František Gellner was a Czech

Czech people

Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...

 poet, short story writer, artist and anarchist

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

.

Biography

František Gellner was born to a poor Jewish family in Mladá Boleslav

Mladá Boleslav

Mladá Boleslav is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic, on the left bank of the Jizera river about 50 km northeast of Prague.Founded in the second half of the 10th century by King Boleslav II as a royal castle...

, Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

. His father was a seller and a keen socialist. His student room above his father’s shop was the place of his first writing attempts – he covered the walls with his provocative poems and caricatures. He studied at the gymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 in Mladá Boleslav where he contributed to the student journals Lípa, Lucerna, Pêle-Mêle and Mládí with poems, translations and drawings. He went to Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 to study at the Polytechnic Institute

Vienna University of Technology

Vienna University of Technology is one of the major universities in Vienna, the capital of Austria. Founded in 1815 as the "Imperial-Royal Polytechnic Institute" , it currently has about 26,200 students , 8 faculties and about 4,000 staff members...

 but left after two years with just one exam in drawing.

Gellner's Bohemian

Bohemianism

Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...

 lifestyle brought him to the anarchist movement. His flat was searched several times by police. He wrote to Nový kult journal. In 1901 he started studying at the Mining Academy in Příbram

Príbram

Příbram is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic with a population of 35,147. The city is located on the Litavka river and the foothills of Brdy, 60 kilometers south-west of Prague, the country's capital...

 and often went to Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

 to join anarchist parties with S.K. Neumann, Karel Toman

Karel Toman

Karel Toman was a Czech poet, remembered for his epic love poems and Romantic inspirations.-External links:*...

, Fráňa Šrámek

Frána Šrámek

Fráňa Šrámek was a Czech anarchist, impressionist, and vitalist poet, novelist, and playwright....

 and Marie Majerová. He started compulsory military service in 1904 but dropped out after a year. He went to Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 to study painting in 1905 and a year later to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 where he drew caricatures for such journals as Rire, Cri de Paris, and Le temps nouveau. In 1908 he returned to Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

 (his father was ill) and in 1909 went to Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 and again to Paris. In 1911 he settled in Brno

Brno

Brno by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District...

 and started to work for Lidové noviny

Lidové noviny

Lidové noviny is a daily newspaper published in the Czech Republic. It is the oldest Czech daily. Its profile is nowadays a national news daily covering political, economic, cultural and scientific affairs, mostly with a centre-right, conservative view...

as a caricaturist and a reporter.

At the beginning of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 Gellner was recruited to the Austro-Hungarian army

Austro-Hungarian Army

The Austro-Hungarian Army was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was composed of three parts: the joint army , the Austrian Landwehr , and the Hungarian Honvédség .In the wake of fighting between the...

 and went to Galicia. The last report about him was that he was relaxing on a path between Zamość

Zamosc

Zamość ukr. Замостя is a town in southeastern Poland with 66,633 inhabitants , situated in the south-western part of Lublin Voivodeship , about from Lublin, from Warsaw and from the border with Ukraine...

 and Tomaszów

Tomaszów Lubelski

Tomaszów Lubelski is a town in south-eastern Poland with 20,261 inhabitants . Situated in the Lublin Voivodeship , previously in Zamość Voivodeship . It is the capital of Tomaszów Lubelski County.-History:...

. On September 13, 1914 he was claimed missing and never found.

Poetry

His first poems are full of irony in Heinrich Heine

Heinrich Heine

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...

's style. His poem Patnáct lahví koňaku (Fifteen bottles of cognac

Cognac

Cognac is a commune in the Charente department in southwestern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.-Geography:Cognac is situated on the river Charente between the towns of Angoulême and Saintes. The majority of the town has been built on the river's left bank, with the smaller right...

) which he wrote at the age of 15 was published in Švanda dudák journal (edited by Ignát Herrmann

Ignát Herrmann

Ignát Herrmann was a Czech novelist, satirist and editor. He sometimes used the pseudonym Vojta Machatý, Švanda....

). In 1901 he published his first collection called Po nás ať přijde potopa! (After Us Let the Floods Come!) in which he used especially sexual motifs without any embellishments. The next collection Radosti života (Joys of Life) shifted the point of view from subject to object and throws the disbelief more on society. The rhythm of the poems is close to vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 verses or chansons.
Nové verše (New Verses, published posthumously in 1919) are not so pathetic as if seen from a distance with a lot of nonchalance.
He also wrote satirical poems in Karel Havlíček Borovský

Karel Havlícek Borovský

Karel Havlíček Borovský was a Czech writer, poet, critic, politician, journalist, and publisher. He lived and studied at the Gymnasium in Německý Brod , and his house on the main square is today the Havlíček Museum...

's style which were published mostly in papers and journals. He also illustrated Havlíček’s Křest sv. Vladimíra.

One of his best-known poems was published in Po nás ať přijde potopa (1901):

Perspektiva	Prospects
Má milá rozmilá, neplakej!	My little darling, don't you cry!
Život už není jinakej.	Don't try the life to modify.
Dnes ještě buďme veselí	Today let's passionately meet
na naší bílé posteli!	on our creasy creamy sheet.
Zejtra, co zejtra? Kdožpak ví.	Morrow, what's morrow? May one say?
Zejtra si lehneme do rakví	Morrow in coffins we shall lay.

Another piece from the book Básně z pozůstalosti that is typical for Gellner's Bohemian lifestyle begins with this strophe:

Píseň zhýralého jinocha	The Song of a Libertine
Nezemru já od práce,	I won't die of taxing toil,
nezahynu bídou,	Won't die of poverty,
nezalknu se v oprátce,	Nor will I melt in boiling oil,
skončím syfilidou.	I'll die of syphilis.