Remarks on the Nezval - Breton relationship

The organised surrealist movement in Czechoslovakia came to life in the 1930s only after the exhaustion of the concept of poetism as defined and promoted by Vítězslav Nezval and Karel Teige. It was primarily Nezval who completely fell for surrealist ideas and championed them in the Czech artistic and literary milieu as an essayist and, above all, as a poet and novelist. One of the key influences on Nezval's activities and work in the 1930s was his relationship with André Breton, with whom he established a deep personal and professional friendship. Expressions of respect and boundless admiration for Breton can be traced in Nezval's poetry, essays, personal correspondence, and, above all, in his memoirs, in which Breton plays the role of a kind of second main character. It is these written expressions that the study will focus on, mapping them, placing them in a broader context and interpreting them – from the late 1920s and early 1930s, when Nezval's enthusiasm for Surrealism and Breton's personality emerged, to the end of the 1930s, when he abandoned the ideological dogmas of Surrealism and did not part on good terms with Breton due to the socio-political situation in pre-war Europe.

Keywords: Vítězslav Nezval; André Breton; surrealism; poetism; correspondence; memoirs; automatic writing; translation