Paměti Františka Jana Vaváka, souseda a rychtáře Milčického z let 1770 – 1816 – Vavák František Jan (2009)

František Jan Vavák (1741–1816) is the greatest of the Czech peasant chroniclers. Although he receives no formal education, he achieves a considerable cultural outlook through self-study. As an autodidactic chronicler, poet, musician, surveyor and cartographer, he becomes part of the first generation of the Czech National Revival, while successfully managing his estate in Milčice near Poděbrady. From 1774, he serves as the village reeve and contributes to the application of the law and to practical religious tolerance. The culmination of his work is the seven-volume Memoirs, diary entries in which popular Baroque piety lingers alongside a high degree of national and social-estate awareness. The first five volumes are published between 1907 and 1938 by the church historian P. Jindřich Skopec (1873–1940); during the Protectorate, the remaining two volumes, covering 1810–1816, are prepared for publication by Stanislava Jonášová-Hájková (1903–1985), a student of Josef Pekař. The edition is revised and completed from her estate, together with an introductory study.