“Good morning Dr. Holub, are you going to Africa again this year?” “He’ll be home, he’s had enough!” This famous phrase from Ladislav Smoljak and Zdeněk Svěrák‘s film Jára Cimrman Lying, Sleeping is known to every true traveller. Emil Holub is undoubtedly one of the travel legends and one of the most famous Czech travellers of the second half of the 19th century. I visited his exhibition at the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures and was absolutely fascinated by it. I discovered that I had always rather perceived him as a film character from the film in question, but I actually know very little about him. The authors of the exhibition show him in slightly more realistic colours. This gives you the opportunity to get to know the time in which he lived and the values he held.
CHILDHOOD AND STUDIES
Emil Holub was born in Holice in today’s Pardubice region into the family of František Holub, a popular local doctor, and his wife Anna. His mother claimed that he had a passion for travelling at the age of 3. He said he saw a picture of a black man in a book and from then on he was thinking about Africa. However, at the age of 13, he read a travelogue by David Livingstone. He was extremely inspired by his work. He was fascinated by the fact that he had walked through black Africa from west to east, explored the Zambezi, discovered Victoria Falls and reached the headwaters of the Congo.
He liked to read and borrow books. At his parents’ request, he took a German exam, as was necessary at the time, and enrolled at the Malostranské Gymnasium in Prague. However, his first academic results were tragic and after a few months he transferred from the first year to the eight-year grammar school in Žatec. Even here he was not successful. Nevertheless, under the supervision of his father, he learned to draw, prepare, describe and sort collections. By the time he graduated, his collection contained 300 archaeological objects collected from 80 sites in the Ohře Valley. Subsequently, he graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of Charles University, as he found this profession to be a perfect fit for dangerous Africa. He also devoted himself to archaeology and was a member of the Archaeological Society of the Kingdom of Bohemia.
FRIENDSHIP WITH VOJTA NÁPRSTK
He lived in Prague, where he made many friends. One of his great friends was Vojta Náprstek. He met him when he was about 17 years old. He was very supportive of him and he would find him travel literature. Náprstek helped Holub quite significantly financially. Holub was always very determined to achieve his goals and was actually willing to do almost anything to achieve them.
FIRST STAY IN AFRICA
Holub went to Africa about three months after graduation. He received money for the trip from Vojta Náprstek, but the money was only enough for his trip to Africa. He travelled to England by train and then took a steamer to Cape Town. As it happens, he planned his stay in Africa for a maximum of two years, but in the end he spent seven years there.
I always had the idea that Holub spent all his years in the wilderness. hacking his way through the impenetrable jungle with a machete. But that was not the case. 99% of his time was spent in ‘civilised’ territory colonised by Great Britain or in the so-called Boer states. To support himself, he had to quickly become a doctor after arriving in Port Elizabeth. He earned money for his research. Medical practice was actually his main activity.
During his stay he penetrated as far inland as the Zambezi River. He even made a special car with a lookout from which he could also shoot. In the exhibition you will find a drawing of it, but even an approximate reconstruction.
It wasn’t unexplored territory, but he kept very detailed notes anyway. He amassed a very large and varied collection. He sent the materials to Vojt Náprstek in Prague. He organized the first Holub exhibition at the Old Town Hall.
STAY IN VIENNA
It should be remembered that Emil Holub lived during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So he spoke more German than Czech. So not only Vojta Náprstek contributed to his travels, but also, for example, the Imperial Treasury. He also had many Austrian patrons. So when he brought his exhibits, he brought several of them. He could exhibit them in Prague, but also in Vienna. It was in Vienna that he settled after his first African trip. Here he had more opportunities to raise money. And thanks to that, he made his second expedition. He wrote a number of popular travelogues, as well as books on ethnography, ornithology and archaeology that are still highly regarded.
WIFE RŮŽENA HOLUBOVÁ (ROSE)
In Holub’s life, however, we must not forget his wife Rose. She was as fearless and active as Emil. She also dreamed of travelling and exploring new worlds. When Emil lived in the Vienna Rotunda, a large building built for exhibition purposes at the World’s Fair. This is where he kept his collections. Rose was the daughter of the caretaker of this rotunda and it was here that Emil met her. She helped him with his collections or with correspondence, and most importantly she helped him plan his travels. It’s no wonder they had a spark between them. He married her a few days before he set off on his expedition. Rose took her husband’s Czech name and surname, so she went to Africa as Růžena Holubová. But it was a pragmatic marriage in a way. Interestingly, he had a fiancée in Prague at the time. 🙂 However, he broke up with her remotely. Růžena learned Kaffir in Africa and was a sought-after interpreter.
