How Czechs and Slovaks got to know the Personality of Nicholai Velimirovich (St. Nicholai of Serbia)

• Published in: The Nicholai Studies (Online) Vol. II; no. 3; pp. 11 - 42
• Main Author: Černý, Marcel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 31.01.2022
• ISSN: 2738-1064; 2738-1072
• DOI: 10.46825/nicholaistudies/ns.2022.2.3.11-42

The present article brings a brief overview of the main moments in learning about the life and work of St. Nicholai of Serbia, Bishop of Ohrid and Žiča (legal name dr. Nikola Velimirović) in Czechian and Slovakian context. This paper is conceived as an introduction to the attached Selected Bibliography of Nicholai Velimirovich (St. Nicholai of Serbia) in Czech and Slovak languages (1912–2018) (cf. below, pp. 311–318), based on the manuscript database of the Slavic Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague and the author’s reception. It is not an exhaustive elaboration of a rather extensive issue, but preferably the first outline monitoring the Czech and Slovak interest in the multilateral activities of a prominent Serbian Orthodox thinker, writer, dignitary, and saint. Czech journalism and science have paid attention to Velimirovich since the second decade of the 20th century (Milan Marjanović, Aleksandar Arnautović, Josef Karásek, Eugen Stoklas, Josef Fiala, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Otakar Vočadlo, Dragutin Prohaska, Ludvík Kuba, Otakar Kolman, Marek Malík; series minor anonymous notes). Velimirovich’s works were translated to a lesser extent in the Czech Republic (František Sedláček, Václav Ešner, Jovan Kršić, Marek Malík, Anastasia Dürrová). In recent years, a short monograph on Nicholai Velimirovich [Nikolaj Velimirovič, Nový Zlatoústy (1880–1956) (2003)] by Ján Zozuľak has been published in Slovakia, and a Slovak translation of his monumental Prologue of Ohrid (2015, 2018; translated by Peter Soroka) was published twice in a row. His lecture St. Jan Hus (1920, 2003) was published twice in Czech translation. The identity of the translator “Dr. M. Č.” has been unclear for a long time; the author of this article believes that the translator was Czech Orthodox activist JUDr. Miloš Červinka (1863–1936), associated with the controversial, later deposed Archishop Savvatij (Savvatij [Antonín Jindřich] Vrabec, 1880–1959), who was replaced by Bishop Gorazd (Pavlík, 1879–1942).