Original scientific paper

Franjo Ksaver Kuhač and Moravia

Jarmila Procházková ; Institut za etnologiju Češke akademije znanosti, Odsjek za povijest glazbe, Prague, Czech Republic

Abstract

The study documents the contacts of Franjo Ksaver Kuhač with Czech musical circles in Moravia and also his interest in the traditional culture of the local Croatian diaspora. The key role belongs to his friendship with the lawyer Sigismund Vašátko (1831-1886), who arranged the contacts with the personalities gathered in the Czech musical association Beseda brnénská. Thus the work of Kuhač includes a cantata Na grobu Sv. Metoda, setting a text by the Brno poet Vladimír Št’astný (1841-1910) as translated by Ivan Trnski. The mutual knowledge is also documented by Kuhač publishing three folk songs of Moravian Croats, which he knew from the collection by František Sušil (1804-1868), as well as, for example, by the torso Sbírka písní slovanských (Brno 1851) preserved in Kuhač’s legacy in Zagreb. And vice versa, Vašátko’s unique library contained a representative collection of South Slavic literature and after his death it was kept in the Muzejní spolek (Museum Club), where it was available to a wide circle of Brno intellectuals, including Leoš Janáček (1954-1928). In Vašátko’s letters addressed to his Croatian friend, there are, besides notes on a book exchange, an invitation for Kuhač to a concert in Brno (31 August 1879) and a recommendation to the priest Josef Nehudek (1826-1905), which enabled the Croatian ethnographer to receive later a written report on the life of Moravian Croats in the village of Frélichov (Frjelištorf).

Keywords

Franjo Ksaver Kuhač; Moravia; Sigismund Vašátko; František Sušil; František Pivoda; Josef Nehudek; Moravian Croats; traditional culture; Muzejní spolek (Museum club)

Hrčak ID:

112148

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/112148

Publication date:

13.6.2013.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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