Martin, what does this one hundredth anniversary imply to you?
Picture: Juan Pablo Bertazza, Radio Prague Int.
“, it’s a bit of humorous. Having the identify Kafka has all the time been one thing regular for me. However after I was a baby, earlier than 1989, underneath the communist regime, Franz Kafka was not a very talked-about writer. So, sure, individuals knew Kafka’s identify, however in school, he was an writer we did not speak about. It was solely after I went overseas to pursue my rugby profession (first in Spain, then later in France and Japan), with fixed media curiosity, that I spotted realized that Kafka was rather more well-known in different nations in Europe than within the Czech Republic. It was even a bit of unusual. Lastly, that is how I spotted that I used to be actually linked to a reference in world literature. »
What’s your actual connection to Franz Kafka?
“Properly, it’s not a direct hyperlink, since Franz was my great-grandfather’s cousin. However I even have the identical identify, which additionally typically makes my mom say that I’m sadly very Kafkaesque in my mind-set. »
What does this imply in apply?
Martin Kafka|Picture: Guillaume Narguet, Radio Prague Int.
“I always query myself and always doubt, not a lot about others as about myself. I additionally really feel a bit of overseas in my very own nation, as if misunderstood. I’ve a barely totally different mindset from others. I really feel like I am all the time beginning one thing once more in my life. It is not often one thing I proceed to do, however fairly normally one thing new. »
“What additionally appears very Kafkaesque to me is the truth that I don’t commit myself to the issues that I believe I do know or that I’ve realized or studied. Life has all the time pushed me to do issues that I haven’t got time for however that I nonetheless must do whereas managing to make sure that, a method or one other, they get accomplished on time. absolute best. »
Are you the one one in your loved ones to have this “Kafkaesque” nature?
“Sure, fortunately I’m the one one! My two sisters are ‘regular’, if I can put it like that. Consider me, it is tough to stay with this way of thinking, to all the time torture your head…”
Though the character is omnipresent in Prague right this moment, notably to draw vacationers, Franz Kafka was a German-speaking Jewish writer, which explains the sure distance with which Czechs view him. What about you? Is his life and work one thing that’s handed down within the household?
Picture: Martina Kutková, Radio Prague Int.
” That is my story. He’s my ancestor and my mind-set is linked to his, if I stick with what my dad and mom say. After I lived overseas, I had three phrases to introduce myself: Prague, Václav Havel and Kafka. However in Czechia, I do not suppose Kafka is as well-known. After I performed in Spain, all of the media approached me due to my final identify. Apart from, it was humorous typically as a result of some journalists requested me if I had already spoken with him… I then answered them by asking them if that they had any concept when he died. »
“However hey, earlier than telling me about my rugby profession, the primary query all the time involved this identify Kafka. Not less than it made me absolutely conscious of the greatness of the character. In Czechia, the picture of Franz Kafka suffered, I believe, from forty years of communism. His work, in any case, was not taught in class. In Czechia, after I say my identify is Kafka, nobody ever makes the reference to the author. Right here I’m simply Kafka. »
Is it a typical identify in Czechia?
“Not a lot, though I’ve already met two or three individuals who had that identify however had no reference to our household or with Franz Kafka. However the identify will also be written with a “v”, which then offers ‘Kavka’ – just like the chook, the jackdaw in French. Traditionally, we additionally had this identify Kavka. It’s historical past and a clerical error that needed this identify to grow to be Kafka. All this to say that even when it’s not a quite common identify, Kafka or Kavka, we discover them. »
Many cultural occasions are organized for the centenary. Does this make you extra concerned about your ancestor?
Franz Kafka on the Svět knihy honest (The Ebook Honest)|Picture: Juan Pablo Bertazza, Radio Prague Int.
“I do not suppose, for the easy cause, once more, that I’ve all the time been a Kafka. So, this birthday would not change a lot for me. However I am going to let you know an anecdote: a while in the past, I spoke with my father who will need to have learn virtually each e-book on the earth (sic). I instructed him about my emotions of lastly feeling mature sufficient to delve right into a deep studying of Kafka. After I was youthful, I all the time refused to learn him simply because I used to be named after him. However right this moment, I really feel able to attempt to perceive what he meant, even when, in the end, understanding Franz Kafka shouldn’t be too tough for me, since it’s as if I needed to perceive myself. And my father instructed me that, sure, he advisable studying it, however that I additionally needed to know that I most likely would not end the e-book. So that is the place I’m…”
‘A rustic physician’|Picture: Vitalis
“At house, I’ve a number of books, together with the brief story ‘A Nation Physician’ that I may begin with. It is in Italian, as a result of I try via studying to take care of the extent of language that I reached due to rugby. So I may learn Kafka in Italian. »
The story of your loved ones can also be the extraordinary story of your grandfather and grandmother…
” My grandfather [Erich Kafka], who was a German Jew, was initially an excellent soccer participant. He even performed twice for the German nationwide workforce. In Prague, he defended the colours of DFC Prag (based in 1896 by college students from the German Jewish neighborhood of Prague and Charles College, the Deutscher Fussball Membership was one of many nice golf equipment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after which of Czechoslovakia between the wars, earlier than disappearing on the finish of the struggle in 1945). »
DFC Prague within the Nineteen Thirties|Picture: DFC: Legenda se looseí
“Sadly, his story is not only that of an athlete. What adopted was rather more tragic. He had began his first household earlier than the Second World Conflict, which he misplaced due to the Nazis. Then he was arrested twice and transported to the camps. Every time he managed to flee, then he went to Buzuluk, Russia, the place a Czechoslovak navy unit was positioned (that is the place the First Impartial Czechoslovak Military Corps, with the inexperienced gentle of the Soviet authorities, was organized, from 1942, underneath the command of Colonel Ludvík Svoboda, later president of Czechoslovakia between 1968 and 1975). He joined the parachute brigade there. From there, I do know that he then handed via Siberia, that he participated within the preventing on the Battle of the Dukla Cross in Slovakia, and that’s additionally the place he met my grandmother. -mother… “
The Battle of Dukla|Picture: VHÚ Praha
“All of this led to his being awarded the Czechoslovak Conflict Cross, but in addition resulted in my father being born after the struggle. I believe that we can not even think about every little thing that this technology has skilled and that’s the reason I’m, right this moment, very delicate to all totalitarian regimes. I’d even say that I’m anti-Russian or anti-Chinese language, however Spain having grow to be my second homeland, I additionally hate, for instance, the Franco regime. I may additionally let you know about Nicolás Maduro’s Chile or Venezuela, it would not matter. Even when every little thing shouldn’t be excellent, I’ll all the time be on the aspect of democratic Europe, and I’m all of the extra so since my mom’s aspect of the household additionally suffered quite a bit from the communist regime with stays in jail. which harmed the well being of a few of its members. So, sure, I’m significantly allergic to pro-Russian or pro-Chinese language speeches. »
Continuation of the interview in our present on Tuesday June 4.
