Untranslated Typed letter signed in Czech and on onionskin letterhead by the famed Italian Philologist, Academic, Author and promoter of Czech & Italian culture, Prague, October 16, 1931. Oversized stationary 9" x 11.5".
Nicola D'Alfonso (1880–1947) Italian philologist, linguist and academic who spent most of his adult life in Prague
He
was born in Bari and studied at the local Istituto Tecnico and
the Regia Scuola Superiore di Commercio.(1900–1904), for which he was awarded
a license (1906) and later a doctorate in technical sciences (1907). From
1905, he lived in Vienna, and in 1906 he settled permanently in Prague, where
he taught Italian privately. In 1908 he became a Professor of the Italian
language at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University. As a Professor,
he was part of the Seminar in Romance Philology, in which he led a new
Department for Practical Exercises in Italian from 1909 and introduced students
to Italian grammar and the history of Italian literature.
From
1909 he also worked as a teacher of Italian at the Czech Technical University,
he also taught at the Prague Business Academy (1911–1914). In addition to
Italian, he also spoke Latin, English, French, German, Russian and
Czech. He occasionally returned to Italy, where he gave lectures on Czech
culture and wrote about it in the Italian press. In Prague he lectured on Italy and his
travels in the Orient.
In
1910 he married Russian Maria Alexandrovna Marderfeld (1884–1960), a native of
Odessa, Ukraine. The same year, he published the yearbook Il Piccolo
di Praga in Prague , through which he promoted Czech-Italian cultural
cooperation. In general, he can be considered the driving force of the
Prague Italian community and he received a gold medal for Czech-Italian
activities at the World's Fair in Turin in 1911. His book celebrating
Italian culture was published in Prague, under the title La Vittoria della
cultura Italiana (1912). He paid special attention to Czech music,
while the Prague association Circolo italiano published a
pamphlet Lo sviluppo della musica Boema. His textbooks of Italian,
French and Russian for self-study (1911–1915) were popular.
He
and his wife were arrested at the start of World War in 1915 as citizens of an
enemy state and interned in Drosendorf, Lower Austria, until the end of the War
in November 1918. At the beginning of 1919, he returned as a lecturer to
the University of Prague, where his Italian Language classes were
renewed. At that time, he had a faculty office on Charles Square, where
the Biblioteca italiana was located. As early as 1923, he
published the narrative book "La Cecoslovacchia" in which
Augustin Seifert of the Czechoslovak National Council, Lev Borský, a politician
and former Czechoslovak ambassador to Rome, and Jan Šeba, the former organizer
of our legions in Italy, also contributed texts. The 200-page monograph
was dedicated to the President of the Republic T. G. Masaryk.
At
Charles University, his courses have been open to students of all faculties
since 1924, but he has also lectured at Czech technology, also at the Prague Conservatory
(1925), at higher Ukrainian exile schools (1925–1927) and at the University of
Business in Prague (from 1926). In addition to his lecturing activities,
he was the Czech correspondent of "Il Popolo d'Italia" from
1922, founded by Benito Mussolini.
In
1924, D'Alfonso was a representative of the Italian company Caffaro, which
produced insecticides, in Czechoslovakia, so he regularly traveled to Italy and
Austria.
In
1931, he founded a private language school in Prague, in which he applied his
original teaching method called "Audio-Vox", and also published
language textbooks (Italian, French, Russian, English German and Spanish) for
self-study. When the Germans invaded
Czechoslovakia in September 1938, he traveled to Italy, where his mentally ill
wife was treated in a sanatorium. Upon his return, the Second Republic
Provincial Office in Prague refused to issue him a residence permit, as he
allegedly spied for Italy and became
involved in the arms trade. His book "Benemerenze italiane in
Boemia" was published in Prague in 1939 was dedicated to
Mussolini.
In
1939 he led Italian language courses at Charles University, during the
so-called Protectorate and after the closure of Czech universities he made a
living as a language teacher and representative of Italian companies, later he
also worked as a correspondent for the Italian-Oriental Chamber of
Commerce. According to reports from the German occupation authorities, he
often interacted with Jews and showed hostility towards the Germans. In
1940, he and his wife spent two months in Rome, and a year later he even
considered moving to Italy permanently. His son Mario (1921 - ????),
joined the Italian army in 1943.
In
May 1945, Nicola D'Alfonso sought his position at the Faculty of Arts of
Charles University to resume Italian language courses, but the following month
he was detained by Defense Intelligence and accused of "fascism" and
"political unreliability." Although he was eventually hired and
returned to the faculty, his loyalty was constantly questioned. Although
he provided the dean's office with a confirmation of his "state
reliability", he was nevertheless let go. He was suffering from heart
disease at the time, and although he had published several language textbooks
in the post-war years, his financial situation was utterly desperate, as he fed
a sick wife and a dependent son.
After
a stroke, he became paralyzed on the right half of his body, and in November
1946 he turned to the Dean's Office of the Faculty of Arts, Charles University,
requesting payment of a monthly "charity" in recognition of his
long-term commitment to Czech-Italian cultural cooperation. The
Czechoslovak Red Cross also interceded for him in December 1946 with the
management of the faculty, in order to intercede with the Ministry of Education
and National Enlightenment for the award of a "pension by grace",
which did not happen. Nicola D'Alfonso died in Prague on January 3, 1947,
and his contributions to the promotion of Czechoslovakia and Czech culture were
forgotten.
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