Ivana Čornejová
The Krkonoše fiction of Ludmila Grossmannová-Brodská. On the margins of Krakonoš's ethnic conception
Krakonoš is a popular figure in folk tales and fairy stories in German, Czech and Polish literature. Outstanding among the best known collections of Czech folk tales from the early 20th century is the work of Ludmila Grossmannová-Brodská, who adapted and retold the most famous old stories about the Lord of the Giant Mountains, her work then becoming a model for numerous successors. Originally German, this mountain spirit did not make himself at home in written Czech literature until the 19th century. Czech authors endeavoured to present him to Czech readers in various guises, but first and foremost he had to acquire a Czech name. So the German Rübezahl became Krakonoš, whereas Kollár's Řepočet and Tyl's Zlatohlav did not catch on. Ludmila Grossmannová-Brodská took the Czechification of these tales to an extreme and in her interpretation most of the characters have purely Czech names even though they live in German areas of the mountains. The author wrote fiction not only about the inhabitants of the highest Czech mountains, but also about the local area, as reflected in her rather confused topographical details.
Krakonoš – literary fiction – ethnic differences
design by Bedřich Vémola
