The death of the “sad optimist” Jiří (George) Kárnet
Jiří Kárnet − friend and collaborator of many important figures from the Czech literary and theatrical scene (Jiří Voskovec, Emil F. Burian, Josef Svoboda, Alfréd and Emil Radok, Jan Grossman, Egon Hostovský, Ferdinand Peroutka, František Listopad, Pavel Tigrid and many others), he was born on the 24th of February 1920 in Hořice and after graduating from the State Reform Secondary School in Jihlava (1938) he enrolled to study at the Law Faculty at Charles University in Prague. Following the university’s closure by the occupying Nazis at the end of 1939 he worked as a director’s apprentice and assistant at the D 40 and D 41 theatres (amongst other things, as editor of Program D 41). After the closure of the latter, he and his colleagues moved to the Městské divadlo [City Theatre] in Prague’s Královské Vinohrady, where there was to be a performance of his Bloudění [Wandering],written in 1941, with the subtitle Hra o dnešním mládí ve dvou dílech [A Play about Today’s Youth in Two Parts]. However, the German censors banned the play. The script was eventually published in book form five years later and in April 1947 it had its premiere at DISK, the Theatre Studio of the Academy of Musical Arts in Prague.
After working in Vinohrady, Kárnet then moved on to the Theatre of the Smetana Museum, where he collaborated with, amongst others, his contemporary the world famous scenographer Josef Svoboda. At the end of the Second World War, Kárnet was interned in a work camp in Germany – he was then imprisoned when he tried to escape.
As well as his distinctive theatrical reviews and critiques, which brought about the celebrated discussion on “directorism” (the article “The War between Generations”), he also contributed to a number of periodicals (for example, Generace, Kvart, Listy) and in particular to the daily newspaper Mladá fronta, where he worked as a permanent contributor to the cultural pages.
In the postwar period he also translated several theatre plays, including Terence
M. Rattigan’s Flare Path [in Czech, Světelná cesta] and Jean Sarment’sMamouret [Prababička Mouretová], translated from the French François Mauriac’s novel La Pharisienne [Farizejka] (Prague 1948) and co-edited the collection Mezi dvěma plameny [Between Two Flames],with the subtitle Nová anglická poesie [New English Poetry] (Prague 1948), for which he translated the introduction by Edwin Muir. In the same year his play Blázni was supposed to have been performed at the theatre in Prague’s Vinohrady district, but due to the events of February and the author’s move into exile its premiere never took place (the play was later translated into English by Ann Voskovcová as A Time for Madness).
Soon after the events of February 1948, Jiří Kárnet left legally for France on the basis of an invitation to give a lecture on new Czech drama at the Louvre in Paris. After the lecture he was offered the position of editor for the Czechoslovak broadcasts of Radio France, where he worked for almost five years. In addition to this he also published articles in the daily newspaper Le Monde. From France Kárnet moved to New York’s East Village in 1952, where he lived for the rest of his life.
After his arrival in the United States of America he worked for a short time as a “continuity girl” in television and he and Jiří Voskovec tried unsuccessfully to get their scripts accepted by several television programmes. After these negative experiences Jiří Kárnet returned to journalism and began to work as an external contributor for the radio stations Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe (RFE). He later worked as an editor for RFE. His work there mainly consisted of commentaries on cultural and political events – for example, there was the programme Studio Manhattan (where amongst the interviewees were John Steinbeck and Andy Warhol) as well as Rozhovory Jiřího Kárneta s Ferdinandem Peroutkou [Jiří Kárnet’s Conversations with Ferdinand Peroutka]. Along with Pavel Tigrid he was one of the founders of the legendary political and cultural quarterly Svědectví, on whose editorial board he worked from 1956−1962.
He is represented in exile collections in the anthology Neviditelný domov [Invisible Home] with the subtitle Verše exulantů [Exiles’ Verses] 1948–1953 (Paris 1954, ed. Peter Demetz) as well as in the following publications: Vánoční tisk Svobodné Evropy: Vánoce 1955 (probably New York 1955), Czechoslovakia Past and Present. Vol 1. Political, International, Social and Economic Aspects (The Hague 1968, ed. Miloslav Rechcigl, jr; here the published text The Literature of De-Stalinization was subsequently also brought out as a special issue, even though it had been published earlier in an amended form in the periodical East Europe), Hlas domova [The Voice of Home] 1950–1975 – a collection printed to mark the 25th anniversary of Hlas domov, a Czechoslovak magazine in Melbourne, Australia (Richmond 1975), …a když se řekne Voskovec […and if Voskovec says so] (Cologne 1983, 2nd edition Prague 1990) as part of a collection entitled Když se řekne Werich a když se řekne Voskovec [If Werich says so and if Voskovec says so] and Je sedm hodin středověkého času: Postavy a příběhy ze začátků Svobodné Evropy [It’s seven o’clock medieval time: Characters and stories from the early days of Free Europe] (Munich 1990, 2nd edition Munich and Prague 1991) by František Tomáš, in which Kárnet’s interview with Ferdinand Peroutka was published; he also translated and provided the introduction to Irving Howe’s study of political novels, Politics and the Novel [Román a doba] (New York 1958).
