Jakub Arbes

Jakub Arbes (June 12, 1840, Prague (Smíchov) – April 8, 1914) was an influential Czech revolutionary, intellectual and writer. He is best known as the creator of the literary genre called romanetto and spent much of his professional life in France.

A native of Smichov in Prague, Arbes excelled as student, gaining tutorship under Jan Neruda, with whom he harboured a lifelong admiration. Later he studied Philosophy and Literature at Prague Polytechnic and in 1867 began his career in journalism as editor of Vesna Kutnohorská, and from 1868 to 1877 as the chief editor of the National Press. Arbes was also an editor of the seminal and often polemical magazines 'Hlas' (The Voice) and 'Politiks' (Politics), and a sympathizer of the Májovci literary group. During this time Arbes was persecuted and spent 15 months in the Czech Lipa prison, for leading an outspoken and humanitarian opposition to the ruling Austro-Hungarian Empire . He left Prague soon after, whereupon he was drawn to Paris and the South of France to be part of the ever rapidly expanding intellectual community there. Living in France he became close friends with other "Bohemian Parisiens" such as Paul Alexis, Luděk Marold, Guy de Maupassant, Viktor Oliva, and Karel Vítězslav Mašek as well as the great French writer Émile François Zola.

Arbes cooperated with many of his contemporaries, Jiří Karásek ze Lvovic, Josef Svatopluk Machar and his mentor Jan Neruda, and was greatly influenced by the British writers Lord Byron and Edgar Allan Poe. He translated much of Poe's literature into French and Czech, and his affection for Poe was so great that he named his son Edgar, who was raised in his adopted France. Perhaps Arbes' greatest influence came from Émile Zola's theory of the experimental novel. Arbes wrote fiction in which he analysed the plight of the urban working classes and explained the ideas of utopian socialism. Arbes's work is characterised by a sense of moral justice and rationalist, critical thinking. His most important works are his "romanettoes", written in the 1860s and the 1870s. These short novels are predecessors of the modern detective story. They are firmly set within concrete locations, mostly in Central Europe, and they usually present a gothic mystery, which is subsequently resolved through intellectual effort and rational analysis. Arbes's "romanettoes" introduced technical knowledge and scientific reasoning into modern literature. Arbes used autobiographical elements and anarchic and free-thinking themes in his novels. He was fascinated by creative individuals and political rebels whose intellectual capacities gave them personal independence, but whose non-conformism led them to destruction.

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