 1929 from the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb with a degree in the following subjects: History of South Slavic literatures (A), Croatian with Old-Church Slavonic (B), and National history, Czech and French (C). After graduating he spent four semesters, during the academic years 1928/29 and 1929/30, at the Charles University in Prague. There he specialized in the Old-Church Slavonic language and the comparative Slavic philology. It was in this field, in 1955, that he got his PhD at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. He worked as a teacher and as a grammar school teacher in Zagreb, where he worked as a tutor for Czech language at the Faculty of Philosophy (in 1936 he replaced S. Musulin). During the new organization of the studies, in 1945/46 and 1946/47, he led courses of the Czech language as an elective subject (two language courses – the beginners’ and the advanced level). From 1947 to 1955 he was removed from the teaching position and put on the position of an administrator. In 1955 he was elected a tutor for the Czech language at the Department of West Slavic Languages at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, and from 1960 he replaced Ivšić and taught Slavic comparative grammar. In 1963, when the Dean was Lj. Jonke, he became a lecturer, and later on, in 1966 a senior lecturer. He retired in 1970. When in 1965 the Czech Language and Literature became a second subject (the so-called B subject), Prof. Vrana, apart from teaching Slavic comparative grammar and conducting language exercises, also started teaching the Czech grammar (phonology, morphology and syntax). Apart from his teaching, he dealt with literary writing and with conducting scientific researches. His scientific work includes subjects from the wider Slavic areas: mostly paleoslavistic works and articles connected to the research of the history of the Croatian language. He published in Croatian, Czech, German and French in many domestic and foreign magazines and scientific works. He wrote Grammar of the Czech Language (1962) and Introduction into the Slavic Comparative Grammar (1965). Slavic Comparative Grammar (1970) was the result of his cooperation with Radoslav Katičić. In the book he analyzed and organized the Slavic part and did the final correction.

The real founder of contemporary Czech studies in Croatia was the academician Ljudevit Jonke (1907-1979). He graduated in 1929 in Zagreb from the Faculty of Philosophy with a degree in the History of South Slavic literatures (A), Croatian with Old-Church Slavonic (B), and National History, Russian and Latin (C). He spent two years (1930-1932) at the Department of Slavic Studies and Czech Studies in Prague. This influenced his work in Czech studies, which is less known than his work in Croatian philology. In 1942 he was elected an assistant to Prof. Ivšić at the Deparment of the Slavic Philology, where in 1944 he got his PhD. In 1947, on the recommendation of Prof. S. Ivšić and M. Hraste, he was elected a tutor, and in 1948 a lecturer of the Czech language and literature. At that time (1947-1955) J. Vrana had to leave teaching and Jonke was left on his own to organise the teaching in the Czech language. At the same time he established the courses in the Czech literature (1947/48: Czech Romanticism, 1948/49: Czech Literature and the Time of Neruda in the Czech Literature, 1949/50: Older Czech Literature, 1956/57: Czech Literature Between the Two World Wars, 1957/58: Czech Literature of the Older Period and Czech Literature of the Middle Period, 1958/59: Czech Enlightenment Literature and Realism in the Czech Literature, 1959/60: Czech Modern Literature etc.). Except during his stay in Prague (1950-1952), Prof. Jonke continuously taught the Czech literature until his departure from the Faculty in 1972 and his withdrawal from the cultural life. (In 1971 he was the president of the Matica hrvatska). Prof. Jonke´s work in the Czech philology was immense: he deserves the credit for the reception of the contemporary Czech literature in Croatia, and also for the reception of the Croatian classics (especially Šenoa and Krleža) in the Czech Republic. He translated many recent works of the Czech classics, like I. Olbracht, V. Vančura, B. Němcová, J. Neruda, K. Čapek, J. Hašek, F.X. Šalda and others. He published many articles, studies, essays and research papers about the reception of the Croatian literature in the Czech Republic and about the Czech literature. Although his main field of interest was the Croatian literary language, as a linguist he was also interested in the Czech-Croatian relations, terminology (1954) and the Czech elements in the Croatian contemporary language (1963). In 1960 he was awarded the Gold Medal by the Czechoslovak Society for International Cooperation for the substantial contribution to promoting the Czechoslovak-Croatian friendship.

