Scenes from the History of Czech Puppetry

In a popular-instruction format, the book acquaints readers with an important phenomenon in Czech culture – puppetry. The richly illustrated book deals with individual tracts in the history of Czech puppetry: the development of a puppetry tradition in the Czech lands, the life of itinerant folk puppeteers, family and club-based puppetry theatre, and puppets and puppet decorations from an artistic perspective. In individual chapters top experts in the field of puppetry provide clear and gripping descriptions of the stages of development that Czech puppetry evolved through.

The book contains previously unpublished historical illustrations from the collection of the Museum of Puppet Cultures in Chrudim and brilliant and playful photographs of puppets from its collection, offering experts and aficionados of puppetry theatre a comprehensive look at the history of Czech puppetry and vividly description of how much it contributed to Czech theatre culture, despite the fact that it was quite unfairly for a long time not regarded as a ‘great art’. This book is a natural part of puppetry’s rehabilitation.

All the chapters are accompanied by English summaries, and captions to the illustrations are in Czech and English.