Ondřej Pilný: I’m planning to learn Irish properly the third time around
Ondřej Pilný is a professor of English and American literatures at Prague’s Charles University, where he also heads the Centre for Irish Studies. As he explains in our interview, his career path was greatly shaped by a series of coincidences that led him to Dublin in his student days. Pilný also discusses literary links between Czechia and Ireland – and says low pay prevents him and his colleagues from doing valuable work in their field.
You’re the director of the Centre for Irish Studies at Charles University. When and why was that set up?
“It’s a long story. The first courses started at the English Department at Charles sometime in the early ‘90s. The first one was actually an Irish language course taught by a man from the Aran Islands, who arrived in 1989.
“Then there were a few literature courses and that eventually evolved into a programme that was established in 1994 and the Centre itself was inaugurated officially in 2002.”
Under communism, or even earlier, was there much interest in Irish literature in Czechoslovakia? I don’t expect that the Communists were strongly anti-Irish.
“They surely weren’t. But of course Irish literature suffered the same fate as all other so-called Western literatures, in that it wasn’t particularly encouraged.
“And what didn’t help also was that there were very few people who actually knew much about Irish literature. Essentially there was Aloys Skoumal, who was the translator of Joyce’s Ulysses.
“He died in the 1980s and then there was essentially nobody. So not much was being published by way of, for instance, contemporary literature – because nobody really knew anything about it.”
Was there interaction earlier between the two countries’ literatures? For example somebody told me that the Czechs were among the first translators of Ulysses. Also I read there were performances of Čapek brothers’ plays at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, at that time.
“There are sort of moments of sporadic contact. The interest in Joyce was really more to do with contemporary experimental literature, rather than something like Ulysses being specifically Irish.
“There was an Irish language production of The White Disease during WWII, when Ireland was neutral.”
“There was some interest in the work of W.B. Yeats as well, under the First Republic, particularly from people with Catholic, mystical and esoteric leanings – they would have translated some of his early work.
“And to productions of Capek’s plays, Karel Čapek in particular was a global star in terms of literature and also was quite famous as a public intellectual, so it’s not that surprising that producers in Ireland would reach for his plays.
“But what was quite interesting is that there was an Irish-language production of Bílá nemoc [The White Disease] during the Second World War, when Ireland was neutral and you were not supposed to be producing anything that took a stance in one or other direction during the war.
“This was a production that was mounted by Walter Macken at An Taibhdhearc in Galway.”
This is a slight digression, but when was Finnegan’s Wake translated into Czech? I’m presuming that it is in Czech.
“Finnegan’s Wake was never translated. There was a section of it that was translated when Joyce still hadn’t finished the book: Anna Livia Plurabelle.
“It was translated by a group of intellectuals and Adolf Hoffmeister went to Paris to solicit Joyce’s permission to do this. But they only did that one section.
“Then sometime in the 1990s Tomáš Hrách started translating Finnegan’s Wake, but sadly he died before he could get anywhere further with the project.
“So there are only tiny extracts of it translated.”
How many students do you have at the Centre for Irish Studies? As far as I know, the Czech system of education is kind of predicated on the idea that you produce as many graduates as may be deemed necessary in a particular area.
“Well, not any more. But there have been attempts to curb the number of students in the humanities, in particular.
“To your question specifically about Irish Studies, I think there’s fairly strong interest.
“But the answer in terms of numbers is not that simple, because we are part of a larger Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, and essentially most students who study English under this programme will take some courses in Irish literature as optional.
“Then there’s a special Master’s degree in Irish Studies, which I think is one of the four that we currently offer as sort of specialisms.
“And in that we would have anywhere between five to 15 students, possibly, every year, which I think is a fair result, given that in the Master’s programme altogether, in those four specialisms, we would have about 40 to 50 students.”
Are there any particular writers that students are interested in?
“Oh, there are lots. There’s interest of course in canonical writers, like Samuel Beckett; I teach a course on Beckett which is always packed.
“But there’s considerable interest in contemporary literature, particularly in women’s writing.
“Traditionally in the humanities most students tend to be women, so it’s not that surprising that they would reach for the work of the likes of Anna Burns or Sara Baume or indeed Sally Rooney.”
Are there many Irish academics teaching at Charles University?
“It depends what you mean by Irish. When the programme was set up there were four of us and I was the only Czech person.
“There was Clare Wallace, who is from Ireland, and Justin Quinn, who is from Ireland, and then Louis Armand, who is a naturalised Irishman, although originally from Australia.
“But they’ve been living in this country now for nigh on 30 years, so I don’t know to the extent that they count as Irish still [laughs].”
You are the past or present, I’m not sure, head of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures. Do other countries of similar size to Czechia also have comparable interest in Irish literature?
“It very much depends. For instance, Irish Studies was very strong in Hungary for quite a while, even before us, but sadly most of the experts are now retired and their positions were not filled with people an Irish focus. So it’s sort of dwindling at this particular moment.
