Kosmas, The Chronicler – Prague Castle
Fact of the Czech figure „Three Lives of Czech Myths – Prague”
Part of the „The story of the beginning” topic
He was a canon, briefly dean of the chapter of St Vitus in Prague, but above all the author of the Chronica Bohemorum, which he wrote at the end of his long life (1045-1125). František Palacký compared Cosmas to Herodotus and made an effort to secure him a place in the Pantheon of outstanding personalities of Czech national history, the construction of which began shortly before 1848. The project did not come to fruition due to personal conflicts and lack of funds. However, the idea was never completely forgotten.
The plaque with Cosmas’ name was placed on the facade of the monumental exhibition building of the National Museum in Prague, completed in 1891. However, it was not only František Palacký who brought Cosmas into the public eye. The writer Vladislav Vančura (1891-1942) made a significant and perhaps decisive contribution to his visibility in the public sphere. When, after Munich in 1938 and the dissolution of the Czechoslovak Republic, Vančura began to work on historical paintings to remind the humiliated Czechs at the mercy of the Third Reich of their better past, he included a chapter on Cosmas. He chose the last decade of his life to describe the main reason for Cosmas’s decision to write a chronicle of his people. In Vančura’s interpretation, fate brought Cosmas four old men, witnesses of the mythical times that were fading into oblivion.
