„Narodil se o sto let později...“. Náprstkovo muzeum Jiřího Müllera a Bohumíra Lifky

Abstract

“He was born a century later…” Náprstek Museum of Jiří Muller and Bohumír Lifka The long-standing professional and personality clashes and differences in opinion between these two well-known museum managers, Jiří Müller and Bohumír Lifka, had a major impact on the environment in which professional, everyday and official life took place at the Náprstek Museum in Prague throughout the entire nineteen thirties and forties. In many aspects, the mutual conflict and differences in opinion between archaeologist and ethnographer Jiří Müller and librarian, heraldist and archivist Bohumír Lifka, were actually the most important factor affecting the running of the entire museum institution. What is more, this occured at a time when the Náprstek Museum, which had been under-financed for many years, was integrated as provincial property in the nineteen thirties and was searching for a new content and appearance in many regards. The discord between the more conservative and professionally reasoning Lifka and the left-leaning Müller escalated in many respects during the period of occupation, when the Náprstek Museum was nearly completely undermined by its temporary German director JUDr. Edmund von Merkl. The post-war accusation of J. Müller of collaborating with the Germans and several months of Lifka’s management of the entire Náprstek Museum, definitely ended this dispute, with Jiří Müller, who determined the running of the museum during the complicated post-war period, appearing as the victor. However, his forced departure from the Náprstek Museum and Lifka’s extensive professional activities outside the museum subsequently restricted the museum’s development until the period when indologist and africanist Erich Herold was appointed its head.