Pavel Eisner (16 January 1889 – 8 July 1958), also known as Paul Eisner and under the pseudonym Vincy Schwarze, was Czech linguist and translator and the author of many studies about Czech language. He is considered one of the most important Czech translators of all time and was said to be proficient in 12 languages - English, French, Icelandic, Italian, Hungarian, German, Norwegian, Persian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, and Tibetan. He produced some of the earliest Czech language translations of

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...

's work.

Biography

Eisner came from a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

family in Prague. He was bilingual from his childhood. He studied Slavonic,

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

, and

Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

at Prague's

German Charles-Ferdinand 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 ...

, and graduated in 1918. He worked as a translator for the Czech Chamber of Commerce and Crafts and, at the same time, edited for the German-language newspaper, ''

Prager Presse The ''Prager Presse'' (Prague press) was a German newspaper published in the First Czechoslovak Republic, Czechoslovak Republic from March 1921 to 1939. History The newspaper Prager Presse was founded by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk with the aim of ...

''. During this time, he also contributed to several cultural magazines. Since 1936 he was a member of

Prague linguistic circle The Prague school or Prague linguistic circle is a language and literature society. It started in 1926 as a group of linguists, philologists and literary critics in Prague. Its proponents developed methods of structuralist literary analysis and ...

. During the German occupation he was persecuted as a Jew, but survived because he was married to a non-Jewish German woman. He managed to publish a book under his pseudonym Vincy Schwarze.

Works

* ''Chrám i tvrz'' (1946) * ''Čeština poklepem a poslechem'' (1948) * ''Malované děti'' (1949) * ''Franz Kafka and Prague'' (1950

* ''Rady Čechům jak se hravě přiučiti češtině'' (1992)

External links

Pavel Eisner in The Dictionary of Czech Literature after 1945
in Czech

in Czech {{DEFAULTSORT:Eisner, Pavel 1889 births 1958 deaths Writers from Prague Jews from Bohemia Czech Jews Converts to Protestantism from Judaism Czech Protestants English–Czech translators French–Czech translators German–Czech translators Czech male poets Linguists from Czechoslovakia 20th-century Czech poets 20th-century Czech translators 20th-century Czech male writers