KAFKA TAGE – KAFKOVY DNY Gmünd/České Velenice

Milena Jesenská and Franz Kafka – a love across all borders

In the Kafka Year 2024, which is being celebrated in the capitals of Europe and around the world, the special role that Gmünd played as a border town in Kafka's life will also be presented: as the place where he met Milena Jesenská. This fateful meeting of the two lovers, with their overnight stay in the „Huber“ railway station hotel, was reflected in the „Letters to Milena“ and thus found its way into world literature.

The KAFKA TAGE (KAFKA DAYS) organised by the cultural association ÜBERGÄNGE PŘECHODY will not only focus on the work and person of the world-famous writer Franz Kafka, but also on the outstanding personality of the translator, journalist and resistance fighter Milena Jesenská. An international symposium, readings in trains from Vienna and Prague, and Kafka texts realised through dance and music by Otto Lechner, among others, will provide a closer look. School workshops, in which a short film will be produced, an exhibition by the artist Elmar Peintner, concerts in the station concourse and the erection of two walk-in monuments commemorating Franz Kafka and his encounter with Milena Jesenská complete the programme.

By the way, it is still a beautiful summer here at the moment, even on Sunday it only rained in South Bohemia, I was proud, the whole world could recognise from my rainy clothes that I came from the direction of Gmünd.

Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena, Prague, 19 to 23 August 1920