Milan Kundera essays. Milan Kundera - biography, facts from life, photos. Kundera, Milan: "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

The writer Milan Kundera was born on April 1, 1929 in the city of Brno in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). He is a novelist, novelist, playwright, essayist and poet whose works combine erotic comedy with political criticism and philosophical reflection.

The writer's father is a pianist and musicologist, Ludwik Kundera (1891-1971). He also served as Rector of the University of Brno. In his youth, Milan Kundera studied music, but gradually began to show an interest in writing lyrics. Milan wrote his first poems in high school. After World War II, the future writer worked as a merchant and jazz musician, even before starting his studies at Prague Charles University, where he studied musicology, cinema, literature and aesthetics. Further, in 1952 he began teaching literature at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in Prague. Kundera became first an assistant and then a professor at the film faculty at this educational institution. He lectured on world literature. During this time, he published poems, essays and plays, and also established himself in the editors of several literary magazines. The future writer published several collections of poems, including "The Last May" (1955), "Monologues" (1957). A large number of love poems, due to their ironic tone and note of eroticism, were later condemned by the Czech political authorities.

Early in his career, he joined the Communist Party several times. Kundera did this for the first time in 1948, being as enthusiastic as many intellectuals of the time. He was later expelled from the party in 1950 and re-admitted in 1956. The writer remained a member of the party until 1970. In the 1950s, Kundera worked as a translator, publicist and playwriter. In 1953 he published his first book. He wrote several volumes of short stories and a highly successful one-act play (The Owner of the Keys, 1962). This was followed by his first novel and one of his greatest works ("Joke", 1967). Kundera's works are permeated with comedy, an ironic look at the private life and fate of Czechs during the years of Stalinism. His texts have been translated into several languages, and the author himself has achieved great international recognition.

His second novel, Life Is Not Here (1969), describes the story of a romantic-minded hero who is completely gripped by the 1948 communist coup. The book was banned in the Czech Republic. Kundera took part in the liberalization of Czechoslovakia in 1967-68 (Prague Spring). After the Soviet occupation of the country, he refused to admit his political mistakes and, consequently, was attacked by the authorities, who banned all his works and ousted him from the Communist Party.

In 1975, Kundera was allowed to emigrate with his wife Vera Hrabankova from Czechoslovakia to teach at the University of Rennes (1975-78) in France. In 1979, the government of Czechoslovakia revoked his citizenship. In the 1970s and 80s, the bulk of his novels, including Farewell Waltz (1976), The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979) and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) have been published in France and other countries. Until 1989, these works were banned in his homeland. One of his most successful works, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is a series of ironic, witty stories that ridicule the tendency of the modern state to deny and erase human memory and historical truth. The novel Immortality (1990) explores the nature of artistic creation. Kundera begins to write in French, after which the novels appear: "Slowness" (1994), "Authenticity" (1997). Also Kundera writes the work "Ignorance" (2000). This is a story about Czech emigrants, written in French. It was first published in Spanish. It becomes obvious that Kundera gets inspiration from the works of such Renaissance writers as: Boccaccio, Rabelais, Stern, Diderot.

In his novels, Milan Kundera (born 1929) seeks to find an answer to the question: What is the nature of existence?

Milan Kundera proved to be one of the most significant and talented novelists to emerge from the agony of the old communist regimes in Eastern Europe. However, his novels are not political treatises, but attempts to reveal the meaning of the existential problems facing humanity.

Mother - Milada Kundera (nee Milada Janiskova). Father - Ludvik Kundera (1891-1971) - once a student of the composer Leos Janacek; famous Czech musician and pianist; from 1948 to 1961 - head of the Janáček Music Academy in Brno.

