| Number of records: | 37,000+ (as of 31 December 2020) |
| Scope: | fiction writers, literary scholars, translators, dramatists, scriptwriters, popular non-fiction authors, historians, Czech studies scholars, teachers, journalists, public commentators in any genre, artists, etc. |
| Materials: | ICL card index, background sources, systematic archival research, ongoing assessments of CLB database acquisitions, questionnaires completed by literary personae |
| Timeframe: | earliest works of Czech literature to the latest publications |
| Languages: | Czech |
| How to cite the Czech Literary Figures database: | Czech Literary Bibliography. Czech Literary Figures database. Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences, a public research institution. Available at: http://clo.ucl.cas.cz/ |
The Czech Literary Biographical Database is a publicly accessible database that contains basic biographical profiles of people involved in Czech literary life. It includes records for 37,000 individuals from a period spanning the entire history of Czech literature from its earliest works to the present day. The main focus is on the 20th and 21st centuries. Entries have been created not only for fiction writers (poets and prose writers) but also literary scholars and others active in the literary world including translators, dramatists, scriptwriters, popular non-fiction writers, Czech studies scholars, historians, teachers, journalists, artists and public commentators on any genre.
The core of the database is the records that have been collected, verified and updated at the Institute of Czech Literature since the 1950s. These items are now housed in the Biographical Archive. The origins of this archive lie in the biographical records in the Institute’s documentation department which had previously been used mainly to create entries for our project Lexicon of Czech Literature. Over time, the Biographical Archive became more independent and began to be cultivated as a separate resource. A simple ISIS-system database was created for this purpose during the 1990s. Between 2004 and 2008, it was upgraded to an MS Access platform under Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports grant project No. 1N04172. This development continued between 2009 and 2011 with support from the Ministry’s INFOZ programme (Project VZ09001). Today the Czech Literary Biographical Database contains a unique collection of biographical information about Czech literary personae and other participants in national cultural and scholarly life. It is a critical cog in the CLB research infrastructure for which it provides the local authority files database.
Entries are created through the collection of key information combined with systematic archival research, ongoing analysis of new acquisitions in other CLB databases and last but not least, questionnaires completed by the literary figures themselves. All biographical information in our records has been systematically verified. It is based on official sources (e.g. registry records, birth and death certificates) or the personal confirmation of the individual concerned or their descendant, for example, in a questionnaire.
Our publication of personal information complies with all relevant regulations including the Czech Personal Data Protection Act (No. 101/2000, Coll.) and the European General Data Protection Regulation (Reg. 2016/679).
Each record in our publicly accessible biographical database contains the preferred form of the person’s name (and, if applicable, any of their aliases including pseudonyms, initialisms, former names, etc.). It also states the date and location of their birth and death (with details about verification including any discrepancies) and summarises their scholarly, professional and publication interests.
