Wednesday 2 July 2008

Where the Czech...? #46

Anybody know which Czech town this church is in? Bonus points if you know which two prominent Czech authors have mentioned it in their work...

9 comments:

sansIcarus said...

Where? I've got no idea. But I'm gonna say Bohumil Hrabal (because you always do) and Milan Kundera (because I feel like it).

Captain Oddsocks said...

Fair guesses with the authors, but neither is correct, I'm afraid...

jay said...

I believe it is Červený Kostelec.

One author might be Božena Němcová, but I'm not sure about the other one.

mtsvec said...

I am not sure but it does look like a church I remember seeing as I rode a bus in Bohemia. Is it a church on the site of where St. Vaclav was murdered, Stara Boleslav? That is a wild guess. Would one of the authors be Alois Jirasek?

Captain Oddsocks said...

Jay's right again this week, both about the lcoation of the church and one of the authors, Božena Němcová. Well done.

The name of the second author hasn't been mentioned yet though...

Michael said...

Škvorecký? It's in the right part of the country, anyhow.

Captain Oddsocks said...

"It was a beautiful, Christmassy night in that beautiful town of Kostelec.
I stood there in the snow like a fence-post, up to my ears in love, and the snow fell and covered me, and still there was not a soul around."
From "A winter's tale" by Josef Škvorecky.

Mara said...

I have to make a very small correction...I've just discovered this blog and I love it, and I'm still terrible at most of these Where the Czechs, but the town of Kostelec in Skvorecky's work is actually his hometown of Nachod. He describes it vividly but calls it Kostelec, presumably because of the proximity of Cerveny Kostelec.

Captain Oddsocks said...

Thanks for pointing that out, Mara.