Erin Dusza is a Ph.D. Candidate from 
Indiana University conducting research for her dissertation through Masaryk University in Brno. Her research at the Faculty of Arts concerns the 19th Century construction of Czech history in aid of nationalism. Erin arrived in the Czech Republic in September 2021, accompanied by her husband Alex and their dog Archie. In January 2022, right in the middle of her 9-month Fulbright stay, she invited her fellow grantees on a trip to Moravský Krumlov to visit The Slav Epic, a collection of 20 large-format canvases by famous Art Nouveau artist Alfons Mucha. Erin's academic interest in Mucha started during her Masters program at Georgia State University, when she researched the portrayal of nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe, which is an area not commonly covered in art history textbooks. Excited about finally having the opportunity to see this influential art collection in person, Erin encourages more Fulbrighters to: "Contact me and we can plan another group visit in the spring."
On January 15th, 2022, I was honored by the chance to take some of my fellow Fulbright appointees (students Isabel Kaleti, Katja Klosterman, and English Teaching Assistant Megan Henning) to visit a collection of paintings that are near and dear to my heart. The Slav Epic is a collection of 20 large paintings about Czech and Pan-Slavic history painted by the famous Art Nouveau artist Alphons Mucha between 1912 and 1926. You may be familiar with the artist's posters of girls in flowers, the four seasons, or advertisements for Job cigarette papers. This collection represents a shift in the artist’s career, both in subject and style, where he left commercial art to make works for his own people during a time when Czechs longed to be free of Austrian rule. The Epic portrays moments of Czech and Slavic history and culture meant to inform and unite the Slavic people. After researching these paintings for ten years, writing my masters thesis and academic article about them, and countless times showing the images in a slide show I was able to stand in front of the actual canvases and point out not only their significance but had the artist’s technique on full display. It was a big check on my academic bucket list.
The road to this moment begins during my art history master’s program at Georgia State University when an advisor pointed me to look at medieval Bohemian architecture as an area of study. This idea appealed to me because my paternal family roots come from Slovakia and Croatia, and this area of Central and Eastern Europe is not covered in Art History textbooks and courses unless being taught by a professor specializing in this area. As I worked through my degree, a chance documentary viewing sparked an interest in the later career of Alphons Mucha, when he made varied artworks for Czech nationalism. I was familiar with the Parisian posters of the artist that decorate calendars and notebooks in bookshops around the world, but I was drawn to this period in his career that is not well known.
Mucha, born in Ivancice (in the modern South Moravian region, southwest of Brno) in 1860, became famous in Paris but after 1900 returned home to the Czech lands to create works that would hopefully inspire the Czech people to seek independence from the Austrian Empire that ruled over them. Oddly, this period of the artist’s life and work was rarely mentioned or appeared as a closing sentence in writings about the artist. As I continued to research, I realized the passion Mucha had for the Czech people resulted in artworks that had vastly more accomplished narratives and displayed greater technical skill and artistry than the more popular posters of girls in flowers. I had to convince my thesis advisor that Czech nationalism shared themes with French and German national identity because art history doesn’t typically cover Central Europe. Seeing that this area of Europe was underrepresented, I had found my path. With only the resources obtainable to me in Atlanta, Georgia, I undertook a thesis covering the Pan-Slavic and Czech Nationalist writings that inspired the latter part of Mucha’s career and argued that the culmination of these ideas was the collection of 20 large-scale canvases called the Slav Epic that Mucha painted and gifted to the city of Prague. I argued that this collection is a visual embodiment of Pan-Slavism, a movement known and discussed only through writings. I was even able to publish some of my research after graduation in a peer-reviewed academic journal. At this time, I still hadn’t seen the collection in person.
As I was writing my thesis in 2012, the Slav Epic was making the news here in the Czech Republic as the government voted to make the Epic an official piece of cultural history (on the second vote). Suddenly, this collection of paintings that had resided in the sleepy town of Moravsky Krumlov, was moved to Prague and put on display for the first time since the artist’s life. I finally saw the collection in person in 2016, at the Veletržní palác (Trade Fair Palace) of the National Gallery in Prague. It was incredible to see paintings lifted out of the pages of a book and in their complete grandeur.
Why did it take almost 100 years to honor this collection? It is an unfortunate example of poor timing. During the 14 years Mucha painted this collection, Europe was caught up in World War 1 and Czechoslovakia was formed as a new free country in 1918. The new President, T.G. Masaryk had said that Czechoslovakia should look to the future and technology, and the art world embraced modernism and abstraction. A collection of historical paintings painted in an old-fashioned style, based around a romantic idea of history and yearning for a goal already achieved seemed to completely miss the mark of the current popular culture. However, they weren’t forgotten. When the German army was approaching the Czech lands (events that led to what would become World War II), the canvases were rolled up and buried in the woods to protect them from being destroyed. A group of loyalists recovered the collection in the 1960s and set up an exhibition in an old chateau in Moravsky Krumlov, near the artist’s hometown of Ivancice, where it resided until 2012.
However, Mucha had gifted the collection to the city of Prague on the condition that they built a building dedicated to their display. Not only had the city not completed its part of the deal, they then loaned the collection out to museums in Japan and China who covet the artist’s work for his role in inspiring anime and manga artists. The descendants of the artist fought to get the works returned to the Czech Republic, fearing the wear and tear of taking down 100-year-old canvases the size of theater backdrops, rolling them up for transport, and restretching them at their next destination. Since then the city of Prague has agreed to find the collection a new home. The current negotiations would have the collection displayed at the newly renovated Baroque Palace Savarin in the downtown of Prague, off of Wenceslas Square with a 25 year contract.
Thus, my fellow Fulbrighters and I made the short journey from Brno to see the works in person. It was wonderful to get to talk about my passion with those who already had an interest in the culture and could make connections with what they had already seen and heard while living here. They were interested in learning about this chapter of a well-known artist’s life and our discussion of how Czechs themselves prefer his Parisian works. We agreed that the collection was well executed and researched, but had probably been made 20-30 years too late to get the reception the artist intended. This led to a very interesting conversation about the shifting attitudes and events of the 20th century. If you would like to know more about this collection and chapter of Czech history, I would like to open an invitation to other Fulbrighters to contact me and we can plan another group visit in the spring.
During my Fulbright I am in Brno, expanding on my research on Czech art and 19th-century nationalism. I am interested in the concept of artworks informing people of a shared historical narrative on which to base future independence. Besides seeing national history in artworks and architecture all over town, I live near the Moravian Gallery, whose 19th Century floor is free admission, where I can see works of art by Czech artists like Joža Uprka whenever I need to be inspired. Brno has been a wonderful home base for this journey.
The Slav Epic is being exhibited in Moravsky Krumlov, approximately 20 miles southwest of Brno. Transport to Moravsky Krumlov is available hourly from Brno Hlavni Nadrazi. Tickets and more information about the exhibit are available at https://www.mucha-epopej.cz/en/