Prague literature: The Germans and the Czechs, 1880-1930

This dissertation covers the period from the 1880\u27s to the 1930\u27s and focuses on the works of Prague German authors, namely Max Brod, Auguste Hauschner, Franz Kafka, Egon Erwin Kisch, Fritz Mauthner, Gustav Meyrink, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Franz Werfel. Works of Prague Czech authors are also discussed to provide a counterpoint to the Germans. After discussing German culture in the Czech lands in general and in Prague in particular, the issue of Prague German literature is introduced as a fairly recent phenomenon which did not enter the public consciousness until the 1960\u27s. Works of Prague German authors differed from those of the Czech borderlands in many aspects and the authors were predominantly Jewish. The following chapter discusses nationality issues between the Czechs and the Germans, illustrated by the works of Mauthner, Hauschner, and Rilke, which clearly show the increasing enmity between the two national groups. The nationalistic tendencies are then explored on a deeper level in the chapter titled Master and Servant in which the use of this literary couple is examined in view of the social position of German-speaking authors living in Prague and their loss of identity. Examples are drawn from the works of Brod, Kisch, and Werfel on the German side, and Hasek on the Czech side. The following two chapters focus on Franz Kafka and his place among the Czechs. His disputed affiliation with various groups of Czechs, namely with the anarchists, is discussed, as well as his reception by the Czechs. A comparison is made between Kafka and Hasek--two contemporaries and compatriots who were so different but yet had something in common, namely a drive for self-destruction. In the closing chapter, Prague is discussed as a common topic in works of both Germans and Czechs, and the legend of the Prague Golem is investigated in great detail, with examples drawn from Meyrink and a great number of other authors