In the footsteps of Jakub Jan Ryba
He composed over 1,500 sacred and secular works. Despite all adversities, he always continued to do what he had dedicated his life to - education and music. Jakub Jan Ryba was one of the most important representatives of Czech cantorial music at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.
1ST PLACE OF THE FORMER SCHOOL
The school had a brick ground floor and a timbered floor, but it burned down in 1894. Today, a post-war house stands on this site.
When Jakub Jan Ryba came to Rožmital pod Třemšínem in February 1788 to replace a sick teacher, he probably had no idea of the demanding work that awaited him. Only a quarter of the children attending the local school were in the same class - regardless of age. Although Empress Maria Theresa's reforms had been in force for several years, which, among other things, regulated compulsory schooling, everything often remained the same in rural schools.
Fish was then 22 years old. He had previously given up his dream of studying at university for a vacant teaching post in Nepomuk in the Pilsen region. He did not get a place, so he devoted himself at least to books, music and travelling. He also worked briefly as an assistant teacher in Mníšek pod Brdy.
2. CROSS
The Czech Christmas Mass was first sung in Stary Rožmital - on the organ that still adorns the choir of the local church.
After graduating from high school, he began studying law at Charles University, but a year later he returned to his native Příbram to enrol at the local mining academy. He was much more attracted by the environment of literary salons. Thanks to his studies at the academy, however, he met, for example, the poet František Gellner or Karel Toman.
In Rožmital pod Třemšínem he immediately set about making changes. He divided children into two classes according to age and knowledge, established a school library and introduced school rules. He also made sure that the children came to school clean and tidy. However, he often met with a lack of understanding from parents. "I will not send my children to this damned house. Just as I didn't need any school, I won't send my children to it," a peasant reportedly told him during an argument.
Ryba's years-long disputes with Kašpar Zachar, the parish priest of Rozmital, were also notorious. Perhaps that is why Ryb's wedding took place in a foreign parish, in nearby Treblinka. He had thirteen children with his wife Anna, but only seven of them lived to adulthood.
It was in Rožmital that Ryba began to compose music. His most famous work, the Czech Christmas Mass, was born here. It was first performed in the local Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Stary Rožmital, probably on 24 December 1796, with Ryba's participation. However, the mass represents only a tiny fraction of his more than 1,500 works.
3. THE CAIRN AT VOLTUŠ
Since 1933, a stone cairn has commemorated the place in the Brda forests below the Štěrbina peak where Jakub Jan Ryba took his life.
The Austrian state bankruptcy in 1811 caused the currency of the time to lose its value. Ryba's income was almost no longer enough to cover even the basic necessities of life, so he had to earn extra money. His long-term exhaustion and depression deepened, and his relations with the lords of Rozmital worsened. "What is the duty of a proper man? To submit to fate. This saying of Seneca (...) has been and remains my constant guide in all my journeys in this earthly, strangely tangled life," he once wrote in his diary. Perhaps even in these difficult times he followed the Roman philosopher's motto.
On the morning of Saturday, 8 April 1815, he said goodbye to his wife as usual and went to church for mass. Then, in the nearby forest, below the Gravel Hill, he cut the arteries of his neck and both wrists with a razor. Beside him lay a bundle of Seneca cannons. Jakub Jan Ryba was buried in the former plague cemetery, his remains were transferred to the Old Town cemetery only in 1855.
4. THE CEMETERY IN STARY ROZMITAL
Ryba was buried in the former plague burial ground, his remains were transferred to the cemetery in Stary Rozmital in 1855.
Václav Bešt'ák
Photo: Karolina Ketmanová
