Czech Drama in Early Modernism: The Portrayal of Leaders

The thesis constitutes the analysis of selected Czech dramas from the beginning of the 20th century representing various portrayals of national leaders. In my view, the dramas are Apollonian images of a kind representing the dreams of their creators about the strength and greatness, both individual and national. That is because, on one hand, the national leader is an exceptional individual, an exquisite human specimen and as such he or she corresponds to Nietzsche's characterization of a tragic hero as the highest phenomenon of the will. But at the same time, he or she is a national educator. Individual works represent various forms of how the leader educates and edifies the nation and whether he or she leads by command or by example. The dramas show us the leaders, who not only tame, purify, but also urge to growth those, whom they lead. The approach of the Czech playwrights is essentially mythopoetic. Their works constitute contributions to the creation or re-creation of national mythology, in other words, they deal with the meaning of the existence of the nation, or the national condition. They represent a dialogue or a polemic with one particular national mythology formed at the time that of T. G. Masaryk as he stated it in his works Česká otázka (1895), Naše nynější krise (1895), and Jan Hus..