Czechoslovak Stories/Jan Klecanda

by Šárka B. Hrbková

JAN KLECANDA

 

(Born March 5, 1855, in Prague.)

 

Among the newspaper men of Bohemia who have become prolific story writers is Jan Klecanda, who for a long period of years has been in the service of the Czech minority in the northern part of Bohemia where the German population has steadily increased through systematic efforts to dispossess the native Czechs.

He is a productive writer who has to his credit twenty-one volumes of novels, sketches and short stories chiefly depicting life among the laboring classes and the nationalistic struggles of the Czechs against the Teutons in the territory adjacent to the northern boundary.

Mr. Klecanda has had the opportunity of observing acutely the methods of Germanization practiced in the borderland of his own country, which was systematically invaded by those who sowed propaganda through the agency of industrial enterprises on purchased lands. Often he saw children alienated from their parents and taught to scorn their native tongue by the enforced substitution in the north Bohemian districts of the German for the Czech language. The accompanying story “For the Land of His Fathers” (Za Půdu Otců) is taken from the collection entitled “Tvrdé Hlavy” (Stubborn Heads), which has enjoyed much popularity.

Other collections of stories ranging from tragedy and pathos to gentlest humor are: “Mezi Víry a Skalisky” (Among Whirlpools and Cliffs); “Hrdinové Malých Románů” (Heroes of Small Romances); “Vojáci v Miru” (Warriors of Peace); “Na Bojišti” (On the Battle Field), the last two of which went through several editions.