Jängsters show a predilection for treating in the drama not merely this or that individual, but some entire collectivity, a class, a people, a period. Up to now this tendency has been realized most effectively by Karel Capek who followed an intimate comedy of love with his high-powered and gripping Robot tragedy, and then in collaboration with his brother Josef, who has attempted the collective drama in his Land of Many Names, wrote the well-known comedy of the insect world.
Yet in spite of the great emphasis on social and socialistic problems, the opposite pole, the traditional drama of strongly pronounced individualism, has not been abandoned. The protagonist of modern drama in Bohemia, Jaroslav Hilbert, who composed among other things a drama of discovery called Columbus, was and still remains individualistic. Individualistic, or even aristocratic and decadent, are the themes and analyses of Jaroslav Maria and others. Also, the cult of the strong relentless personality which aspires to the superman of Nietzsche is defended by Frantirck Zavriel in his dramas of contemporary life. The contrasting elements of this age are most intensely sharpened in our theatrical life: for instance the battle which is now facing our public as to whether a pessimistic and violently antisocialistic play should or should not be presented on the stage of the national theatre. The dramatist and politician Viktor Dyk is distinguished by a keen national-mindedness; we should also mention the national dramas of Jir Mahen and the dramatized histories of the old master of historical fiction, Alois Jirasek.
Somewhat aside from the hot battle of ideas and parties, there is a list of theatrically effective plays which have as their subject the eternally recurring song of the human heart: here dramatists like Frantirck Langer and Frana Sramek should be named—but these authors also have given evidence by their previous works how closely their products touch on the vital nerve of our times, and how much our theatre is linked with the general experiences of present (and future) Europe. Bohemia has often been spoken of as the “heart of Europe”; and in this “heart” there is one point which reacts as intensively as possible to the vacillations and hopes of the times. In this middle country (but not middling, let us hope!) there is a kind of sun dial on which the position of the world’s sun can be read. This fine and delicately sensitive instrument is the