Excerpts from the theatre plays Soudruh O. Beránek and Nymfa were published in the UK in the periodicals Skutečnost (4–6/1953) and the previously mentioned Svědectví (4/1959). And finally an article published in 1946 in Kvart, Poznámky o vztahu dramatu k soudobému životnímu pocitu [Observations on Drama’s Relationship to the Contemporary Sense of Life] is part of the first volume of the collection Z dějin českého myšlení o literatuře 1945–1989: Antologie k Dějinám české literatury 1945–1990 (Prague 2001, ed. Michal Přibáň).
At the end of 2009 Pasek publishers brought out Posmrtný deník [A Posthumous Diary] with the subtitle Přísně tajná odpověď Václavu Havlovi [A Top Secret Answer to Václav Havel] (Litomyšl and Prague, ed. Viktor A. Debnár), in which Kárnet "returned" to a Czech setting. The essay originally came about as an answer to two questions from Václav Havel which an interviewer put to several exiles during a visit to New York in 1968: “Would you like to visit Prague?” and “Would you like to stay there permanently?” In its breadth and style Kárnet’s text exceeded the “set” interview questions and was due to be published in 1968 as a follow-up in Literární listy, and on Havel’s recommendation it was set to be published by Československý spisovatel publishers – however, after August 1968 it was impossible to publish it; the essay is a supplement to three of Václav Havel’s letters.
Several of Kárnet’s texts still remain in manuscript form – these are mainly theatre plays such as Joska: Relativní tragikomedie, translations of plays which were originally written in Czech (for example, Beranek ou Le pygmalion rouge, translated by Marcel Ferrand) or the English Centurion Trisle: Pandemonium in Three Freedom of Disinformation Acts (also known as Century on Trial), Gold Futures: A Play in Five Acts, Reykjavik: A Fictional Political Docudrama, Outerlife with Jesus: Existentialist Sci-fi in Memoriam of the Challenger Seven, Amazon House Murders, End in Frauduland: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts, etc, along with prose work (for example, Hunkie Doodle Dandy: A Confrontation, a fragment of a novel from the mid-1950s which was to have been published by Kárnet’s friend Ladislav Fikar through Československý spisovatel publishers), essays (for example, In Defense of the New Class: A Psychological Analysis of the Dilemma of Contemporary Czechoslovak Communism) and extensive verse. Jiří Kárnet contributed with his notes, deliberations, essays, play excerpts, reviews and poems to Svědectví, Skutečnost, Perspektiv and Zápisník; in the foreign press his contributions appeared in the magazine East Europe.
The last interview with the author was published in the monthly magazine Host (1/2010), as was a collage of his diary entries and verse entitled "Synopse mého života aneb Zápisník, Carnet. Par George Karnet" [A Synopsis of my Life or A Notebook, Carnet. Par George Karnet] (1/2011). The editor Viktor A. Debnár is currently preparing for publication a volume of Kárnet’s poetry entitled Smutný vítěz, which will be published this year by Pulchra publishers.Kárnet’s multi-layered work still awaits critical evaluation and reflection. More about the author here.
Viktor A. Debnár
editor of Jiří Kárnet’s works
(translated by Graeme Dibble)
- Interview by Ivana Myšková with the editor Viktor A. Debnár (Český rozhlas 3-Vltava, 4th February 2011), in Czech
- Retrospective text by the editor Viktor A. Debnár, Smutný optimista Jiří Kárnet (Lidové noviny, 4th February 2011), in Czech
Jiří (George) Kárnet´s Memorial Evening will take place on Tuesday March 1, 2011 at 7 pm at the Bohemian National Hall, 321 E 73rd Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues), NYC, USA. Sue Karnet (daughter) with family and friends will share their memories including a short family slide screening, video messages from friends in Prague and readings from Jiří Kárnet’s work.
RSVP: Sue Karnet, E skarnet@nyc.rr.com, T 001/646/78 19 322 and Suzanna Halsey, E newyork@svu2000.org