“Then if you look around neighbouring countries, there are a few people in Austria but there are not that many at the moment.
“Irish Studies was traditionally very, very strong – in a very broad sense, from Celtic Studies up to the study of contemporary fiction written in English – in Germany.
“But again most people retired, were not replaced, and only now is it being resuscitated at several universities, like Wuppertal, for instance.”
I know from my own experience, and I’ve benefited from it, that many Czechs have a very positive attitude to Ireland. Where do you think that comes from?
“The wave of Irish dancing is gone at the moment, I think, and so sadly is the interest in traditional Irish music.”
“You’d have to go and ask them, really. There may be a variety of reasons.
“In the 1990s there were so many people who were interested in things like Irish dancing in particular. Also Irish music.
“But the wave of Irish dancing is gone at the moment, I think, and so sadly is the interest in traditional Irish music – the whole idea of the folk revival, and all that.
“So there are really multiple reasons.”
Sometimes it seems to me that at least some Czechs wish that they were Celts.
“Well, they might [laughs]. But these kinds of racial arguments, looking for alternatives, what it is you ‘might be’, if you don’t feel comfortable.
“I think we’re a mixed breed, same as the Irish are. There’s a bit of the Celt, there’s the Slavs, there’s the Germans – the Germanic race being very, very strong – and the Jewish and Roma.
“So take your pick. Again, you’d have to go and ask the Celtophiles.”
Is the Irish language still taught at Charles University? I know it was in the ‘90s.
“It absolutely is. We have our own local expert now, Radvan Markus. He’s an award-winning translator from Irish as well.
“He teaches his classes on multiple levels of Irish and they garner significant interest, not just from our students but from students of other subjects, like linguistics or phonetics. So we’re really proud of that.”
And you’re a former student of Irish, I believe?
“Well, that’s how it sort of started. I took courses twice, once here and once in Ireland, where I was a visiting student, but never reached the level of… well, fluency is probably overdoing it, but I never went as far as being able to read, for instance. And I had nobody to talk to, so I dropped out, sadly.
“But I still do have a plan that I will do this properly the third time around, and once I’ve actually reached that level where I’d be able to read books comfortably I now have people who actually speak Irish.
"Radvan meets with the most advanced students every week in a café in a conversation group. So I could join them and I could actually use the language, even in Prague.”
Where did your interest in Ireland and Irish literature originally come from?
“That was completely by accident. Really by a series of coincidences I won a scholarship for a short stay in Ireland in 1991.
“My only previous time in an English-speaking country was in the south of England and the contrast with Dublin was huge.”
“I knew very little about Ireland. My knowledge of it really was of the extent of being able to point to it on a map and I’d read Joyce’s Dubliners, and that really was that.
“I felt really happy there and the people were very friendly. My only previous time in an English-speaking country was in the south of England and the contrast with Dublin was huge.
“Then, again by series of coincidences, I won a scholarship to study for a year at Trinity College, Dublin. It had this absolutely enormous open-access library, which was unheard of in the Eastern Bloc at that time.
“So I just sat in the library and read books and became a fan of Irish literature, rather than reading contemporary American novels, which is what I was doing mostly as a student of English before.”
I heard an interview with you on the radio in which you said that when you were reading American literature you were monitored by the secret police when you were going to the American Center, near the embassy.
“Everybody was, really. That was one of the few sources where they actually had the books, so when I was at secondary school and took books out – and they took pictures of me.
“At that age I wasn’t really that bothered about the consequences, which was probably silly but that’s the way it worked. They must have a whole photo album of me, and not just me.”
Did they ever stop you? Or speak to you?
“No, they just took your picture, you took a bow and it ended.”
Do you have some way of keeping up with Irish stuff? Do you listen to Irish radio or anything like that, just so you’re kind of surrounded by Irish English?
“It’s difficult, because I’m pretty much glued to the computer screen, doing in email and filling in forms and whatnot.
“But I do try and go back as often as I can for conferences, and spend at least a few days there.”
Do you translate a lot?
“I do, but not as much as I’d like to. Again because I’m just so busy. We all have, or most of us have, two jobs, to make ends meet, so it’s getting difficult. But any time I can, I do.”
Do you tend to translate contemporary authors, or classic or older ones?
“That really varies. I mean there are not that many gaps with older authors, and where the gaps are it would probably be difficult to persuade publishers that it’s worth doing, that it’s commercially viable.
“I’ve translated John Millington Synge, who’d be one of those, which was actually a commission; I was approached by a theatre to translate that play, which was absolutely perfect.
“My first big translation was Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman, which is an experimental novel that I did my Master’s thesis on. I absolutely love the work, and translated a few bits and pieces by him later, too.”
Do you have somebody to check your translating? There are some things that are so specific. For example,I saw the movie My Left Foot on TV here and in the subtitles they translated the tea in “Come home for your tea” as “čaj”. You wouldn’t make that mistake, but do you have any way of checking?
