Czechoslovak Stories/Božena Němcová

by Šárka B. Hrbková

BOŽENA NĚMCOVÁ

 

(Born February 5, 1820, in Vienna; died January 20, 1862, in Prague.)

 

The first of the realistic writers of Bohemia was Božena Němcová, who stands unqualifiedly foremost among the women authors of her nation. Němcová spent her childhood in the foothill region of Ratibořice on the Silesian border, where is laid the scene of her best-known and most-loved novel of country life, “Babička" (The Grandmother), which has gone into dozens of editions and has been translated into many different languages. Frances Gregor, author of “The Story of Bohemia,” made the English translation of this beautiful story, which Němcová admitted was a picture of her own life and that of her brothers and sisters under the sheltering love of one of the dearest and most typical characters in Czech literature—“the grandmother.” Not a trace of bitterness appears in the entire novel, though it was written when Němcová was experiencing nothing but hardship and sorrow in a most unhappy married life, and after death had removed her chief joy—her eldest son, Hynek. A bride at seventeen, Němcová, whose maiden name was Barbora Panklova, cultivated her genius, which had already shown itself, under the guidance of literary men with whom she came in contact in Prague, where her husband, an official in the Austrian government service, was stationed for a while. Through her husband’s necessarily frequent removals she became well acquainted with various parts of Bohemia and also made five extended sojourns in Slovensko (Slovakia), where she studied the people and collected the customs, traditions, tales and folk lore in general which she later used untouched in her collections of fairy tales and legends, or wove into short stories and novels whose characters and plots were her own creation. Then, too, her intimate knowledge of the people among whom she lived and sought her friends aided materially in giving her a true insight into their souls as well as a thorough knowledge of the dialects pre dominating in each section which she later took as the background for her stories.

Němcová’s initial literary efforts (1844–1848) were made in the field of lyric poetry which expressed a deeply patriotic feeling. She felt that women should participate in the nationalistic struggles of the Czechs who were emerging from two centuries of the tomb after their crushing defeat at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620. All her later writings likewise breathe her Slavonic sympathies.

Very soon after her poems began to appear she was urged by Karel Jaromir Erben, one of the foremost folklorists of the day, to put into literary form the great wealth of fairy tales, fables, legends and other lore she had been gathering. Her response was the splendid collection entitled “National Fairy Tales and Legends” which was soon followed by her “Slovak Fairy Tales and Legends.” Her discussions and descriptions of the customs and manners of the groups she learned to know throughout Bohemia and North Hungary—chiefly in the Slovak districts—are of real ethnographical value.

Němcová’s first novels, “Obrázek Vesnický” (A Village Picture), “Dlouhá Noc” (The Long Night) and “Domácí Nemoc" (Home Sickness), belong to the same period (1846–1847), when she was but twenty-six. Her next novelettes, “Baruška” (Barbara) and “Sestry” (The Sisters), touch on social questions for which she suggests, unobtrusively, to be sure, a solution. A most ingenious plot with a pleasing and unusual romance characterizes her novel, “Karla” (Carla). In the same year, 1855, she wrote and published her masterpiece, “Babička.” In rapid succession came “Divá Bára” (Bewitched Bára); “Chýže Pod Horami” (The Cottage on the Mountainside), depicting the beautiful customs and fresh, unspoiled character of the Slovak mountaineers; “Pohorská Vesnice” (The Mountain Village), a story of the Bohemian Forest region; “Dobrý Člověk” (The Good Man); “Chudí Lidé” (Poor People) and “V Zámku a Podzámčí” (In the Castle and Below), which presents the eternal conflict of wealth and poverty, high estate and low, and is a direct indictment of society.

The invigorating wholesomeness of Němcová’s stories agreeably penetrates the consciousness of the reader, who is refreshed and inspired by their simple nobility without feeling that he has been “preached at.” Němcová’s method is marked by a simplicity, untrammeled directness, and a conviction of truth, which enlist one’s interest immediately. The traditional “happy ending” which the American craves and insists on in most of his novels and plays has the nearest Slav counterpart in Němcová’s thorough optimism, her absolute refusal to be cynical or bitter. Somehow, despite the inevitable sorrows which the truth of life forces her to depict, she leads her characters from “the slough of despond” to a logical “consummation devoutly to be wished.” This trait is the more remarkable in view of the fact that all the romance and joy was crushed out of her own life, which became a daily sordid struggle for bread for her family and herself, especially after the death of her son and the loss by her husband, who was never sympathetic with her ideals, of his position under the goverament. Němcová has created many faithfully drawn Czech and Slovak characters, her women especially being typical of their nation. She writes with a vigor, picturesqueness and purity, combined with the characteristic quiet Slav humor and poetic idealism, which never fail to appeal.

While “Bewitched Bára” is one of her earlier stories, it nevertheless represents her manner and her choice of material. Superstition is now by no means generally characteristic of the Czechs and Slovaks, but at the time Němcová wrote her story, about sixty-five years ago, rationalistic teachings were not as widely disseminated as now. This story had the effect of weaning the people from much ignorant credulity and beliefs in omens, signs and the power of so-called supernatural beings.

Němcová has evolved a character at once strong, beautiful and independent in the person of the dauntless Bára who through her own investigations—she was practically self-trained—had freed herself from all the superstitious fears which enchained the souls of nearly all the others in the village. Then, too, Němcová clearly shows here the value in education of nature and natural methods, a subject she introduces, together with other social reform tendencies, in her “Pohorská Vesnice” (The Mountain Village), which she regarded as her best work, placing it above her “Babičká,” which has been far more widely loved. The friendship of the two girls, Bára and Elška, whose social advantages were so widely different, is a wholesome, happy picture. For the sake of her devotion for Elška, Bára carries out the traditional custom of young girls in Bohemia who seek to know whence their lover will come, by casting wreaths of flowers into a stream before sunrise of the Day of St. John the Baptist. She herself does not believe in the custom, but weaves and throws her wreath to please Elška, who in the secure refuge of Bára’s affection confides her deepest feeling to the one understanding soul.