Milada Blekastad in memoriam

Milada Blekastad in memoriam
With the passing of Milada Blekastad (1 July 1917–25
October 2003) we have lost a scholar and cultural personality of outstanding qualities.
Dr. Milada Blekastad was the daughter of the influential Czech publisher Jaroslav Topič and Milada Topičová, a well-known translator. When young Milada
left Prague in 1934 to marry the Norwegian painter
Hallvard Blekastad she settled in completely new surroundings. Far away from urban Central Europe, she
found a new home in the Norwegian mountains and in
the Norwegian artistic milieu where her husband was a
central figure. Soon she learnt Norwegian to perfection,
both nynorsk as well as bokmål. Following the
Detail from a painting by
Hallvard Blekastad
translating and publishing traditions of her family, her
translation of Tarjei Vesaas’s novel Dei svarte hestane
appeared in Prague in 1939, and her translation of Inge Krokann’s novel Gjenom fonna
was published in 1942. With this, Dr. Blekastad had started as the interlocutor par
excellence between the Czech and the Norwegian literary world.
With the dissolution of Masaryk’s Czechoslovakia, the contact with her Czech childhood background grew increasingly more difficult and a new responsibility was put on her
shoulders to aid persecuted compatriots caught in the Central European inferno. She
helped several Czech intellectuals and artists during World War II. Her efforts to save
Milena Jesenská, the addressee of Kafka’s Briefe an Milena, unfortunately, were not
successful.
Dr. Blekastad became a mother of seven children, and her intellectual interest grew to
reflect her deep concern for cultural upbringing and humanistic education. 1939 saw her
first collection of Czech fairy tales translated into Norwegian (Tsjekkiske folkeventyr); it
was followed by a collection of Czech and Slovak fairy tales in 1955 (Tsjekkiske og slovakiske folkeeventyr).
Nevertheless, the central issue of her life-long scholarly interest became the work and
life of Jan Amos Comenius, Jan Amos Komenský (1592–1670). Her translation of his
Labyrint světa a Ráj srdce into nynorsk (Verdsens labyrint og hjartans paradis, 1955) and
her translation of his Informatorium der Mutterschule (Informatorium for skulen hennar
mor, 1966) are both unparalleled cultural achievements. Despite never having attended
university, her knowledge of European culture, history and languages was as formidable as
was her ability for collecting and presenting a very complex topic. This capability is particularly evident in her principal scholarly work, the monumental doctoral dissertation
from 1969 that gave her the title of dr. philos.: Comenius: Versuch eines Umrisses von
Leben, Werk und Schicksal des Jan Amos Komenský. Before long her dissertation achieved
recognition as the international standard work on this great Baroque pedagogue, philosopher and poet. Dr. Blekastad’s dissertation is also a main oeuvre in Norwegian humanistic
scholarship. Komenský and his dramatic epoch remained a life long occupation. She published several scholarly articles (mainly in Scando-Slavica and in Acta Comeniana)
bringing new information and insights and strengthening her reputation as the leading
expert on Komenský. Among her achievements in this area is her edition and publication
of Komenský’s Latin letters Unbekannte Briefe des Comenius und seiner Freunde 1641–
© 2004 Taylor & Francis
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1661 (1976) and the more popularly aimed monograph Menneskenes sak. Den tsjekkiske
tenkeren Comenius i kamp om en universal reform av samfunnslivet (1977).
Dr. Blekastad lectured on Czech literature at the Department of Slavic and Baltic
Studies at the University of Oslo during the years 1957–1987. She trained several generations of Norwegian Bohemists, yet she was never permanently employed at the University.
In 1970 she was awarded the Norwegian state scholarship that granted her the means to
maintain scientific work for the rest of her life.
Dr. Blekastad was an eminent intermediary of her rich knowledge of Czech literature.
In the years of communist rule in Czechoslovakia, when Czech literary scholars at home
had to struggle with numerous obstacles, she alone took upon her the momentous task to
provide a synthetic account of the history of Czech literature. Her monograph Millom aust
og vest (1958) presents the development of Czech literature up to 1620 and in the followup Millom bork og ved (1978) she gives her personal view of the development up to ca.
1975. I know of no other work from this period that had a similar bold approach. Her
account is complex, rich in details and equipped with a fundamental narrative drive and an
obvious pleasure of sharing her national and Central European literary heritage.
Both her monographs on Czech literary history were written in nynorsk. She chose the
same language for many others works as well. This preference connotes that her works are
of importance not only to Czech studies but also to the written culture of nynorsk.
During her long life, she never lost the contact with her family’s background; she remained a formidable cultural ambassador for this rich intellectual environment. During
the years of communist repression, she bravely kept personal contact with many writers
and cultural activists. Moreover, she was a splendid conveyor of their experiences and art.
She was a devoted aide to the persecuted Czech intellectuals (many of whom became her
friends) and she introduced several of them to the Norwegian public. Her numerous translations (into both bokmål and nynorsk) cover such prominent writers as Milan Kundera,
Václav Havel, Jaroslav Seifert and Ivan Klíma. Her work for Václav Havel deserves special mention. She introduced his plays from an early stage, and she remained an active and
loyal mediator of his political and philosophical works. She published them in journals
and newspapers, and in books. In addition to the translations of his Dopisy Olze (Brev til
Olga, 1987), Dálkový výslech (Fjernforhør, 1989), she edited and translated a collection of
his essays under the title Forsøk på å leve i sannhet (1990). Her translation of Ludvík
Vaculík’s novel Sekyra (Øksa, 1968) awarded her in 1969 the Bastian prize, a prestigious
Norwegian award for outstanding translations. Even in her old age, she continued her
activity as a translator: her last translations are a novel by Daniela Hodrová and Karel
Čapek’s classical travel book Cesta na sever (Reisen til Norden, 1995, translated together
with her grandchild Katrine Blekastad).
Dr. Blekastad was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and
an active member of Norwegian PEN. Owing to her life-long cultural and scholarly effort,
in 1997 President Václav Havel awarded her the Medal of Merit, first grade.
One can hardly fully appreciate the academic standard set by Dr. Milada Blekastad
who managed to combine a splendid scientific career with a rich and happy family life
(she has portrayed her husband in the biography Hallvard Blekastad. Glimt frå eit kunstnarliv, 1983). It is a proof of her unusual energy and élan that until the very last days before her death, she worked on a thorough revision of her dissertation on Komenský. We
will remember Dr. Milada Blekastad for her professional and ethic engagement, her generosity, tolerance and broad cultural horizon.
Karen Gammelgaard
Scando-Slavica Tomus 50, 2004