Fischer, Otokar
FISCHER, OTOKAR
FISCHER, OTOKAR (1883–1938), Czech writer, poet, playwright, translator, and critic. Fischer, who was born into an assimilated Jewish family in Kolín, Bohemia, became professor of German literature at Prague's Czech university. He edited the literary reviews Kritika and Jeviště, contributed to other important Czech periodicals, and served as the director of the Prague National Theater. One of the outstanding exponents of Czech culture between the two world wars, Fischer was a prolific writer. His voluminous series of essays and monographs include two volumes on Heine, studies of Kleist and Nietzsche, and two collections of essays entitled Duše a slovo ("The Soul and the Word," 1929), and Slovo a svět ("The Word and the World," 1937). His works include more than a dozen volumes of poetry. In spite of his assimilated background, Fischer was always conscious of his Jewish spiritual roots and was tortured by a perpetual need for self-analysis. His second book of poems, Ozářená okna ("Lit Windows," 1916), proclaims his origin, and in the collection Léto ("The Summer," 1919), he again sees himself as a descendant of the *Wandering Jew. It was, however, only in the verse collection Hlasy ("Voices," 1923), which marks his maturity as a poet, that Fischer accepted the inescapability of his Jewish heritage. It was indeed no mere chance that Fischer's work on Heine (1922–24) was written at the same time as Hlasy; and in his translation of the Poèmes juifs of André *Spire, Fischer included a letter from Spire in which a parallel is drawn between the two poets. While both Heine and Fischer began writing not only in the language but also in the spirit of their environment, Spire notes, they could not in the end help returning to the Jewishness so deeply lodged in their souls. A number of Fischer's dramas – notably Přemyslovci ("The Přemysl Dynasty," 1918), Herakles (1919), and Otroci ("The Slaves," 1925) – were Czech stage successes. His outstanding translation from German literature is his version of Goethe's Faust. Healso translated Heine, Kleist, Nietzsche, Schiller, Bruekner, Hofmannsthal, and Wedekind, as well as many other world-famous authors. He attended the informal Pátečníci gatherings ("Friday's visitors") which convened regularly every Friday on the initiative of the Czech writer Karel Čapek in the years 1924–1937, including President T.G. Masaryk and Foreign Minister E. Beneš. Fischer's younger brother josef fischer (1891–1945), philosopher and sociologist, was executed by the Nazis.
bibliography:
P. Váša and A. Gregor, Katechismus dějinčeské literatury (1925); B. Václavek, Česká literatura xx. stoleti (1935); Hostovský, in: Jews of Czechoslovakia, 1 (1968), 442–4. add. bibliography: Lexikon české literatury (1985); A. Mikulášek et al., Literatura s hvězdou Davidovou, vol. 1 (1998).
[Avigdor Dagan /
Milos Pojar (2nd ed.)]