Karel Klostermann: In the Šumava Paradise

This novel by a classic of Czech literature depicts the dramatic changes in the Czech-Bavarian borderlands in the last quarter of the 19th century, when the established order of life in the "world of forest solitudes" was disrupted by a natural disaster. The dramatised reading is continued by Miloš Hlavica, Roman Hemala, Josef Patočka, Peter Pelzer, Zuzana Šavrdová, Jana Drbohlava, Tatjana Medvecká and others. In 1991, director Petr Adler made the film. In the 1870s, a storm destroyed huge areas of the Šumava forests. However, this calamity did not only cause material damage - paradoxically, it brought unexpected, but only temporary prosperity to the local forest workers and other homesteaders. Due to the bark beetle rampage, there was a need to process the wood in the infested stands as quickly as possible. However, the destructive power of the rapidly acquired wealth is badly affecting the traditional way of life of the old inhabitants of Šumava; only the morally strongest can resist its corrosive influence.