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> Kafka lived his whole life in Prague, Czech Republic. Kafka had been dead for 70 years when Czech Republic came to existence. He even lived only a handful of
by wott 5y ago
> Kafka lived his whole life in Prague, Czech Republic.
Kafka had been dead for 70 years when Czech Republic came to existence. He even lived only a handful of years in Czechoslovakia since he died young. So saying he lived most of his life in Austria is more correct, than assigning him to an entity which didn't exist at all at the time.
- david927 5y agoNope. You can say Austrian Hungarian Empire or better, Prague. He, and the people of the time, would not say they lived in Austria -- which didn't exist either. The people of the area spoke Czech. You can't shorten the Austrian Hungarian Empire to Austria or Hungary. It's both lazy and wrong. Also, the Czechs fought hard for their independence and achieved it during Kafka's lifetime. In the same way, literally no one says, "George Washington, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who lived in 18th-century England..." We don't call them English, despite having been born in a colony of England, because they identified themselves as American and were officially recognized as that in their lifetime.
- kzrdude 5y agoCompare to someone like George Washington. He grew up in the british empire, in their territory. That's the fact, yet it sounds wrong to call him british.