Geographia est via vitae: the slovak anabasis of the czechoslovak anthropogeographer jiri kral (1893-1975)

Professor Jiri Kral was, together with Viktor Dvorsky, one of the most important founders of Czechoslovak anthropogeography. This Prague native and son of the eminent Czech philologist Josef Kral studied Slavic philology, history and geography at the Charles University in Prague. His primary research interests were in the field of literary history and geography of Slavic countries. He worked briefly as a high school professor and in 1919 took up a position as an assistant to Professor Vaclav Svambera at the Geographical Institute of Charles University in Prague. In 1924 he was habilitated and in 1929 he filled a vacant post at the Comenius University in Bratislava after the departure of Frantisek Stula. In this paper, we will discuss his stay in Bratislava in 1929-1938, which turned out to be the culminating period of his academic career. Kral was an enthusiastic geographer who was not afraid to open new research agendas in accordance with his personal motto "Geographia est via vitae". However, his journey through life was an anabasis, i.e. full of hardships in overcoming various obstacles and problems. He had very difficult relations in the academic community and in the following period faced multiple persecutions and early retirement as a result of the rise of the totalitarian regimes of Nazism and Communism. Despite formal rehabilitation in 1966, he was not allowed to resume full participation in academic life. In this paper we will discuss in more detail the pedagogical, research and organizational activities of J. Kral during his time in Bratislava. Based on a detailed study of archival materials, we will highlight some of his lesser-known initiatives.