Umlkám do čekání - Korespondence Vladimíra Holana – Holan Vladimír (2019)

Surprisingly, amidst the significant interest in the letters of prominent cultural figures in recent years, the correspondence of one of the most important Czech poets of the 20th century – Vladimír Holan – remained overlooked for a long time. Aside from a rare edition of his letters with the 'forgotten poet' Stanislav Zedníček from 2012, those interested in Holan's persona and literary activity had to come to terms with the fact that a more comprehensive edition of his letters was still lacking. The presented edition Umlkám do čekání attempts to partially address this debt; it is the very first coherent selection from the poet's rich correspondence to be published in book form. It maps the complete, two-way written exchanges of Holan with significant figures in the Czech artistic and cultural environment of the 20th century – specifically, Eduard Bass, Jakub Deml, Jaroslav Durych, Ladislav Fikar, Josef Hora, Egon Hostovský, František Hrubín, Jan Mukařovský, Josef Vašica, and Vlastimil Vokolek. In selecting the individual threads of correspondence, attention was paid to the relationships of the writers as well as the cultural-historical value of the content of their written communication. The edition thus sheds light, for example, on the nature of Holan's editorial activities in magazines during the 1930s and 1940s, pointing to existential problems,…