SOU OBÉ ĚJINY - Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV - Akademie věd ČR

Anotace 519
Summaries
Articles
Václav Talich Has Lost Heart: On the Purging of the Nation (Part 2)
Jiří Křesťan
Part 1 of this article, published in Soudobé dějiny, vol. 16 (2009), no. 1, pp. 69–111,
analyzed the dilemmas facing Václav Talich (1883–1961), Principal Conductor of
the National Theatre Opera and the Czech Philharmonic during the Second World
War. Part 1 also considers the consequences he had to face after the Liberation,
including the changes in his relations with the historian, musicologist, and post-war
Communist politician Zdeněk Nejedlý (1878–1962). Part 2 focuses on the debate
that accompanied the ‘Talich Case’. In 1945, after the Liberation, Talich was accused
of collaboration with the Nazis. Though the investigation showed that his behaviour
had not been impeccable, it did not conclude that Talich should be punished. None
the less, his public work as a conductor was restricted after the war. The article
discusses the attitudes of leading figures in musical life, journalists, and politicians
towards the ‘Talich Affair’, and refutes the view that proponents of a certain political
view or artistic trend came out together against Talich. Among those who defended
him and demanded that he should be allowed to work in music were a number of
Communists (including the playwright and director Emil František Burian, the poet
Vítězslav Nezval, the opera singer Přemysl Kočí, and, in his own way, the politician
Antonín Zápotocký). Another erroneous view, formulated by the musicologist Mirko
Očadlík (1904–1964), was that it all had to do with a dispute between Talich and
the ‘Nejedlý School’, which was carrying on the musical legacy of Bedřich Smetana.
Talich was given support also by many musicians, particularly from the Czech
Chamber Orchestra, which he founded in 1946.