Neff, Vladimir

Born into a family of wealthy merchants. His father was a well-known kitchen merchant and owner of a large store in Prague. Between 1921 and 1925 He studied at an elite school, then at a real gymnasium in Prague, and later until 1928 - at the French commercial gymnasium in Geneva .

He served in the army, practiced in the trading establishments of Vienna and Bremen , and worked at his father's enterprise. After returning to his homeland, contrary to the expectations of the family that Vladimir would continue his family business, he began to engage in literary work.

From 1935 he worked as a lecturer in French and English literature at the Prague publishing house Melantrich . Since 1939 - a professional writer.

In 1950, V. Neff worked for some time as a screenwriter at the Barrandov film studio.

In 1946-1953 lived in Slapi (Slapi - a village near Prague), later permanently in Prague.

In 1977, he was among the signatories of the Antichart .

Vladimir Neff is the author of numerous historical novels that brought him immense popularity, family and psychological works, film scripts (for example, “The Secret of Blood” (Tajemstvi krve) or “The Past of Yana Kozinova” (Minulost Jany Kosinove)).

He made his debut in 1933, publishing his first work, “Failures of Ibrahim Skala”. This is a detective story, a parody , where the first premises of his poetics are present. A year later, his second novel from ancient ancient history, People in Togas, was published. Then Neff almost every year published new historical novels. In the same style, he writes “Paper Panopticon” (1934) and “Temperament of Peter Bolbek” (1934). These works, like People in Togas (1934), did not impress the then criticism; Neff later also did not consider them his significant achievement. However, in them, as well as in The Last Cabman (1935), the peculiarities of the creative manner of the writer: sharp satirism and irony are already quite clearly visible.

In the thirties, Vladimir Neff worked on the family novels “The Little Giant” (1935), “Two at the Table” (1937) and “God of Hustle” (1939) - examples of so-called psychological prose . This allowed the writer to soon create a purely psychological novel “The Thirteenth Room” (1944), a work without clear timelines, which takes place on the island of Kampa on the river. Vltava . The Thirteenth Room also has all the hallmarks of a family affair. The novel was written during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, when it was impossible to resort to the slightest criticism of the protectorate . This work is considered the most significant of the written by the writer until 1945.

After the end of the Second World War, Neff became interested in Marxism and even wrote the Philosophical Dictionary for Self-taught (1948).

Neff returned to historical fiction in the 1950s, precisely at the time when literature was under the strong pressure of vulgar sociology - in 1953, his novel Srpnovsky Pans was released, in which the action takes place in the late 13th – early 14th centuries. The novel is written in the form of a chronicle of the castle of Srpno. The work is considered one of the best Czech historical novels of the decade.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the writer worked on the pentalogy , which included the books Marriages of convenience (1957), Imperial violets (1958), Evil Blood (1959), and The Merry Widow ( 1961), The Royal Charioteer (1965). Pentalogy is a kind of fusion of historical and family novels, an extensive family chronicle with an immersion in the shortest time history, which takes place in Prague from the mid-19th century until 1945 and tells the story of the townspeople families of Born and Nedobylov. The author described in her the fate of his own family - wealthy Prague merchants. In the last volume among the heroes you can recognize the author himself in the image of the unlucky Cyril Bourne.

In 1967, the novel “ Trampoty pana Humbla ” was published - a portrait of a typical opportunist: a representative of the lower (or rather, working) class who changed beliefs according to the regime, running from the camp of supporters of warlike pre-war fascists to the post-war communists of the 1950s, when finding excuses for this.

In the 1970s, Neff published a trilogy about the “Czech d'Artagnan, ” the young nobleman Peter Cucan of Cucani. The first volume, entitled “Queens have no legs,” was published in 1973 and still carries with it irony and similar English, “dry” humor. This was followed by the Borgia Signet (1975) and The Beautiful Sorceress (1980). The very first trilogy novel aroused great interest among the reader. The trilogy takes place in the first half of the 17th century and takes place in Prague, then in Italy, Turkey, France and Germany. The novels are imbued with parody, mischief and a kind of humor, however, the author tries to show that from under literary jokes a philosophical reflection of reality is seen, deep reflections on the fate of the world and man. The trilogy was written after the suppression of the Prague Spring , and apparently, therefore, Neff, like many other writers who ended up in the socialist camp, had to resort to literary means that could hide slippery topics and at the same time provide an opportunity to talk about them.

In 1981, at the end of his life, Neff published his last novel, The vestments of Herr de Balzac, which is exceptional - for the first time this is not about a historical novel.

After the death of the writer in 1985, a book of memoirs, Vecery u krbu, by the fireplace, about family and life, appeared as a series of conversations with his son. The son of the writer Ondzhej Neff also became a well-known author of science fiction books and is currently one of the most famous Czech experts on the Internet .

V. Neff also was engaged in translations from Russian, German and French.

• Failures of Ibrahim Skala , 1933 - a parody of a detective story with a fantastic plot
• People in Toga , 1934 - a parody of a detective
• Paper Panopticon , 1934
• Temperament of Peter Bolbek, 1934
• Little giant , 1935
• Poslední drožkář , 1935 - science fiction
• Two at the table , 1937
• Omyl růžového stařečka a jiné pohádky pro malé i velké , 1937
• První nálet , 1937 - science fiction
• God of Fuss , 1939
• Vyhnaní z ráje , 1939
• The Past of Yana Kozinova, 1940
• Pokušitel , 1940
• Před pultem a za pultem , 1940
• Philosophical Dictionary for Self-taught, 1940 - 1947
• Soused , 1941
• Gabriela , 1942
• Thirteenth room , 1944 - psychological novel; filmed in 1968 by director Otakar Wavra
• Marie a zahradník , 1945 - short story
• Nikdo nic neví , 1947
• Mladá léta , 1952
• Srpnovsky Pans, 1953 - an ironic historical novel from the time of the last Przemyslovich
• The Secret of Blood, 1953
• Nezlob, Kristino! 1956
• Family Pentalogy :
  • Marriages of convenience, 1957
  • Imperial Violets, 1958
  • Bad Blood, 1959
  • Merry Widow, 1961
  • Royal Charioteer, 1963
• Pochodně , 1961
• Adversity of Pan Gumbl, 1967
• Trilogy :
  • Queens have no legs, 1973
  • Signet of Borgia, 1975
  • The Beautiful Sorceress , 1980
• The vestments of Herr de Balzac, 1981
• Evenings by the fireplace, 1986 - a book of memoirs.

Vladimir Neff was exceptional even from a physical point of view. His head turned out to be the largest head in the Czech Republic, and he had to make all the hats on order.

• NEFF Vladimír (inaccessible link) (Czech)