Deník Politik jako prostor české umělecké kritiky

This study deals with the practice of art criticism in the Politik, a daily German-language periodical of the National Party (Národní strana, also known as the staročeši, or ‘Old Czech Party’) whose readership included both (ethnic) Czechs and Germans of the bourgeois middle-class during the 1870s. Based on the example of Viktor Guth’s regular reporting on Czech and German theatrical presentations in Prague, the study examines the position of the Politik straddling the boundary between these two language cultures. In particular, it aims to better understand intercultural crossover as carried out within the editorial practices of the periodical vis-à-vis the cultural sector, and through communication with the model reader, giving vocal support, at the political level, to the Czech national program. Through an analysis of an 1873 article by Emanuel Bozděch, in which the critic offers his evaluation of the work of Franz Grillparzer (set in the context of Grillparzer’s reception in the Czech lands during the 19th century), the study also considers the possibilities presented by the Politik for bringing cultural impulses into the Czech-speaking environment, as well as the role it played in the field of literary criticism vis-à-vis that of autonomous Czech artistic production.