What May Have Happened in the Lanes Surrounding Karolinum in the Eve of World War












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            * What May Have Happened in the Lanes Surrounding Karolinum in the Eve of World War I
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            Exactly 100 years ago on the 28th July 1914, World War I began to dramatically reshape the

            between the countries on a global scale, turning reality upside down for every one of its 
            The murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand d’Este on 28th June 1914 triggered an enormous dipl
            where all the large industrial and military powers of that time, divided into two opposing

            involved. As the heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, Franz Ferdinand’s death foreshadowed 
            declaration of war against Serbia and the subsequent mobilisation of Europe’s armies, star
            and fast spreading to Austria-Hungary, Germany, Great Britain and France.

            Timeless and influential writers who endured the war such as Franz Kafka mirrored and pres
            testimonies in their work by writing on an array of everyday and intricate experiences, fr

            customs to the politics of the global conflict. The German novelist and poet Franz Werfel,
            in Prague and served in the Austro-Hungarian army, later received remarkable recognition f
            and peculiar use of the context of the conflict in his work – as a contemporary of Max Bro

            Jewish intellectuals of Prague, Werfel was and is, one of the most well-known authors writ
            language between the two World Wars. His short novel The House of Mourning (1927), intrigu
            small lanes behind our University’s Karolinum building, captures the dramatic end of the p

            Austria-Hungary in an illustrative and striking way.
            The narrow Kamzíková Street has quite a history. In the past full of Middle Age-old “joyho
            ministerial orphanages, it was in the first decades of 20th century a popular meeting plac

            and city artists, and an inspirational backdrop for the story. Throughout the tale, we see
            these establishments, named Salon Goldschmidt, transitioned from a “joyhouse” into a “hous
            – a change caused by the death of its owner, and one that was strangely concurrent with th

            Franz Ferdinand d’Este. If we are to give Werfel’s account any credit, this would also be 
            Archduke Charles, the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, learnt of the assassination of his 
            and his becoming to the heir of Austrian-Hungarian throne.

            The House of Mourning is a vivid and poignant illustration of the fascinating changes that
            the young years of 20th century Central Europe; a short story encompassing the loss of the
            Empire in the turmoil of military conflict and mourning of the pre-war world and its peopl

            trenches of the World War.
            Throughout the ages, Prague has been a cradle for artists from all walks of life. Today, h
            reignited when you walk through its lanes, when you step on its cobbles. Almost nothing re

            places embodying Werfel’s story, yet we as readers have the gift of reconstructing his wor
            through this city, reimagining what time and war has destroyed, but what still lingers in 
            enabling us to envision the winding pasts of Prague and Europe, before the Great War chang

            These wartime novels and short stories, such as Werfel’s, although so readily at our dispo
            key to an otherwise long lost world, including that of our Charles University...          
            By:                                                                                       
            Queralt Morros Baro is for a semester at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Charles Univers
            de Barcelona. Interested in literature, culture and society, iForum is for her the perfect