The Czech translators at the local government in Prague in 18th century

This M.A. thesis deals with the office of the Czech translator at the local government in Prague, which was established in 1749 as a part of the Repräsentation und Kammer. The first aim of our work is to describe and explain the agenda of this department, assess its activities within the contemporary context and justify its establishment. In doing so, we contribute to the historical research by describing the situation of the officials at the time of Maria Theresa and Joseph II, and furthermore we contribute also to the linguistical research by studying the role of Czech in the administration in 18th century. The introduction describes the situation of Czech language in the 18. century and analyzes the state of research. The further text is divided into three chapters. The first one shows the development of Bohemian local government in Prague where Czech translators were working. The most important part of the work is the second chapter, which expounds the history of the translator's office and provides biographies of individual translators. The third chapter presents the Apology of Czech written by the first known translator Matěj Rudolf Blažej which is interesting for us as an example of texts produced by the office in the 18th century and as a contribution to the Czech National Revival