The Manifesto “Česká Moderna”

Abstract

The manifesto arose as a result of a polemic between young literati, united under the name Česká moderna (Czech Modernism), and the conservatively oriented critics and a number of older-generation writers, particularly with J. Vrchlický. It was first published in October 1895 in the Prague journal Rozhledy, one of the mouthpieces of the progressive movement. The author of the document, which was edited by the critic František Xaver Šalda (1867–1937), is considered to be the poet Josef Svatopluk Machar (1864–1942). The signatories of the manifesto were representatives of the aforementioned journal: the publisher and essayist Josef Pelcl (1861–1916), the editor and poet František Soukup (1871–1940), the essayist and later politician Jan Třebický (1870–1944), the literary critic František Václav Krejčí (1867–1941), as well as essayists Václav Choc (1860–1942) and Karel Koerner, prose writers Vilém Mrštík (1863–1912) and Josef Karel Šlejhar (1864–1914), and poets Otakar Březina (1868–1929) and Antonín Sova (1864–1928). Česká moderna did not form a unified literary movement. Nevertheless, its manifesto, having become a landmark phenomenon of the era, ushered in a turning point in the development of Czech literature, shifting the focus from the struggle for national identity to the self-expression of the creative individual. The manifesto was first translated into Russian in 1985 by O. M. Malevich, who also supplied it with notes. The new translation presented below introduces clarifications to the interpretation of the original and additions to the scholarly commentary. It is published unabridged.

Funding

The research was funded by the Russian Science Foundation grant No. 25-28-02368, https://rscf.ru/en/project/25-28-02368/

Received 26 February 2026

Revised 6 April 2026

Accepted 2 June 2026

For citation: Amelina, A.V., 2026. The Manifesto “Česká Moderna”. Slavic World in the Third Millennium, 21 (1–2), pp. 319–325. https://doi.org/10.31168/2412-6446.2026.21.1-2.17