Egon Erwin Kisch - Prague, Czech Republic - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

The grave of one of Prague’s best known German-language authors, Egon Erwin Kisch, can be found just of a few meters from the northwest gate of the second largest cemetery in Prague- the Vinohrady Cemetery. On top of the white marble obelisque there is a bronze bust of smiling Egon Erwin Kisch with a cigar in his mouth.

Egon Erwin Kisch (April 29, 1885 – March 31, 1948) was an Austrian and Czechoslovak writer and journalist, who wrote in German. He styled himself Der Rasende Reporter (The Raging Reporter) for his countless travels to the far corners of the globe and his equally numerous articles produced in a relatively short time (Hetzjagd durch die Zeit, 1925), Kisch was noted for his development of literary reportage and his opposition to Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.

Born in Prague on April 29, 1885, Egon Erwin Kisch grew up in a German-speaking middle-class Jewish family. After studies at the city’s German university, and after a brief stint at a local newspaper, he went to study journalism in Berlin. When he returned to Prague, he joined a liberal German-language paper, Bohemia.

The book, Abenteuer in Prag, or Adventures in Prague, came out in Leipzig in 1916 when Kisch was already fighting for the Kaiser on the battlefields of the First World War. When it ended, their old country was gone, replaced by the newly-established Czechoslovakia. Germans were no longer the dominant community in Bohemia and Moravia, and many writers, including Franz Werfel and Rainer Maria Rilke, did not identify themselves with the new country. Viera Glosíková again.

In the mid 1920s Egon Erwin Kisch moved to Berlin, where he worked for local papers and was also the German correspondent for the Czech daily, Lidové noviny. By then, he was a well-known communist, and when the Nazis took over in 1933, he was arrested in connection with the fire of the German Parliament building. He was only released after Prague intervened, and moved to Paris after that. In the 1920s and 30s, Kisch toured many parts of the world, including the Soviet Union, China and Australia. There the authorities would not allow him to enter the country because of his communist views, and he famously jumped off the ship onto the pier, breaking his leg. He described his experiences in another of his books, Landfall in Australia. Kisch joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia shortly after it was established in 1922. Although he defied the authorities and manifested no ideological tendencies in his writing, he failed to reflect the truth about the Soviet Union which he visited in the 1920s. Some Czech communist intellectuals showed less loyalty to Russia’s communist regime, most notably Jirí Weil, who was even expelled from the party over one of his Russian-themed novels. Viera Glosíková says Kisch’s motivation for not reflecting the reality of communism was a mystery even to his friends.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, Kisch escaped to the United States, but his reputation as a communist made his life difficult once again. After some 9 months of internment at Ellis Island, he eventually arrived in Mexico, where he stayed until the end of the war.

Egon Erwin Kisch returned to Prague in 1946, but was already ill, and died two years later, just weeks after the communists took over. The new regime highlighted his socially-minded reporting, and until the re-discovery of Franz Kafka in the 1960s, Kisch was the most popular and best known of all the German language Prague writers.

One of Kisch’s most famous ‘reportages’ describes his quest of the Golem of Prague. He was the first to enter the attic of the Old New Synagogue in search of the mythical creature, and although he didn’t find the clay monster, Kisch’s stories have become part of the same extinct world as the Golem itself.

Cited from https://www.radio.cz/en/section/czechs/egon-erwin-kisch-the-raging-reporter-1

Description: See long description above. Egon Erwin Kisch (1885 – 1948), Jewish German writer and journalist born and died in Prague. Date of birth: 04/29/1885 Date of death: 03/31/1948 Area of notoriety: Literature Marker Type: Statue Setting: Outdoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: 08:00 - 19:00 Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log   09/04/2022 marky-cz visited it