The Centre for Classical Studies at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Research focus of the Centre

The Centre for Classical Studies at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences conducts research into selected aspects of ancient literature, art, language, and the intellectual world of Greco-Roman culture, as well as their reception in Czech lands and within a broader European context. We trace the development and heritage of classical traditions from the Middle Ages, through Neo-latin works, to the modern Era. Our research is based on the interconnection of philology, history, religious studies, and theatre studies.  

In addition to long-term and team-based projects, such as the compilation and publication of the Dictionary of Medieval Latin in the Czech Lands and research into Neo-Latin literature, researchers at the Centre for Classical Studies also work on individual projects which result in specialised publications, studies in journals, editions and translations, published in the Czech Republic and abroad. The data collected thereby are also rpocessed in e-databases which are freely accessible for both professional community and general public. The nature of the research tasks implies an interdisciplinary collaboration with other institutions: either with similarly oriented departments of the Institute of Philosophy, or with other institutes of Czech Academy of Sciences. Within the Institue of Philosophy, we collaborate, for example, with the Centre for Medieval Studies, with which we form a research cluster „Premodern Worlds: Classical and Medieval Studies in an Interdisciplinary Perspective.“ We also work with the Department for Comenius Studies and Early Modern Intellectual History and the Department for the Study of Ancient and Medieval Thought. Other institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences we collaborate include the Institute of History and the Institute of Czech Literature.

Apart from the already mentioned Dictionary of Medieval Latin (a project running under the aegis of the Union Académique Internationale in Brussels), the Centre cooperates on a number of other international projects, such as the Clavis monumentorum litterarum: regnum Bohemiae, Europa humanistica, or the Corpus vasorum antiquorum (coordinated by the Union Académique Internationale in Brussels), or the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (coordinated by the University of Oxford).

Finally, members of the Centre contribute to teaching and supervise student theses at university departments in the Czech Republic with similar research interests, including the Institute of Greek and Latin Studies and the Department of Theatre Studies at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University, Prague, or the Department of Classical Studies at the Faculty of Arts of the Masaryk University, Brno).

The Centre for Classical Studies publishes two scholarly journals. Listy filologické – Folia philologica, established in 1874 and published in two double issues per year, provides room for philologically oriented Latin, Greek and Old Czech studies. The international journal Eirene. Studia Graeca et Latina, published since 1960 in one double issue per year, devoted to the studies of classical antiquity and its reception. Both journals are abstracted/indexed in important international bibliographic citation databases (e.g. EBSCO, ERIH Plus, JSTOR, SCOPUS, and Web of Science).

For the benefit of general public, the Centre organises every year a Summer School of Classical Studies.

The Centre houses a specialised library, which is open to the public and holds a collection of more than 60 000 volumes, primarily in classical philology, medieval studies, neo-latin studies, history, theology and related disciplines.

History of the Centre

The Centre for Classical Studies exists for more than sixty years. It was established under the name of the Centre for Greek, Roman and Latin Studies on 1st January 1953, and its first employees were the members of the Commission for the Dictionary of Medieval Latin, headed by Professor Bohumil Ryba since it was established in the 1930s as a part of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts. Following the latter’s transformation in the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, the first head of the Institute was Antonín Salač, a regular member of the Academy, who presided over the extension of the Institute’s research scope to cover classical philology, ancient history, Mediaeval Latin studies and studies of humanism. After 1968, the Institute offered shelter also to experts on Byzantine studies. In 1990, it was renamed the Institute for Classical Studies and its research was refocused to concentrate on Latin literature and its influence on Czech culture and scholarship from the beginnings of Czech statehood till the end of the 18th century, with the department of Byzantine studies returning back to the restored Institute of Slavonic studies. Finally, at the beginning of 2004, following the structural optimisation of institutes dealing with humanities in the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Institute became a part of the Institute of Philosophy of the CAS and it returned to the traditional name of the Centre for Classical Studies.

During the more than sixty years of its existence, the Centre was headed by Antonín Salač, Ladislav Varcl, Jan Janda, Jan Bažant, Martin Svatoš, Jiří Beneš and Petr Kitzler and its history was also shaped by many important scholars. Apart from the founder and expert on classical antiquities Antonín Salač, it is a pleasure to mention the papyrologist Ladislav Varcl, the ancient historians Pavel Oliva and Jan Burian, the epigraphist Ladislav Vidman, the experts on Greek Jan Janda, Alena Frolíková and Helena Kurzová, the medieval Latin lexicographer Dana Martínková, the experts on the Middle Ages Anežka Vidmanová and Pavel Spunar, the specialists on humanism Jan Martínek and Josef Hejnic, the experts on Byzantine studies Růžena Dostálová, Bohumila Zástěrová, Vladimír Vavřínek, or the theatrologist Eva Stehlíková.