In the footsteps of Kafka

"Journeys of Franz Kafka" is the name of a new internet project in which award-winning Czech photographer Jan Jindra follows in the footsteps of the literary great, taking black and white pictures of many of the places Kafka visited. One of the project's aims is to dispel the idea that the German-speaking author never left Prague; in fact he travelled rather extensively, around the Czech Republic and to countries such as Germany, France and Italy. Radio Prague's Ian Willoughby has the story.

Max Brod is known to most people as the person who saved and published Kafka’s work after his death. Project organiser Judita Matyasova says the two were also travelling companions.

“He and Max Brod took a Baedeker guidebook and made their way through Italy, Switzerland and then on to France. They were really like two regular young guys, touring about and visiting interesting places. Few people know this about Kafka.”

While doing research for the new project, its creators also learned a lot more about Franz Kafka’s wide-ranging interests.

“It seems like he must’ve had more than 24 hours in a day – his interest in various new developments in the fields of culture and technology was incredible. He was interested in everything from modern dance, to vegetarianism to the first air show in Italy. He liked going to the cinema, went motorcycling with his uncle Siegfried - he was an unusually curious person.”

The “Journeys of Franz Kafka” project has seen photographer Jan Jindra visit 60 locations to date. Judita Matyasova explains how the writer’s travels were retraced.

“The main consultants for our project are two Kafkologists, real experts on Kafka. One of them is Dr Josef Cermak, one of the co-founders of the Franz Kafka society. The other is Dr Hans-Gert Koch, who edited a collection of Kafka’s correspondence. They recreated his travels from diaries, letters, and postcards. And the photographer Jan Jindra tries to capture the locations in the most authentic possible way.”

But it isn’t just the people behind the project who have been learning about the various travels of Franz Kafka.

“In Germany, especially in Berlin, people know that Kafka used to visit. But in Switzerland when we toured about visiting the hotels where he stayed on his travels, they only knew he’d been there in one hotel – it was a hotel in which the owners are really interested in its history. Now we’re going to Italy…in most places people don’t know, so it’s a surprise to them.”

Listen to the report:

Tags czech republic, prague

Share digg del.icio.us facebook newsvine

Listen Real Audio Download MP3 Podcast Subscribe

Monday kicked off Nobel Prize week in Sweden, when the country enjoys international coverage of the awards , the pinnacle of achievement, left to the world by the Swedish inventor of Dynamite Alfred Nobel back in 1896 to reward scientific and literary development. 

There are two things that come to mind when you think of Romanian education. On the one hand, really good specialists most of whom are now in America or in Western Europe and on the other hand an education infrastructure which has been completely neglected in the last 16 years. RRI’s Iulian Muresan went to see Bucharest’s largest student campus at the beginning of the school year. 

Growing numbers of Britons and Germans take advantage of Poland's expanding private health sector to have their teeth fixed cheaply, or to perform cosmetic surgery. 'This medical tourism has taken off in a big way in the historic city of Krakow, which is a destination of many low cost airlines. Radio Polonia's John Beauchamp reports from Krakow. This report is by John Beauchamp. 

After Ireland, Italy, Sweden or Spain, France could become the next country to introduce a blanket ban on smoking in public areas. That’s what a parliamentary committee recommended this week, after five months of consultations with doctors, tobacconists, and trade unions. According to government figures, some thirty five per cent of the French population uses tobacco, and sixty six thousand die of smoke related illnesses every year. The measure would be enforced from September next year at the latest, though the committee held open a possible delay till summer 2008 for some establishments, including night clubs and restaurants. The tobacco lobby reacted with outrage. But Radio France International’s Nick Champeaux says smokers in Paris are already making the mental adjustments. 

General elections took place in Bosnia-Herzegovina last weekend but many Bosnians are still trying to work out what the results mean for their country's future. The winners seem to be split between those who want to reform the country and its divisions, and those who want to retain the ethnic divide between Bosnian Serbs on the one hand and Croats and Muslims on the other. The international community is planning on handing over power to local politicians next year, but says that first, controversial reforms need to take place. From Sarajevo, DW's Nicholas Walton reports.