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Museums in Eastern Europe

Somayeh Khaleseh Ranjbar

Existence and Imagination:

The Franz Kafka Museum in Prague

Franz Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speak- The world class author was an excellent example for
ing Jewish family on July 3, 1883 in Prague, Bohemia. He Prague, the capital in the heart of Middle Europe and the
rarely left his native city only for brief periods. He died Central place of European history, Bohemia, with its dis-
from tuberculosis already in the age of 40. tinctive cosmopolitan culture most notably based on
Czech, Jewish and German influence.
Franz Kafka is usually classified as German writer but the
correct term would be ”German-speaking writer"(while Kafka was born, grew up and was shaped by his city. He
he spoke Czech as well). His nationality was not German: did not mention the city directly in his narrations but his
he was Czechoslovak by nationality when he died, and always recurring topic of a faceless bureaucracy which
Austro-Hungarian by nationality when he was born, Jew- leaves the human individual helpless in loneliness refers
ish by ancestry, Czech and German by language. back to experiences he made in this city. 1

Birth place of Franz Kafka, the "Dum U Minuty", where he lived with his parents and three sisters between 1889 and 1896.
Note that this is not the Kafka museum. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Christoph Radtke
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EXPOTIME!, issue August/September 2017