SECOND EXPEDITION TO AFRICA
By then he was already well known and sponsors were much easier to find. Holub was supported on his second trip by a number of Austro-Hungarian companies, with the understanding that Holub was to promote them in South Africa. He was also supported by the Emperor Franz Joseph I at the time, who apparently had political interests again. There were of course more of these supporters. Holub’s wife Rose was certainly not the lady we know from the Cimrman film, who forbade her husband to travel. On the contrary, she went with him to Africa. She even saved his life when Holub’s camp was attacked by the Ila ethnic group by firing a shot into the air to drive them away. However, this ambush had a bad effect on the group as they returned barefoot to Cape Town, losing some of their possessions. Both were then plagued by chronic insomnia and bad dreams for the rest of their lives as a result.
AMAZING CARVINGS
The exhibition is divided into four parts. The first part is devoted to two African journeys that Holub made in the 1870s and 1880s. Here you will find the most important discoveries. For example, there is a map of Victoria Falls. These were discovered by David Livingstone, but Emil Holub was the first to map them. I was very surprised at his talent as a draughtsman. He drew everything as he personally saw it. That’s why his drawings have great documentary value. At the beginning, of course, you will also find a timeline where you can get acquainted with the basic milestones of his travelling life.
HOLUB’S ACTIVITIES THAT WILL SURPRISE YOU
The second part of the exhibition maps Holub’s activities and focuses on the context of his time. In particular, his relationship to the colonisation of Africa. At that time, most of the territory belonged to England. Importantly, there were still free Boer states. The Boers were immigrants from Europe and mainly from Germany and the Netherlands. From his first expedition, he brought back rock engravings of the San. He was criticized for this in his lifetime. In his defense, he claimed that they were in danger of being destroyed. He was right, however, because diamond mines had been created in the place of the carvings.
GIRL BELLA
What I didn’t know was that he even brought a live exhibit. Back then, it was completely normal. An orphaned Bechuan girl, Bella, who originally served in a European family. Pigeon often hired child helpers because he could pay them less than adults. The girl was from what is now Botswana. She had a father, but he neglected her very much and often drank himself into a stupor. He originally hired her as a servant in Africa, then took her to Europe with the idea of giving her an education. At the same time, however, he also took Bella to his lectures and showed her as a living exhibit.
Under the guidance of Mrs. Náprstková, Bella learned some Czech and German. She enjoyed her life in Prague. She became the darling of Prague. She didn’t want to go back to Africa. It must have been a terrible shock when Holub told her that she had to return to Africa. He promised in writing to bring her back within ten years. He took her back during his second trip to Africa. She begged him that she wanted to stay with the expedition and then return to Bohemia again. But he refused. She was very disappointed and eventually ran away after Holub’s departure. They never met Holub again.
HOLUB’S DIARIES AND NOTEBOOKS
The third part of the collection deals with the ethnographic collection. During his eleven years of research in South Africa, Holub collected tens of thousands of objects, which he described and documented in detail. He was very systematic, carefully writing everything down in his journals and also making drawings. I was very impressed by his descriptions and I thought that I must do something like that. Such a detailed file of imported items. Although I actually bring magnets. 🙂 You can also admire his diaries and notebooks here. On his first trip he wrote them in Czech, on the second in German. Today you can flip through them in the museum using a digital app.
TRANSPORT AND RETRIEVAL OF MATERIAL
He transported his collected items in crates. It was a very complicated logistics. He had to transport them in stages. Even his archival drawings have been preserved. For example, how the objects were stored in the crates so they wouldn’t break. Of course, it happened that some of the crates were lost during the journey, but in the quantity he brought, it was only a fraction. Some of the things he had acquired, for example, by bartering. For example, he brought jewellery from Jablonec, large quantities of fabrics, etc.
SOUTH AFRICAN EXHIBITION IN PRAGUE
The last part of the exhibition is dedicated to Holub’s “South African Exhibition in Prague“, which took place at the Prague Holešovice Exhibition Centre in 1892. He exhibited his ethnographic objects, mammals, birds, bird eggs and nests, snakes and plants. There were even life-size models of entire villages. If you’ve ever been to the fairgrounds, you can imagine that filling this area is no fun. Now imagine that only one person managed to fill this large area. Interestingly, even though the exhibition had a huge attendance of around 180,000 visitors, financially it was a flop.
From America, he was offered to set up the African Museum, where he would be the director. However, he was a patriot and wanted his collections to remain in Bohemia. He thought he would exhibit his collections in the National Museum, but it refused him for lack of space. So he sold off his collection and donated some to European museums, scientific institutions, schools and private collections.
CESTOVATEL ZEMŘEL VELMI MLADÝ
Holub organized two spectacular exhibitions, which did not pay off financially and plunged him into great debt. At that time he was already having health problems. In addition, he brought back from Africa the diseases he had contracted in Africa, including malaria. He wanted to go to Africa once more, but his ever-worsening health never made it happen. He died in poverty at the age of 54. Another interesting fact is that his wife died in Vienna at the age of 93. It was here that other great travellers Miroslav Zikmund and Jiří Hanzelka visited her.
It is a very nicely done exhibition and definitely worth a visit. If you liked my article, I would be glad for a nice comment. I would also like to invite you to join me on Instagram a Facebook.
