HAVLCEK BOROVSK, KAREL

born Oct. 31, 1821, Borov, Bohemia, Austrian Empire [now in Czech Republic] died July 29, 1856, Prague pseudonym Havel Borovsk Czech author and political journalist, a master prose stylist who reacted against Romanticism and through his writings gave the Czech language a more modern character. A student at Prague, Havlcek first became a tutor in Russia, but in the 1840s he became active as a Czech politician and journalist. He wrote numerous articles advocating constitutional reform and national rights, and in 1851 he was arrested, tried, and banished to Brixen until 1855. He also wrote a book of brilliant satirical poems, Krest Svatcho Vladima (1876; The Conversion of St. Vladimir).