Vítezslav Nezval - Dalešice, Czech Republic - Dead Poets' Society Memorials on Waymarking.com

Vítezslav Nezval was a member of the avant-garde group of artists Devetsil (literally "nine forces", the Czech name of the Butterbur plant but to a Czech-speaker an obvious reference to the nine founding members of the group). Devetsil members were the most prolific Czech artists of their generation. In 1922, the Devetsil group included, but was not limited to, Vítezslav Nezval, Jindrich Štyrský, Jaroslav Seifert, Karel Teige, and Toyen (Marie Cerminová). Also associated with the group was the later founder of the Prague Linguistic School, Roman Jakobson. Like the proletarian group before it, Devetsil looked to France for inspiration for their avant-garde literature and their Marxist political ideology originating from Russia. Though the Czechoslovakian state was newly formed after World War I, the younger generation felt there was still room for improvement and that a radical solution was necessary to gain true liberation. Most of these intellectuals had a zest for revolution and professed their allegiance to Lenin. Though their philosopher-president, Thomas Masaryk, gave them the first real socially-minded democracy, Nezval and others in his group did not accept this regime as representative of their beliefs and goals. In their writings they expressed their preference for the Marxist-internationalist consciousness of class solidarity.

The first manifesto of Devetsil urged young, progressive artists to look deeper into ordinary objects for poetic quality. Skyscrapers, airplanes, mime and poster lettering were the new arts.

Nezval was also a founding figure of Poetism, a direction within Devetsil primarily theorized by Karel Teige. His output consists of a number of poetry collections, experimental plays and novels, memoirs, essays, and translations. Along with Karel Teige, Jindrich Štyrský, and Toyen, Nezval frequently traveled to Paris where he rubbed shoulders with the French surrealists. His close friendship with André Breton and Paul Éluard was instrumental in founding The Surrealist Group of Czechoslovakia in 1934. It was one of the first surrealist groups outside France, and Nezval served as the editor of its journal Surrealismus.

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In front of the primary school building, a monument to the poet Vítezslav Nezval from 1975 by Jan Simota is located in a small park. Nezval's father worked at the local school as a head teacher and the poet himself, as a student, went to the village to visit his parents.

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