Location

• Na Zátorách 6, 170 00 Praha 7 - Holešovice, Czech Republic
  Show on map

Languages

• Czech

Name of collection

• Jan Čep

Provenance and cultural activities

• The collection of the prominent Czech prose writer and essayist Jan Čep was created in 1951 – 1963, when Jan Čep worked for Radio Free Europe, first as employee and since 1955 as external collaborator. Radio Free Europe sought to disturb the information monopolised by the media of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia while at the same time conveying independent and objective news, as well as cultural programs for people living behind the Iron Curtain. Jan Čep prepared for his philosophical and religious meditations on Radio, “Reflections of Time and the Timeless” (originally named ‘How to Survive’), which he partially spoke on. Apart from meditation on religious themes, there were also polemics with Communism and Marxism and the existential question of "being yourself". For almost fifteen years, he has contributed to the Cultural Broadcasting Programme: “The Book of the Week”, whose mission was to inform the audience behind the Iron Curtain about the literary production of the Western Free World and to get acquainted with the authors who were not allowed to publish in the Communist countries. Jan Čep selected for this program mainly Catholic-oriented writers and new French and Anglo-American literature. Čep's work could not be published for almost forty years in Czechoslovakia. In 1989, his work while under exile, was made available to Czech readers. In the nineties, his meditation from “Reflections of Time and the Timeless” and then his texts from the “Book of the Week” programme in 2015 thanks to Petr Komenda and Jan Zatloukal, who worked on the materials from the archives of the Institute of Slavonic Studies in Paris, where Jan Čep lived in exile, was made available too. The collection, which is stored in the National Museum, is not as extensive as the Parisian one, but its meaning is equal to it. These are mostly handwritten lyrics, to a lesser extent typed in manuscripts, and several texts are in the work edition of Radio Free Europe.

   It is not possible to find out how the collection got to the Czechoslovak Documentation Centre (CSDC). Probably from a former radio editor, or in 2000 when all the archives of Radio Free Europe moved from Munich. In 2003, ČSDS concluded a gift agreement with the National Museum in Prague. CSDC collections, including the Jan Čep collection, were handed over to the National Museum. The collection was institutionalized and partly made available to the scientific public.

Description of content

• The Jan Čep Collection contains manuscripts and printed versions of programmes that he had been writing for Radio Free Europe since 1951, until he joined the radio in about 1963. These are 54 texts for philosophical-religious meditations “Reflections of Time and the Timeless” and Cultural Broadcasting “Book of the Week”.

Content

• grey literature (regular archival documents such as brochures, bulletins, leaflets, reports, intelligence files, records, working papers, meeting minutes): 0-9
• manuscripts (ego-documents, diaries, notes, letters, drafts, etc.): 10-99

Operator(s)

• National Museum of Czech Republic

Owner(s)

• Czechoslovak Documentation Centre
• National Museum of Czech Republic
• Čep, Jan

Geographical scope of recent operation

• national

Topics

• emigration/exile
• independent journalism
• literature and literary criticism

Founder(s)

• Čep, Jan

Date of founding

• 1951

Place of founding

• München, Munich, Germany
  Show on map
• Paris, France
  Show on map

Creator(s) of content

• Čep, Jan

Collector(s)

• Czechoslovak Documentation Centre
• National Museum of Czech Republic

Important events in the history of the collection

• Donation of Collections of Czechoslovak Documentation Centre to the National Museum of Czech Republic

Featured items

• Manuscript of radio journal of Jan Čep about book Fox and Camellia

Access type

• parts are closed to the public

Publications

• Čep, Jan. 2015. Kniha týdne. Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury.

Author(s) of this page

• Hanáková, Jitka

References

Čep, Jan. 2015. Kniha týdne. Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury.

Prečan, Vilém , interview by Hanáková, Jitka, September 28, 2017. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection