Authors

Discussion

How did Janáček become Janáček? More precisely: How come that Janáček, a talented, but unknown inmate of the Old Brno monastery, became the Janáček, a leading figure of the Czech culture in Moravia? The present paper seeks an answer to this question primarily with regard to the reception of Janáček’s activities in the period 1872–1888. The combination of knowledge and methods of music and cultural history, literary theory, and anthropology makes it possible to observe the young Janáček not only as an object of different narratives, “language games”, practices and performances, but also as their actor.

Many years before he became recognised as the founder of the Czech-Moravian national opera (1894), and long before the successful performance of Jenufa in Prague (1916) and Vienna (1918) strengthened his position in the canon of Czech music and established his lasting international reputation, Janáček presented himself as a composer, organist, church musician, music critic, and, first and foremost, as a choirmaster and conductor. Except for Helfert, earlier musicologists have been so anxious to comment on Janáček’s later works and to tell the story about “the unrecognized genius”, that they have not paid much attention to the reception of his early activities. And, therefore, they have not realized that Janáček came to be the Janáček – the recognized genius – when he was barely thirty years old.

In the present paper, the problematics is explained primarily with regard to the emancipation efforts of the Czech nation and to the Czech-German relations in the 19th-century Brno. The paper thus also offers a new perspective on the phenomenon of National Revival in Moravia.