Abstract
Jakub Deml is stereotypically labelled as a "Catholic poet". Therefore, his temporary involvement in the progressivist, anti-clerical Sokol ("Falcon") movement has caused, and it is still causing, an "embarrassment" for many interpreters.
The present article does not apply any normative criteria. Instead, it tries to describe the way, how does Jakub Deml realize his "ressourcement", namely: How does he combine some Christian cultural motives and symbols, which he has kept from his "pre-Sokol" period, with the "new" Sokol system of signs, values, and authoritative names.
In the next step, the role of Greek antiquity in Deml's four "Sokol" books (1923-1926) is analysed. The antiquity was crucial for the Sokol ideology, particularly for Miroslav Tyrš, the founder of Sokol, who has been celebrated by Deml in a hagiographic way.
Yet the antiquity has a surprisingly limited place in Deml' relevant texts. The list of explicit "Greek" motives appears to be quite short.
On the other hand, Deml shares with Sokol ideology certain values, considered by Sokol (as by other progressivist movements) stereotypically "Greek" and implicitly anti-clerical (but not anti-Christian): the personal freedom; the "earthliness"; the "healthy body"; the emotional relationship to a specific local community. Deml's Sokol involvement did not endure.
After few years, it ended with a dramatic break. Nonetheless, it brings an important literary testimony about the intellectual and spiritual openness of Czechoslovak society in early twenties, making such unexpected encounters possible.