The father taught his son to play the piano. Later, Milan studied musicology and composition under the guidance of Paul Haas and Vaclav Kapral. The influence of music is felt in all subsequent literary works of Kundera.
In 1948 he finished secondary school in Brno. As a teenager, Kundera joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

In 1950 Milan Kundera and another writer, Jan Trefulka, were expelled from the Czechoslovak Communist Party "for anti-party activities." Trefulka described these events in the novel Happiness Rained On Them (1962). Kundera also addressed these events, based on his novel The Joke (Žert, 1967).
In 1956 he was reinstated in the party (he was expelled again in 1970).

In 1956, Kundera entered the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague (Charles University, Faculty of Arts), studied literature and aesthetics.
After the second year, in 1958, he transferred to the Prague Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts at the Faculty of Cinematography, where he attended lectures for directors and screenwriters.
After completing his studies, Kundera began teaching world literature at the Faculty of Cinematography, remaining in this position until 1969.

Starting as a poet, from 1953 to 1965, Kundera published three collections of poems: "Man - an immense garden" (Člověk zahrada širá) (1953); "Last May" (Poslední máj) (1961) - in memory of Julius Fučík; "Monologues" (Monology) (1965)
Later he began to write novels - works in this genre brought fame to Kundera.

September 30, 1967 married Vera Hrabankova, with whom he still lives.

In 1967, Kundera's first novel, The Joke (Žert), was published, in which the author exposed the vicissitudes of life in a world devoid of humor.
Together with other reformist and communist writers such as Pavel Kohout, Kundera participated in the events of the 1968 Prague Spring. During this period of cultural reforms, writers and other creative people gained freedom that they did not have under the communist regime.
Kundera remained loyal to the ideas of the reforms of the communist movement and passionately argued in the press with Václav Havel, arguing that one should remain calm, that “no one has ever been imprisoned for expressing his opinion,” and that “the significance of the Prague Autumn may eventually become more majestic than the significance of the Prague Spring ”. (True, in the end, Kundera had to abandon his reformist hopes; in 1975 he emigrated to France).

In 1969, Směšné lásky was written. 1972 - “Farewell Waltz” (Valčík na Razloučenou).

The thaw period was short-lived (and ended with the occupation of Prague by Soviet tanks). Kundera found himself in the same position as many of the leaders of the reform movement. His books disappeared from the shelves of libraries and bookstores, he lost his job at the academy, and then the right to write and publish in his native country.

The first two novels of Kundera were published abroad in translation, but in fact he remained a writer without readers. At first he was not allowed to travel to the West, but eventually Kundera was able to take up a teaching position in France.

In 1974, when the writer was in Rennes, France, the Czechoslovak authorities revoked his citizenship, forcing Kundera into exile.
From 1975 to 1979 he was Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Rennes (Université de Rennes).
In 1980 he became a professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris.
In 1981, Kundera became a French citizen.

In 1974, the novel Life Is Not Here (Život je jinde) was published in the United States, the first work of Kundera, written after his expulsion from his native country. The book tells the story of revolutionary romanticism and lyric poetry in general, and, among other things, examines the inconstancy of the marriage of two people.

The next book was also published in the United States, in 1976, and was called Farewell Waltz (Valčík na Razloučenou, written 1973). It satirically depicts a state sanatorium for women with fertility problems and raises serious ethical issues.

In 1980, the United States published the "Book of Laughter and Forgetting" (Kniha smíchu a zapomnění, written in 1978), and in 1981 its second edition, supplemented by Philip Roth, was published. The novel demonstrates the need for memory to overcome oblivion for the sake of personal self-preservation.

In 1984, Milan Kundera's most famous novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí), appeared. The book scrutinizes the greatest existential problems that a person faces: love, death, transcendence, the sense of continuity or "heaviness" that memory gives, and the opposite feeling of "lightness" that forgetfulness gives. In 1988, the novel was filmed.

The next novel, called Immortality (Nesmrtelnost, 1990), was released in 1991 in England. In addition to the theme stated in the title, the book deals with the era of romance, ideology, the cult of the image and selfish individualism.
La Lenteur (1993), published in 1994, raises much of the same questions.

Initially, Kundera wrote in Czech, and since 1993 he has been writing books in French. Between 1985 and 1987, the writer revised translations of his early works into French. As a result, all of Kundera's books exist in French as originals.

