Karel Vladislav Zap

Significance

Karel Vladislav Zap (1812–1871) was a Prague writer, historian and geographer who from 1836 served in Lviv, then the centre of Austrian Galicia. According to the Encyclopedia of Ukraine (vol. 5, 1993), there he studied Ukrainian history, ethnography and literature, knew figures of the Galician revival and wrote in Czech about Galicia. [ZAP01] Czech Wikipedia presents him mainly as the author of works on Prague and Czech antiquities and names no Ukrainian contacts. [ZAP02]

Life

Zap was born on 8 January 1812 in Prague into a German family and died on 1 January 1871 in Benešov. Czech Wikipedia gives his name as Karel Vladislav and as Karel František at birth. He attended the Piarist gymnasium, did not finish law, and then studied history and languages at Charles-Ferdinand University. [ZAP02]

He began his service in Lviv in 1836: according to the Encyclopedia of Ukraine as a civil servant, according to Czech Wikipedia as a clerk in an accounting office. He wrote about local life for Czech periodicals, among them Květy české, Vlastimil, Česká včela and Časopis Českého musea. [ZAP01; ZAP02] In Lviv he married Honorata of the Wiśniowski family, a writer; the date of the marriage is not given. [ZAP02] After returning to Prague (1845) he worked as an accountant, and from 1849 taught Czech and history at the first Czech Realschule; he was a conservator of the Bohemian Museum and founded and edited the collection Památky archeologické a místopisné. [ZAP02]

Ukrainian connection

According to the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Zap knew Markiian Shashkevych, Ivan Vahylevych, Yakiv Holovatsky and Denys Zubrytsky. He published in Czech a book on life in Eastern Europe (1843) and a book on his travels in Galicia (1844), which the entry calls a valuable ethnographic source. The entry states that Zap criticised the oppression of Ukrainian peasants by Polish landowners and regarded Ukrainians as a distinct nation. [ZAP01]

The same entry states that Zap translated Gogol's Taras Bulba into Czech, as well as articles by Holovatsky, Vahylevych and Panteleimon Kulish. [ZAP01] Czech Wikipedia mentions neither these translations nor Ukrainian acquaintances, so they are presented in this dossier as statements of a single source. [ZAP02] In 1848 Zap took part in the Slavic Congress in Prague (according to the Encyclopedia of Ukraine as a co-organiser). [ZAP01; ZAP02]

Disagreements in the sources

Length of the Lviv period: the Encyclopedia of Ukraine gives service in Lviv in 1836–1844; Czech Wikipedia gives no end date but dates the return to Prague to 1845. It is unclear whether these are different events (end of service and relocation) or a disagreement. [ZAP01; ZAP02]

The Ukrainian connection rests almost entirely on the Encyclopedia of Ukraine: Czech Wikipedia lists his works on Prague, the Všeobecný zeměpis (1846–1851), the Českomoravská kronika and the journal Poutník (1846–1847), and mentions no translations from Ukrainian or for Ukrainian literature. It also notes that the first volume of the Českomoravská kronika was written in Lviv, without a publication date. [ZAP01; ZAP02]

Minor inconsistencies within Czech Wikipedia itself: the title of a Prague guide is given with the year "1935" instead of 1835; the start of publication of Památky archeologické a místopisné is not stated in the text, while the list of works gives 1854. These discrepancies do not concern Ukraine. [ZAP02]