A Wintry Narrative: Bohemia by the Coast and the Genius of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was not the first or the last writer to connect Bohemia with the ocean and exciting, often dramatic tales. People have pondered this connection for many years. Was Shakespeare simply mistaken? Or could the Bohemia he mentioned, surrounded by saltwater, be located elsewhere instead of Central Europe? Did he perhaps move Bohemia slightly on purpose to better tell the story of the close bond between the two main characters, King Leontes of Sicily and King Polixenes of Bohemia? From the names of these characters, it seems Shakespeare didn’t know much about the people living in Czech lands. Or maybe he wasn’t even considering the Czech kingdom and made a deliberate error to highlight the fantastic elements and the fairy-tale nature of the entire play? We cannot say for sure. However, it is clear that Shakespeare’s contemporary, Ben Jonson, acknowledged that the geographical placement of Bohemia does not change the tone of The Winter’s Tale.

The Winter’s Tale is truly a wonderful play with an intricate storyline. It starts in Sicily, in the court of King Leontes, who is filled with jealousy and anger as he wrongly accuses his wife, Queen Hermione, of cheating. He punishes her by imprisoning her and decides to have King Polixenes of Bohemia, whom he suspects she has been unfaithful with, killed. The complex plot ultimately leads to a happy ending, reminiscent of a fairy tale, featuring lighthearted scenes from Bohemia, where the children of both royal families grow up, find love, marry, and their parents eventually find peace and reconciliation.

The play is not frequently staged in the Czech Republic, but it, along with other renowned Shakespearean works like Twelfth Night, or What You Will, Macbeth, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like It and The Tempest, is a staple in the programming of the Summer Shakespeare Festival in Prague, Brno and Ostrava.

William Shakespeare grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon, in England’s Warwickshire county. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, and they had three children together. Soon after, he became an actor, playwright, and a co-owner of a theater company called Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which later became known as King’s Men. Shakespeare produced most of his famous works between 1589 and 1613, and that year marks his return to his hometown, where he passed away three years later.

Just as William Shakespeare seemed unaware of Bohemia, the Czechs were equally unfamiliar with Shakespeare during his lifetime. However, English actors and his plays were known; for instance, in 1604, Romeo and Juliet was performed in Dresden, and shortly afterward, The Merchant of Venice was showcased in Graz, among others, while various authors adapted some of his works. Overall, Shakespeare is acknowledged to have composed around 38 plays and 154 sonnets, which are regarded as the most extensive achievement by a single individual in English literature’s history.

Shakespeare, English and a little language lesson

Today, English is everywhere, and you can almost use it wherever you go worldwide. But did you know that just a century ago, English was quite a linguistic rarity in the Czech lands?

• • During the First Republic period, Czechs primarily understood German, which was the original official language of the Habsburg Monarchy. Meanwhile, French was spoken chiefly among the aristocracy and diplomats. English was seen as a useful yet exotic language, mainly suited for merchants and travelers.

• • The first English books made their way to the Czech lands through Germany and France. However, direct translations from English were uncommon: translations typically came from German or French versions. One of the earliest English novels available to Czech readers was Robinson Crusoe, which was first published in Czech in 1797—nearly eighty years after the original (1719)—as an imperfect translation of J. H. Campe’s German version of Robinson. Czechs had to wait an additional hundred years before a Czech translation that matched the original appeared.

• • William Shakespeare had a similar experience. The first attempts at direct translations of his works into Czech date back to the 1840s; however, translations of a higher quality did not emerge until the latter part of the 19th century.

• • The increased popularity of English literature within the Czech context was largely thanks to philologist and translator Josef Václav Sládek, who studied in the USA and brought a richer understanding of Anglo-American culture back to Bohemia. He translated a total of thirty-three of the thirty-seven known Shakespeare plays into Czech.

• • The first department dedicated to English philology was set up at Charles University in 1912 by linguist Vilém Mathesius.

• • Today, English is prevalent throughout Czechia. Younger generations use it regularly for work, travel, in gaming, and on social media platforms. Additionally, Czech language is increasingly incorporating Anglicisms—terms like meeting, deadline and influencer plus many more are now everyday vocabulary.