An old manuscript kafka free#

He began working for them in November 1907 but resigned only eight months later in July 1908 looking for better options. In October 1907 he applied for a job at the Assicurazioni Generali insurance company and strangely in the application he had to state his height (it was 1.81m).

An old manuscript kafka free#

He graduated his law degree in July 1906 and as was required at that time, worked free for the city civil and criminal courts for one year.Īpart from the qualification the other event which would dominate his life would be meeting a fellow student called Max Brod who we’ll hear more about later. This was almost certainly pressure from his father. Then we arrive at the first real conflict as Kafka first enrolled on a Chemistry course but two weeks later switched to the Law Faculty. In any case he spent eight years there, passed his graduation exams and enrolled at the Charles University although in 1901 this was pre-Czechoslovakia and it was called the German Charles-Ferdinand University. It was a well trodden path to go from the German Elementary school to the German Old Town Gymnazium (in England that would be a Grammar School or in the US a High School) located in the Kinsky Palace. Although it was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it’s clear that things would never be the same again.

The middle classes that had relied on speaking German for generations to get advancement in the city were having to learn a new language. Czech culture was being promoted and the language actively being used but when he started school it was at the German Boys Elementary School (the location at Masna 13 is still used as a school) so his education was clearly in German but he was speaking Czech as well. From a language point of view his parents spoke Czech and German mixed with Yiddish but Franz was taught standard German.įranz Kafka would not have known it at the time but he was growing up in the midst of the Czech National Revival. Herman Kafka was not a practicing Jew and he placed no importance on Franz Kafka being educated in the Jewish faith hence what Jewish education he received ended at the time of his Barmitzvah in the Ziegenuer Synagogue aged 13.

Although both were from the Jewish Ashkenazi community, only the mother was Orthodox. The mother was from the middle-class and compliant to her husband’s wishes. From a family point of view the father Herman Kafka was from the working-class and the dominant controlling influence. This Plaque marks the birth place of Franz Kafka in PragueĪ specific set of circumstances combined to influence Franz Kafka.