Cultural and educational activities of Czech a Polish intellectuals in the refugee committees in Prague during the First World War
Abstract
This paper deals with the charitable and educational activities of intellectuals involved in Galician refugee committees and charitable associations in Prague in the time of the Great War. These institutions were founded to provide the care and deal of assistance in the social, cultural, health needs for war refugees and displaced persons from Galicia and Bukowina in the towns of the interior of Austria-Hungary.
In Prague there were about 12 committees supporting refugees from eastern locations and some of them were managed by Polish and Czech academics, artists, lawyers and clerics, e. g. Czech bookseller and translator František Hovorka in Česko-polský sekretariát, Polish artist Jozef Mecina-Krzesz and prof.
Tadeusz Grabowski in Komitet Uchodźców Galicyjskich or Klemens Dąbrowski from abbey Emaus in Prague and the others. One of the aims of this contribution is also to describe their charitable effort by means of the taking place of the cultural events (art exhibitions in Municipal House and theatre plays) as well as the carrying out their educational activities.
In this point of view I would like to enrich the knowledge in the field of temporary stay of the Galician refugees in Bohemia and to give insight to the main events related to the war time in lives of František Hovorka on the Czech side and Józef Męcina-Krzesz on the Polish side.