Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

The Antichrist in the Czech Lands of the Early Modern Period

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2014

Abstract

The article deals with the Czech manuscript translation of one of the works of Dionysius of Luxemburg first published under the title Leben Antichristi, oder Außführliche, gründliche und historische Beschreibung von den zukünftigen Dingen der Welt in 1682 in Frankfurt am Main. Although Dionysius's Leben Antichristi was probably never published in Czech, it was apparently well received among the Czech speaking population, as at least three manuscript versions of its Czech translation and two versions of an extract from it are extant, all of them most probably dating back to the 18th century.

The article aims at providing a first, preliminary report about Leben Antichristi, its author and its Czech translation: First, it summarizes the facts known about the life of Dionysius of Luxemburg (paying attention also to his fellow brother Martin of Cochem). Then it provides a list of full titles of all his works (not available so far in any work of reference) and a list of German editions of Leben Antichristi.

It describes all the extant versions of manuscript Czech translations of the work and extracts from it originating from Czech Lands (both Czech and German). Based on partial analyses of these texts it formulates several hypotheses, namely how many distinct Czech translations of the work were created and when, whether it is possible to identify the printed edition the translator(s) used, what do we know about the translator(s) and their motivations etc.

Finally, it briefly sketches possible directions of further research.