In 1998 he wrote the novel "Authenticity" (L "Identité), in 2000 -" Ignorance "(L" Ignorance).

In addition to the novels, in the late 1980s, one of Kundera's most important works appeared, the collection of essays "The Art of the Novel" (L "art du Roman, 1986). Published in 1988, the book outlines the writer's views on the theory of the novel. True to the nature of his own novels, the author compiled a book of three short essays, two interviews, a list of 63 words and their definitions, and a speech text.

The unity of Kundera's novel does not exist within a predetermined set of rules. To connect parts of his novels, he uses one common theme, as well as a structure based on musical polyphony. As in musical composition, the length and organization of chapters, subsections and sections are used to create a mood and a sense of time. Instead of the linear structure of the stories of characters or their groups, Kundera sometimes lumps together stories that initially appear to be unrelated to common themes and existential situations.

In The Art of the Novel, Kundera explains the inextricable link between the history of the novel and the history of European culture. Starting with Cervantes and analyzing the works of authors such as Richardson, Balzac, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Proust, Joyce, Mann and Kafka, he traces the path of existential experience. This path begins in the world of unlimited potential, moves to the beginning of history - through the reduction of the possibilities of the external world, the search for infinity in the human soul, the futility of this search, - ending up in a sphere where history is considered a monster, unable to offer anything useful.

Kundera considers himself a writer without a message, without a so-called "message". For example, in The Art of the Novel, composed of essays he wrote, Kundera recalls an episode in which a Scandinavian publisher wondered if the Goodbye Waltz was worth publishing because of its explicit anti-abortion message. Kundera explains that the publisher was not only mistaken about the existence of such a message, but that “... I was pleased with this misunderstanding. I have done well as a novelist. I managed to create a moral ambiguity in the situation. I have kept faith in the essence of the novel as an art: in irony. And irony doesn't give a damn about any messages! "

Kundera enjoys musical digressions, analyzing Czech folk music, quoting Leoš Janáček and Bartók. Going further, he inserts musical passages into the lyrics (for example, in "The Joke"), discusses Schoenberg and atonality.

In 1995, Will and Testaments Broken (Les testaments trahis, 1992), a book-sized essay on literary criticism, were published. The publication is structured in the manner of Nietzsche's books - each of the nine chapters is divided into small subsections. A major recurring theme rests on Kundera's firm conviction that the rights of writers and other creators must be protected; and that editors, publishers and executors have a duty to respect their intentions and aspirations.

The contribution of Milan Kundera is important both as a writer exploring the nature of existence and as a historian and critic of the novel.

Translation - E. Kuzmina © When using my translations, a link to the site is required

Milan Kundera is a Czech writer who has lived in France since 1975.

Milan's father was a pianist, musicologist, rector of the University of Brno. His cousin is the writer and translator Ludwik Kundera. While in high school, Milan wrote the first poems. After World War II, he worked as a handyman and jazz musician.

Milan graduated from high school in 1948. He began his studies at the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University (Prague), studied musicology, cinema, literature and aesthetics there, after two semesters he transferred to the film faculty of the Prague Academy.

In 1950 he interrupted his studies for political reasons, but nevertheless graduated from it in 1952. He worked as an assistant and later as a professor at the Academy at the Faculty of Cinema, taught world literature. At the same time, he joined the editorial boards of the literary journals Literarni noviny and Listy.

He was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1950. In 1950 he was expelled for "anti-party activities and individualistic tendencies." From 1956 to 1970 he was again in the CPC.

In 1953 he published his first book. Until the mid-50s, he was engaged in translations, essays, and drama. He became famous after the release of a collection of poems and the release of 3 parts of the cycle of short stories "Funny Love", written and published from 1958 to 1968.

His first novel, The Joke (1967), deals with the situation of the Czech intelligentsia in the conditions of Soviet reality. In the same year, Kundera took part in the IV Congress of the Writers' Union of Czechoslovakia, where for the first time open calls were made for the democratization of the country's social and political life and which began the processes that led to the Prague Spring.

