Mrstik, Vilem

Mrštík, Vilém 

Born May 14, 1863, in Jimramov; died Mar. 2, 1912, in Diváky, near Hustopeče. Czech author and literary critic.

The son of a shoemaker, Mrŝtík attended Gymnasiums in Brno and Prague until 1885. In 1892 he published an autobiographical novel about young people, A May Fairy Tale. His best known novel is Santa Lucia (1893), about the life of a poor student. With his brother, the writer A. Mrŝtík, he wrote the play Maryŝa (staged 1894), about the tragic fate of village women; the play helped establish realism on the Czech stage.

In articles about Czech writers (B. Nsmcová, J. Neruda) and Russian writers (N. V. Gogol, L. N. Tolstoy, A. F. Pisemskii), Mrŝtík defended realism in literature; he popularized the works of V. G. Belinskii and N. A. Dobroliubov. In 1896 he visited Russia. Mrŝtík translated works by A. S. Pushkin, I. S. Turgenev, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. A. Goncharov, L. N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov, and E. Zola.

WORKS

Sebrané spisy A. a V. Mrŝtíku, vols. 1–13. Prague, 1906–25.
In Russian translation:
Marisha. Leningrad-Moscow, 1960.

REFERENCES

Ocherki istorii cheshskoi literatury XIX-XX vekov. Moscow, 1963. Pages 253, 258.
Justl, V. Brŝatri Mrŝitíkove. Prague, 1963.
Parolek, R. V. Mrŝtík a ruská literatura. Prague, 1964.

L. S. KISHKIN