Life story
Karel Hynek Mácha was born on 16 November 1810 in Prague on Malá Strana. His father was a mill journeyman and later owner of a grocer's shop, and his mother came from a family of Czech musicians.
He studied at the Piarist gymnasium, then philosophy, and from 1832 to 1836 law at Charles University in Prague. He attended lectures by Josef Jungmann, who encouraged his students to write. Under the influence of the Polish uprising and his reading of Mickiewicz, he decided to write in Czech.
In 1836 he published the lyrical-epic poem Máj. His contemporaries received it coldly; today it is one of the most published Czech books and Mácha is considered the founder of modern Czech poetry and the principal representative of Czech Romanticism.
In September 1836 he departed for Litoměřice and died there on 6 November — less than a month before his twenty-sixth birthday. In 1939 his remains were transferred to Vyšehrad Cemetery.
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).
Constellation of Life
Important milestones that shaped their journey.