After the introduction of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Kundera took part in a number of demonstrations and protest meetings, for which he was deprived of the opportunity to teach. His books were removed from all libraries in Czechoslovakia. In 1970, on charges of complicity in revolutionary events, he was again expelled from the party, he was forbidden to publish.

In 1970, Kundera finished his second novel Life Is Not Here, in a grotesque-surrealistic form telling about the crisis of personality and creative degradation of the poet under the conditions of the formation of socialist Czechoslovakia. The protagonist of the novel, the young poet Jaromil, evolves from surrealism in the spirit of André Breton to socialist realism. The novel was published in 1973 in Paris.

The third novel by the writer - "Farewell Waltz" (1971) - an elegant story about the stay of several heroes in a resort town. This is Kundera's first novel to focus primarily on sexual themes.

In 1975, Kundera was invited to work as a professor at the University of Rennes (Brittany region, France).

Kundera's fourth novel The Book of Laughter and Oblivion (1978) is essentially a cycle of several stories and essays united by common characters (Tamina, Kundera himself), themes and images (laughter, angels, Prague). For this book in 1979, the Czechoslovak government deprived the writer of his citizenship.

Since 1981, Kundera has been a French citizen. The novel "Immortality" (1990) is the last one he wrote in Czech.

Since the early 1990s, Kundera has been writing in French. Three French novels - Slowness (1993), Authenticity (1998), Ignorance (2000) - are more miniature, chamber than his Czech novels.

contemporary French prose writer of Czech origin

short biography

Milan Kundera(Czech Milan Kundera; b. April 1, 1929, Brno, Czechoslovakia) is a modern French prose writer of Czech origin, since 1975 has lived in France. She writes in both Czech and French.

Milan graduated from high school in 1948. He began his studies at the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University (Prague), where he studied musicology, cinema, literature and aesthetics, after two semesters he transferred to the film faculty of the Prague Academy of Music.

In 1950 he interrupted his studies for political reasons, but still graduated in 1952. He worked as an assistant and later as a professor at the Academy at the Faculty of Cinema, taught world literature. At the same time, he joined the editorial boards of the literary magazines Literární noviny and Listy.

He was in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1950. In 1950 he was expelled from the CPC for "anti-party activities and individualistic tendencies." From 1956 to 1970 he was again in the CPC.

His first novel, The Joke (1967), deals with the situation of the Czech intelligentsia in the conditions of Soviet reality. In the same year, Kundera took part in the IV Congress of the Writers' Union of Czechoslovakia, where for the first time there were open calls for the democratization of the country's social and political life and which began the processes that led to the "Prague Spring".

After the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops in August 1968, Kundera took part in a number of demonstrations and protest meetings, for which he was deprived of the opportunity to teach. His books were removed from all libraries in Czechoslovakia.

In 1970, on charges of complicity in revolutionary events, he was again expelled from the party, he was forbidden to publish.

In 1970, Kundera finished his second novel Life Is Not Here, in a grotesque-surrealistic form, telling about the crisis of personality and creative degradation of the poet under the conditions of the formation of socialist Czechoslovakia. The protagonist of the novel, the young poet Jaromil, evolves from surrealism in the spirit of A. Breton to socialist realism. The novel was published in 1973 in Paris.

The third novel by the writer - "Farewell Waltz" (1971) - an elegant story about the stay of several heroes in a resort town. This is Kundera's first novel to focus primarily on intimate, sexual themes.

In 1975, Kundera was invited to professor at the University of Rennes (Brittany region, France).

Since 1981, Kundera has been a French citizen. The novel "Immortality" (1990) is the last one he wrote in Czech.

Since the early 1990s, Kundera has been writing in French. Three French novels - Slowness (1993), Authenticity (1998), Ignorance (2000) - are more miniature, chamber than his Czech novels.

