Ludvík Kundera
Laudatio delivered on 22 January 1997 on the occasion of awarding an honorary doctorate of the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts Brno by the Dean of the Faculty of Theatre doc. PhDr. Václav Cejpek
Ludvík Kundera was born in Brno on 22 March 1920. His uncle was Ludvík Kundera, a pianist, music teacher and the first rector of the Janáček Academy; writer Milan Kundera is his cousin. After finishing his studies at grammar schools in Prague and Litoměřice (he graduated in 1938), he began studying at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague, where he attended lectures and seminars on Czech and German studies, delivered by such names as Jan Mukařovský, Vojtěch Jirát and Václav Černý. In 1939 he moved to the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno. After the Czech universities were closed, he made his living as he could – he trained to become a druggist and chemist, he was a draftsman, correspondent, accountant… In 1943 he went to Germany due to perform forced labour, from where he returned ten months later for health-related reasons. Until the end of the war, he lived in Brno, sabotaged the mandated work duties and lived de facto “semi-illegally”.
After the liberation, he continued his studies at the Faculty of Arts, graduating in 1946. Under the influence of František Halas, he decided to continue writing and editing. Between 1946 and 1949, he worked, among other things, as the secretary of the editorial board of the Brno magazine Blok and redacted the Mladá Boleslav edition Pochod. After the dissolution of Blok, he became the editor of the cultural section of the daily Rovnost (1950-1952), and then worked from 1953 in the editorial office of the newly established cultural monthly Host do domu.
After leaving the latter in 1955, he embarked on the career of an independent freelance artist, devoting himself to his own literary work, editorial activities and translation. In 1968, after Bořivoj Srba left the position of the literary manager of the State Theatre in Brno, he picked up Srba’s mantle, having worked closely with the new literary management of the Brno theatre (Miloš Hynšt, Bořivoj Srba, Evžen Sokolovský) since the early 1960s. At this time he also published his own theatre magazine Meandr. However, he left again in 1970 – in protest against the principal’s dismissal of the dramatic manager Miloš Hynšt. During normalisation, he made a living as a freelance writer. Because he was persecuted for a considerable period of the normalisation period and his name was essentially banned, many of his works and activities at that time were covered by his friends who were allowed to publish back then. In 1976, he moved permanently to his “rural refuge” in Kunštát na Moravě, where he lives to this day, still keeping the tradition of regularly travelling to Brno every Thursday.
Kundera’s literary beginnings are connected with poetism and surrealism, as evidenced by his first published poetic attempts from 1936–1939. After the war, Kundera co-founded the surrealist group Ra (officially in 1947). His keenness for surrealism is then reflected in his separate poetry collections: Živly v nás (1946), Laviny (1946), Klínopisný lampář (1948), Záznamy a promluvy (1961), Letní kniha přání a stížností (1962), Tolik cejchů (1966), Fragment (1967), Hruden (1985). He also published three books of prose: Konstantina (1946), Napospas aneb Přísloví pro kočku (1947), Odjezd (1967) and a book of essay features Německé portréty (1956). Besides books, he also published his works in magazines, in small bibliophilic publications, and in the 1950s and 1970s also semi-illegally in various anthologies or illegally in samizdat editions.
Ludvík Kundera is the author of six plays – Totální Kuropění (premiered in 1961), Nežert (1963 in press, premiere banned in 1962, new premiere in 1967), Korzár (premiered in 1963), Zvědavost (premiered in 1966), Labyrint světa a lusthauz srdce (written 1967–1970, premiered 1983), an opera libretto Chameleón aneb Josef Fouché (music by Miloš Štědroň, premiered in 1984) and a ballet libretto Balet Makábr (premiered in 1986). In terms of television production, we must mention works as such Vrtkavý král (1975), Královské řádění (1975), Signál (1980), Karel Hynek Mácha (1983), Radosti života (1984). He also wrote ten radio plays, of which only five were made, including Večer všech dnů (1966), Naprosto lhostejné (1967), Vojvodovy narozeniny (1968) or Malé smutné štronzo.
After the fall of censorship in 1989, Kundera has published seven books of poems (Ptaní, Malé radosti, Ztráty a nálezy, Napříč Fantomazií, Pády, Spád věcí a jiné básně, Sny též), two volumes of his Writings (Bez názvu, Úhledná džungle), a volume of memoirs (Řečiště) and interviews (Zlomky L. K.).
In 1998, the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts published Kundera’s monograph Brecht, which is a unique piece of editorial work – Kundera uses it to present his analysis of all of Brecht’s plays, including a unique collection of photographs of Czech and Slovak productions of these plays.
Kundera’s work has also been widely published abroad. His various works have been translated into German, French, English, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and others.
