Page:Poet Lore, volume 28, 1917.djvu/575



HE Four Bare Walls is a socialistic drama written by a Bohemian playwright whose influence as the director of the famous National Theater of Prague, Bohemia, extended for many years throughout the dramatic world of Central Europe.

Subert reveals in his drama an intimate acquaintance with the people, but the dominant theme of his dramas is one of patriotic devotion to the oppressed and bleeding little nation which he loved with an almost absorbing love.

For the tragedy of Bohemia, which has given a minor strain to the song and the lay of its gifted children alike, has been the national tragedy laid bare in The Four Bare Walls,—the rebellion and hopeless struggle of a small Slavic nation, distinctly different in its sentiments, its language and national characteristics from the Austro-Germans who have governed and for three centuries oppressed it, fighting a fight unto death against the iron heel which has tried to denationalize a people through repeated attempts to wrest from them their native language.

The miners’ revolt took place as described in the drama, and for some years following its publication, Subert’s Four Bare Walls was suppressed by the Austrian government.

This drama is a wonderful tribute to that patriotism and love of liberty which again and again have drenched the soil of Bohemia with the blood of its martyrs, and made this nation an exponent of the immortality of nationality and language.