Czechia receives rare books and publications from Czech-American communities
Czechia has received a collection of historical books and publications from Czech and Slovak emigrant communities in the United States. The collection was officially handed over at a ceremony at Černín Palace in Prague on Tuesday.
From the second half of the 19th century onwards, large numbers of Czechs and Slovaks emigrated to the United States in search of work and a better life. They established communities across the country, maintaining their own cultural and social traditions.
But preserving their printed heritage has not always been easy. Unlike Czechia, the United States has no legal deposit system requiring publishers to send copies of their publications to designated libraries and institutions.
Geographer, writer and National Geographic editor Hynek Adámek helped trace the material in the United States and visited several of the archives himself. He was struck by the sheer volume of material documenting the history of individual communities.
“It is one thing to walk into a family collection and find out that someone's grandfather kept this or that. But it is quite another to enter the archive of an entire community and see material dating back to 1905 or 1890 – the first calendars, old newspapers – and then follow the story as it unfolds through the 1930s, the 1940s and the Second World War.”
Adámek says the project is also about ensuring that these collections are not lost as the generations who preserved them gradually disappear.
“The people who kept these collections had a personal connection to them. But when that connection begins to fade, when younger generations no longer speak Czech, they see things differently. For them, it is simply history, and they may wonder what to do with it. So I am glad that, thanks to this project, some of this material is now finding its way back here.”
Among the publications are community newspapers, which offer a glimpse into the everyday lives of Czech emigrants, going well beyond major historical events.
The oldest item in the collection is an 1879 issue of the Cleveland-based weekly Dennice novověku. Another particularly remarkable publication is the first American edition of Božena Němcová’s The Grandmother, published in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1916.
The book will become part of the collection of the Museum of Czech Literature in Prague. Its director, Michal Stehlík, explains why this particular edition is so significant.
“For the Museum of Czech Literature, this is a unique item in our collection. It dates from 1916, 61 years after the first edition of The Grandmother was published in the Czech lands. By then, there was already a third generation of Czechs in the United States, and they still knew Božena Němcová, Karel Václav Rais, Vítězslav Hálek and other writers of that generation. So this is a testimony to the relationship between Czech Americans and their homeland.”
The collection was assembled with the help of American partner institutions, including universities, museums and Czech-American heritage organisations.
At the handover ceremony, US Ambassador Nicholas Merrick highlighted the contribution of Czech immigrants to American history, particularly as the country prepares to mark the 250th anniversary of its independence.
“The publications that we hand over today include newspapers, almanacs, calendars and books. And they tell the story in the immigrants' own words. They show how these communities kept their language and traditions while becoming fully American. And that really is the story of American immigration. It's both assimilation into American culture while still preserving your heritage from where you came from.”
The publications will now be distributed among several Czech institutions, including the National Museum, the National Library, the Military History Institute and the Museum of Czech Literature.
US Ambassador Nicholas Merrick hopes the collection will encourage further research and help bring more stories about Czech emigrants to light.
“These materials are not meant to sit on a shelf. They offer historians, students and institutions an opportunity to ask new questions and discover stories that are still waiting to be told.”