Kundera’s rich translation activity forms an important part of his artistic endeavour; his translations enabled the Czech environment to learn about the works of a number of prominent European figures. These are mainly translations from German, of which he published more than forty in the post-war period. Among others, he translated Jean Arp, Johann R. Becher, Bertolt Brecht, Paul Celan, Heinrich Heine, Christian Morgenstern, Georg Trakl, Heinrich Böll, Hanns Cibulka, Franz Fühmann, Ludwig Renn, Rainer Maria Rilke, Anna Seghers, Ferdinand Bruckner, Friedrich Schiller or Peter Weiss. The bibliography of his Brechtian translations is particularly extensive. He translated and published eight hundred of Brecht’s poems, among others in his books Sto básní (1959), Výhradně proto (1962), Domácí postila (1963), Kalendářové historky (1965), Zloděj třešní (1967), Songy, chóry, básně (1978) and in the Writings of B. Brecht; he also tackled nineteen of his plays (in collaboration with Rudolf Vápeník), among others Baal, Saint Joan of the Stockyards, Round Heads and Pointed Heads, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui , The Life of Edward II of England Antigone, Coriolanus, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, The Bread Shop (all published in the Writings of B. Brecht, Vol. I – V).
Kundera also translates from French (Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Desnos, Paul Eluard, René Char, etc.), Russian (Eduard Bagritsky), Bulgarian (Geo Milev, Nikola Jonkov Vapcarov) and Serbian (Stevan Raičkovič). He is also the author of translations of Czech literary works into German, thus publishing, for example, the Czech poetry of the 20th century (Die Glasträne, 1964, 1966), František Halas (Der Hahn verseucht die Finsternis, 1970), František Hrubín (Romnaze für ein Fliegerhorn, 1978), Czech poetry of the eleventh century (Die Sonnenuhr, 1987, together with other translators), etc.
Kundera’s theoretical work is also extensive, focusing not only on literature, but also on theatre, fine arts and culture in general. In this area, Kundera’s study of German expressionism is worth mentioning, which accompanies his translations of German expressionists in the book Haló, je tady vichr, vichřice (1969). Kundera has published a large number of studies on Czech, German, French and Bulgarian literature in both magazine and book forms, he has extensively studied the work of František Halas and Bertolt Brecht, and has also paid respectable attention to a number of other Czech artists.
Ludvík Kundera’s considerably extensive activities are complemented by his lecturing activities at universities, including the Faculty of Theatre of the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts, the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University and the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University.
Ludvík Kundera is a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and a member of the Free Academy of Arts in Leipzig. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Masaryk University in 1990, and won the Austrian State Award for Translators in 1992 and the Czech State Award for Translation Work in 1996.
Ludvík Kundera’s activities are astonishing in their extent and scope, as well as in their considerable diversity. They range from literary authorship in various types and genres through translations, adaptations, dramatisations, redactions and editions of a number of different authors and publications, lectures, theoretical reflections on literature, theatre and art, historical studies, etc. It is difficult to say which of these activities is dominant or more successful. I believe that the secret of this balanced harmony of numerous themes and areas of interest lies in Kundera’s ability to approach various areas of art and the thought about them with a certain taste of Renaissance, and to do so with a genuine and spontaneous interest in everything he encounters. It is a pleasure to engage with him in conversations about things that fall into his spectrum of interest – Ludvík Kundera can always offer a distinctive opinion that is matter-of-fact and sober, but also captivating and often accompanied by a sympathetic sense of foresight and humour (after all, nothing is so important that it should be taken seriously!).
For all these reasons and for many others, Ludvík Kundera is today awarded the title of doctor honoris causa of the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in the field of dramatic art. Ludvík Kundera’s work is a permanent and useful part of our theatrology – it results in benefit, directly or indirectly, to all those who deal with all things theatre in our country in any way, because Ludvík Kundera gave us more than his plays and other creations – he gave us his thoughts and actions, which helped create the spiritual space of our theatre. His work would be equally valid even without the title we intend to award him. However, humans tend to create order and hierarchy of values; it is one of the natural qualities of man, which helps him build structures and create anchor points of a spiritual nature in sometimes endless and confusing tangle of phenomena and information. By including Ludvík Kundera among the honorary doctors of the Janáček Academy, we also want to place Ludvík Kundera and his activities among those giants and geniuses we value for their lasting contribution in the field in which we deal and which we teach at the Faculty of Theatre. And if the title of an honorary doctor is to honour a specific personality and serve as an assurance of the impact of that personality’s work in science, research, art and education, then of course the weight of this personality increases the spiritual potential of the faculty and academy; each such personality seems to put a part of its significance into the school’s coat of arms and become an internal patron of all the efforts of the entire academic community.
Let me conclude my laudatio with a quote from the author to whom Ludvík Kundera devoted much of his creative endeavour – Bertolt Brecht and one of his shortest stories about Mr. Keuner:
“A man who had not seen Mr. K. for a long time greeted him with the words:
“You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Oh,” said Mr. K and turned pale.”
Dynamics, constant movement, reality transforming in its rich plurality before our eyes – these are the essential features of Ludvík Kundera’s creative personality.