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CZECHOSLOVAK STORIES

villagers in simple but appealing tales. Joseph Holeček an advocate of unity with South Slavonic culture and an opponent of all contact with Germanism, is author of “Hercegovinian Songs,” “Serbian National Epics,” “Montenegro.” Teréza Nováková represents the cause of her sex in many public movements and in her books details the sorrowful fate of women who seek moral self-determination in the midst of a social system that simply does not understand. Karel Klostermann is the novelist and story teller of the glass-blowers, woodmen, poachers, and lumbermen of the border regions. Bohumil Havlasa presents fantastic adventures, exotic experiences. Jan Havlasa, son of Jan Klecanda, after several years spent in the United States wrote some interesting “California Stories.” Jos. K. Šlejhar uncovers in the so-called “best families” a world of petty tyrannies, cruelties and bestialities practised by those wearing the cloak of respectability. Jiří Karásek writes of decadence and occultism. Růžena Svobodová exposes in her masterful and well-nigh scientific manner the frailties and gnawing sores of each social stratum and turns the light on the pitiable condition of so many women who, ignorant of their own purpose in life, live in hopeless dreams until, spiritually famished, they perish in their own illusions, amid the joyless drab of life. Martin Kukučin, the leading Slovák realist, in addition to portraying his own people as he knew them has presented intimate views of the Croatian and Serbian peasantry. Svetozár Hurban