In the Jubilee Year of Czech Music, we commemorate the anniversary of the birth of music composer Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884). Children at school already learn about him, that he laid the foundations of Czech national music, it's a cliché used for generations.
By studying the sources, Pavel Kosatík came to the conclusion that there may be enough facts about Smetana available, but that we have not thought them through enough, taking into account the needs of our time.
The author does not agree with the main, most often presented thesis about Smetana as just the founder of Czech music. He sees in him representatives of European music. He thinks that world music in our country did not start with Antonín Dvořák, but with Bedřich Smetana. "Only" it hasn't been able to get into that world for him yet, and then with the theory about his only Czech music, perhaps not enough thought has been given to it.
It's never too late to start fixing things, and now might be a good time to do so. It's a shame if the world only knows Smetana's Bartered Bride, Vltava and the string quartet From my Life. The world also includes Dalibor, Hubička and Two Widows, the whole of My Country, the cycle of "Swedish" symphonic poems and also a number of brilliant compositions written for the piano.
Let's love Bedřich Smetana more. Let's let him go from consciousness to consciousness. And then to the world.