Between 1959 and 1968, with several interruptions, the Czech literature (Selected Chapters from the Czech Literature in the 20^th Century, Reading and Interpretation of Texts of the Czech Modern, Czech Romanticism etc.) was taught by the assistant Božidar Škritek (1933-1984). In 1957 he graduated in the field of South Slavic philology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb and studied Czech and Polish as optional subjects. After graduating, from 1957 to 1959, he was on a specialization at the Charles University in Prague, where he was a tutor of the Croatian language during the mentioned period of time, as well as from 1964 to 1966. He enrolled on the post-graduate studies in Prague and worked on his dissertation. His interest was literature: he wrote poems, essays, and critics and he also translated. He edited and partly translated the Collected Works of A. P. Čehov (1958-1961); translated numerous Czech and Slovac poets (Sládek, Vrchlický, Toman, Wolker, Nezval, Šotola, Žárý, Kraus, Válek, Jesensky, Král) for the Anthology of the World Love Poetry (N. Miličević, 1968), and wrote about the Czech and Slovak authors for the Lexicon of Foreign Writers (1961). His work at the University was stopped in 1969.

When in 1965 an independent study of the Czech language and literature was formed, the absence of competent staff was solved through visiting associates. So, in 1966/67 and 1969/70 the tutor’s place and the seminar of the Czech literature was led by Dušan Karpatský, a Prague professor of literature, writer and literary critic, scholar in Slavic and Croatian philology. He had a great impact on the presentation of the Croatian literature in the Czech Republic (he translated Krleža, Marinković, Ujević etc.), and the Czech literature in Croatia (his translations of Seifert, Halas and Holan´s poetry, Havel´s essays etc.).  In the History of the World Literature (1975) he wrote a wide overview of the Czech and Slovak literature.

In 1967/68 a separate department for West Slavic languages and literature was formed including the studies of Polish and Czech (the scholar in Polish philology Prof. Zdravko Malić, PhD, was the head of the Department up to 1995). In the same year, 1967, Zdenka Kurzová Ribarova starts her work at the Department, first as a visiting foreign tutor and from 1970/71 as a lecturer. In 1967 she finished the study of the Czech, Russian and Croatian languages and literatures at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. In 1969 she got her PhD in the comparative grammar of Slavic languages with an emphasis on the Old-Church Slavonic language. She took the tutorials at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb (although she worked in 1969/70 at the Department of Slavic studies at the Faculty of Arts in Prague), and in 1970/71, after the retirement of Prof. Vrana, started teaching all theoretical linguistic courses. Z. Ribarova introduced and established new subjects: Phonology (for the 1^st year), Morphology (for the 2^nd year) and the Syntax of the Contemporary Literary Czech Language (for the 3^rd year). With this the programme of the studies was fulfilled, modernised and brought into accordance with other studies of neo-philological groups. Even after finishing her work at the Faculty in 1975, Z. Ribarova was a visiting professor in 1976/77: she held a series of lectures in the Czech grammar. Although the scientific work of Z. Ribarova is mainly concerned with paleoslavistics (she is a scientific consultant at the Institute for Macedonian Language in Skopje), Czech studies have stayed a special field of her interest. Already in 1971, while in Zagreb, she published a compulsive and in a modern way worked out Overview of the Czech Grammar (1991, 2^nd edition), which has been used by students up to now. By co-operating with our Faculty - as a mentor of postgraduate studies and a member of scientific commissions, a reviewer, co-worker and adviser in different scientific areas, Z. Ribarova profoundly indebted the Zagreb Czech studies.

In 1969/70 Predrag Jisak starts working as an assistant for the Czech literature. P. Jirsak teaches at the first two years of studies. From 1972/73 up to now the tutorials (language exercises) of the contemporary Czech language on all levels have been led by the tutor Renata Kuchar. After the departure of Z. Ribarova in 1976, Dubravka Dorotić Sesar became the assistant for the Czech language. As a full professor, D. Sesar has taught the whole linguistic part of the studies up to now. In 1987 Katica Ivanković started her work as a junior assistant for the Czech literature. Today a senior lecturer, K. Ivanković teaches literature in the last two years of the studies. In 1996/97 Alen Novosad became a tutor of the contemporary Czech language. From 1999 Petar Vuković has worked at the Department as a research assistant.

From time to time the Department had foreign (visiting) tutors for the Czech language. From 1988 to 1991 it was Eva Šěrbová from Prague, in 1995/96 Jan Černý from Brno, in 1997/98 Tereza Rejdová from Prague and from 1999 it has been Slavomira Ribarova.

Dubravka Sesar
(English translation by Slavomira Ribarova)

webmaster Petar Vuković, last changed on October 31, 2006.