Egon Bondy, born Zbyněk Fišer (20 January 1930 in
Prague
Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
– 9 April 2007 in
Bratislava
Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...
), was a
Czech writer, with prolific and distinctive output in
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...
ry,
prose
Prose is language that follows the natural flow or rhythm of speech, ordinary grammatical structures, or, in writing, typical conventions and formatting. Thus, prose ranges from informal speaking to formal academic writing. Prose differs most n ...
and
philosophy
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
, one of the leading personalities of the
Prague underground within
Communist Czechoslovakia. From the 1950s down to the 1980s, his non-conformism made him a target of the totalitarian regime, but he himself also collaborated with the regime's
secret police
image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression.
Secre ...
(
StB) by informing on other
dissident
A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 2 ...
s in his circle.
The scope of Bondy's works is exceptionally broad: he published about thirty books of poetry, ranging from epic poems in early 1950s to meditative philosophical works in the 1980s. He also published about twenty novels, including ''
Invalidní sourozenci'', most of them dealing with the topic of crisis in an individual vis a vis society. Despite the deep,
existential background of his work, the texts are fresh and entertaining. He himself most valued his philosophical works.
In the late 1940s, Zbyněk Fišer first took on the name Egon Bondy when preparing a 1949 anthology with his
surrealist
Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
group whose authors all adopted Jewish pseudonyms. Bondy had been the name of a number of prominent Prague Jews (as well as the name of a character in
Karel Čapek's classic ''
War with the Newts''). A radical
Marxist
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...
, he was nevertheless dismayed by the
Stalinist regime that set in after the
1948 coup in Czechoslovakia. From 1957 to 1961, he studied philosophy and
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
at
Charles University
Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...
in Prague. Thereafter he launched his serious intellectual work with the help of the philosopher
Milan Machovec, who became his lifelong friend. He was also a close friend of another famous Prague writer,
Bohumil Hrabal.
From the 1960s he was considered a key figure of the Prague underground, particularly once his texts were set to music by
The Plastic People of the Universe in the 1970s.
His works, suppressed by the 1970s and 1980s
normalization regime, were circulated only as
samizdat. After the
Velvet Revolution, in the 1990s, Bondy moved from Prague to Bratislava.
Bondy was always interested in the study of
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
and in the
criticism
Criticism is the construction of a judgement about the negative or positive qualities of someone or something. Criticism can range from impromptu comments to a written detailed response. , ''the act of giving your opinion or judgment about the ...
of both contemporary
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
and
state socialism. At times he took interest in
Trotskyism
Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...
and
Maoism
Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic o ...
for the same reasons. His philosophical work concerns
ontological
Ontology is the philosophical study of being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of reality and every ...
and related
ethical problems. He attempts to show the relevance of ontology without any substance or grounding. Aside from Marxism and other
non-essentialist currents of
modern European philosophy, his notable sources for this line of thinking included
Buddhist
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
and
Daoist philosophy. He was one of few original 20th century European philosophers to systematically study
non-European philosophies, dedicating much of his multi-volume
history of philosophy
The history of philosophy is the systematic study of the development of philosophical thought. It focuses on philosophy as rational inquiry based on argumentation, but some theorists also include myth, religious traditions, and proverbial lor ...
(which has been criticized by academic authors as giving a highly personal perspective) to
Indian,
Chinese and
Islamicate philosophies. Milan Machovec praised his ''Consolation of Ontology'' (1968) as a landmark philosophical work, and his son later became the editor of Bondy's works.
See also
*
List of Czech writers
References
External links
We are again at the very beginning- An interview with Egon Bondy published in the Slovak weekly Slovo and daily Blisty in 2003
in the New York Times by Douglas Martin, published 15 April 2007
Obituaryin The Independent (UK) by
Marcus Williamson, published 17 April 2007
Obituaryin The Times (UK), published 18 April 2007
in The Guardian (UK) by
Ken Hunt, published 20 April 2007
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bondy, Egon
1930 births
2007 deaths
Czech male poets
Czech male dramatists and playwrights
Marxist theorists
Marxist humanists
Charles University alumni
20th-century Czech philosophers
People of the Velvet Revolution
StB
20th-century Czech poets
20th-century Czech dramatists and playwrights