“The internet is a godsend in this sense, of course. And translating is so much easier than it would have been in the pre-internet era.
“Aloys Skoumal translating Ulysses without having much of a chance to talk to anyone – that must have been quite something.”
“And I just don’t know how they did it behind the Iron Curtain, where you really had nobody to ask.
“Someone like Aloys Skoumal translating Ulysses without having much of a chance to talk to anyone – that must have been quite something.
“But yes, there will be moments where you’re unsure, and that goes for Irish English as much as for American English or English English. You just need to find somebody and double-check with them whether you’ve got the sense right.”
What Irish authors speak to you the most, would you say?
“There’s lots and lots. Flann O’Brien remains a favourite, as well as Samuel Beckett.
“I translated some Martin McDonagh as well, which of course is a very, very different genre.
“I did a bit of Enda Walsh, whose work sadly has not really reached audiences here; there have been very, very few successful productions of his work.
“Recently I did an article on Sara Baume, whose work I admire very much. And that again is a very, very different genre.”
Do you also work in theatre? I was reading that you staged translations of Irish plays in some way.
“I was involved in a few translations as a dramaturge, but nothing beyond that.
“I don’t have any kind of professional training in theatre, so I wouldn’t dare to, for instance, direct plays or anything of that sort.
“But being there at rehearsals of some of my translations was an invaluable experience – and the magic of the word on the page coming alive is something that people should experience if they’re translators.”
I don’t know if you remember this, but I interviewed you 23 years ago for Radio Prague International. I didn’t listen back to the interview but I did read a description of it and one thing we spoke about was “poor pay for Czech academics”. Has that improved at all in the last quarter century?
“Not it hasn’t, no. Our salaries are naturally higher than they were 23 years ago, but that has to do with inflation rather than a change of attitude.
“It’s really sad. And now when you’re in your 50s it gets tedious, to use an understatement, that your academic rank would be the highest that you can achieve but you’d still often be in situations where you’d be wondering where the next load of shopping is coming from – if you’re on the one salary.
“So that’s why we have two jobs and that’s why so much research and translation work and all that just doesn’t get done, because we just don’t have the time.”
Do most of your colleagues have a second job?
“Oh, they do, yes. I’ve been deliberately speaking in plural. That is the case.”
What kind of stuff? Translating like you?
“No. You won’t make much money by translating, certainly not translating literature.
“But we mostly teach at other institutions, private universities in Prague in particular, where the pay is better.”
Are your cohort bitter about their lot?
“Well, it sort of fluctuates between bitterness and anger and acceptance.
“The reasons are really historical I think, because universities would have been seriously underfunded under the Communists – and specifically the humanities.
“Because if you’re an authoritarian ruler, or a party running the country, you are not interested in people teaching students to think in a critical and creative way.
“Now I think there’s a bit of that attitude too, although politically speaking, thank God, we live in a very, very different country.
“But I think the overwhelming attitude in the society is that the humanities are generally superfluous and useless and who cares about them?
“And that I think is what causes it at the moment.”
Recently there were reports that senior managers at Charles University were getting massive bonuses, apparently at least in part for the way that they handled the terrible shooting incident at the Faculty of Arts in December 2023. What’s your view of that whole issue?
“Well, at the moment our faculty, the Faculty of Arts, which is the largest at Charles University, is waiting for the budget for this year.
“And following a significant wave of protests against the inequality in pay by the same employer – meaning, say, a professor in a medical faculty will have a salary that would be about three times higher than, say, mine – there was a compromise reached whereby basic salaries went up by a margin.
“At the moment we are actually waiting for Charles University to deliver on that compromise, meaning to send us the money for those salaries.
“And if they do, I have very little to say about the bonuses.
“Although you can dispute the exact amounts that were given to the management, they certainly deserve bonuses for handling that tragic incident.
“But the question is, Does the university have really so much money to cover all the salaries, plus those bonuses? If it does, then perfect – no problem by me.”
What are you working on right now, Ondřej?
“Answering 30 to 40 emails a day and going to lots of meetings… is the ordeal of a professor I’m afraid.”
“At the moment, apart from answering 30 to 40 emails a day and going to lots of meetings, which is the ordeal of a professor I’m afraid, I’m part of a large EU-funded interdisciplinary grant, across multiple institutions, that examines the role of conflict in resilience building.
“And I’m part of a work package that looks at theatre in particular, and generally the arts, and how it handles this topic.”
Do you have any big ambitions remaining? You’re already a professor, you’ve achieved a lot. I mean apart from brushing up on your Irish that is.
“Ambitions? That’s a nice one. My ambition is to have time to do absolutely nothing and thereby get some ideas for, say, the next academic book.
“My last one came out in 2016 but I just haven’t had the leisure to actually stop and think about what the next big project might be. So yes, possibly that happens at some point, I don’t know.”
