Deníky 1912-1925

The edition of the diaries of one of the most prominent personalities of the interwar avant-garde, Karel Teige (1900-1951), from 1912-1925, presents a unique collection of notes that Teige kept from his childhood to his early adult years. At first in mostly holiday and school diaries, which he kept as a student at the Prague Gymnasium in Křemencova Street, later as a university student and especially as an artist and one who reflects on his artistic activities and on art and its place in society in general. The diaries bring a series of original notes, commenting both on personal life and his own artistic and literary work, and on artistic and social events. Teige comments on his own readings, encounters and correspondence, reflects on artistic and theoretical impulses, and documents the author's defining role in the organization of the artistic and art-political part of his generation. The travel diaries from 1922 and 1924 from trips to France and Italy, and especially the diary from the autumn of 1925 from the trip of the Czechoslovak delegation to Moscow and Leningrad, are of their own kind. Teige describes his stay in the Soviet Union, sharing the enthusiasm of the builders of the young state, but also demonstrating the traits of utopianism typical of contemporary Western pro-Communist visitors to the land of the Soviets.

This richly documented edition, with more than 300 colour reproductions, commentaries and an accompanying study by Josef Vojvodík, draws primarily on the unique manuscript diaries of K. Teige, which were acquired for the collections of the Literary Archive of the Memorial of National Literature in 2015 and 2021.

Czech edition