In October 2008, Adam Gradilek, an employee of the Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, published an article in the weekly Respekt that Kundera reported to the police in 1950 about Miroslav Dvořáček, who first fled to Germany and then secretly returned to Czechoslovakia as an agent of the American intelligence. Dvořák was sentenced to 22 years of imprisonment, of which he served 14. After the publication, Kundera said: “I am simply shocked by this whole story, about which I know nothing and which did not exist at all. The person in question is completely unknown to me. It's a lie". Allegations that the writer was an informer have sparked heated debate in the Czech Republic, where Kundera is considered a national hero. In November of the same year, well-known literary men wrote an open letter in support of Kundera: they condemned the media for disseminating information that, in their opinion, was dubious and, upon careful reading, turned out to be devoid of any evidence. Among the authors of the letter were Nobel laureates Gabriel García Márquez, J. M. Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk, Nadine Gordimer, as well as Salman Rushdie, Philip Roth, Jorge Semprun and others.

In 2009, Kundera was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of his hometown of Brno.

He currently lives in Paris and considers France his only homeland. Occasionally, Kundera travels to the Czech Republic to meet old friends, but he always does so incognito. Since the 1980s, he has categorically refused to communicate with the media and lead a closed lifestyle.

Bibliography

Novels

"Joke"(Czech Žert, 1967)
"Life is not here"(Czech Život je jinde, 1969)
"Farewell Waltz"(Czech Valčík na rozloučenou, 1972)
"The Book of Laughter and Oblivion"(Czech Kniha smíchu a zapomnění, 1978)
"The Unbearable Lightness of Being"(Czech Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí, 1984)
"Immortality"(Czech Nesmrtelnost, 1990)
"Slowness"(fr. La Lenteur, 1995)
"Authenticity"(fr. L'Identité, 1998)
"Ignorance"(French L'Ignorance, 2000)
"Triumph of insignificance"(fr. La Fête de l'insignifiance, 2014)

Novels

"Funny love"(Czech Směšné lásky, 1969)

Plays

"Key owner"(Czech Majitelé klíčů, 1962)
"Miss"(Czech Ptákovina, 1966)
"Two gossips, two weddings"(Czech Dvě uši, dvě svatby, 1968)
"Jacques and His Master"(Czech Jakub a jeho pán: Pocta Denisu Diderotovi, 1971)

Poetry

"Man is an immense garden"(Czech Člověk, zahrada širá, 1953)
"Last May"(Czech Poslední máj, 1954 - 1955 - 1961)
"Monologues"(Czech Monology, 1957 - 1964 - 1965)

Essay

About hereditary disputes(Czech O sporech dědických, 1955)
The art of the novel: Vladislav Vanchura's path to the great epic(Czech Umění románu: Cesta Vladislava Vančury za velkou epikou, 1960)
Czech agreement(Czech Český úděl, 1968)
Radicalism and exhibitionism(Czech Radikalizmus a expozice, 1969)
The Stolen West, or the Tragedy of Central Europe(Czech Únos západu aneb Tragédie střední Evropy, 1983)
The art of the novel(fr. L "art du roman, 1986)
Broken wills(fr. Les testaments trahis, 1993)
Curtain(fr. Le rideau, 2005)
Meeting(fr. Une rencontre, 2009)

Performances

In 1963, the play "Turn of the Key" was staged based on his play at the Riga Youth Theater.

Categories:

Milan Kundera is a Czech writer who has lived in France since 1975.

The third novel by the writer - "Farewell Waltz" (1971) - an elegant story about the stay of several heroes in a resort town. This is Kundera's first novel to focus primarily on sexual themes.

In 1975, Kundera was invited to work as a professor at the University of Rennes (Brittany region, France).

Since 1981, Kundera has been a French citizen. The novel "Immortality" (1990) is the last one he wrote in Czech.

Since the early 1990s, Kundera has been writing in French. Three French novels - Slowness (1993), Authenticity (1998), Ignorance (2000) - are more miniature, chamber than his Czech novels.