Donation of Jan Zahradníčekʼs poetry manuscripts to František Křelina and Josef Knap
The manuscripts of Jan Zahradníčekʼs poems written in Pankrác Prison were hidden by Václav Sisel, a guard and technical chief in the prison print shop. Until 1968, these manuscripts were buried in the garden of Siselʼs cottage near the Sázava River. In the spring of 1968, Sisel decided to dig these manuscripts out. In the short period of liberalization called the “Prague Spring” it was possible to once again speak about “forbidden” authors and to discuss the persecutions of the 1950s. That is why Sisel believed that it was a moment when Zahradníčekʼs poems could be brought to light. He gave these manuscripts to Zahradníčekʼs fellow prisoners, writers František Křelina and Josef Knap. Eventually, Zahradníčekʼs poems ended up in the Museum of Czech Literature.
References
Zahradníček, Jan. 2015. Dům Strach. Praha: Vyšehrad.
Last edited on: 2019-02-12 10:37:45