Main content

Comenius

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Czech man who tried to use education to build a better understanding between the peoples of Europe who were otherwise divided by religious wars.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Czech educator Jan Amos Komenský (1592-1670) known throughout Europe in his lifetime under the Latin version of his name, Comenius. A Protestant and member of the Unity of Brethren, he lived much of his life in exile, expelled from his homeland under the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and he wanted to address the deep antagonisms underlying the wars that were devastating Europe especially The Thirty Years War (1618-1648). A major part of his plan was Universal Education, in which everyone could learn about everything, and better understand each other and so tolerate their religious differences and live side by side. His ideas were to have a lasting influence on education, even though the peace that followed the Thirty Years War only entrenched the changes in his homeland that made his life there impossible.

The image above is from a portrait of Comenius by Jürgen Ovens, 1650 - 1670, painted while he was living in Amsterdam and held in the Rikjsmuseum

With

Vladimir Urbanek
Senior Researcher in the Department of Comenius Studies and Early Modern Intellectual History at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Suzanna Ivanic
Lecturer in Early Modern European History at the University of Kent

And

Howard Hotson
Professor of Early Modern Intellectual History at the University of Oxford and Fellow of St Anne’s College

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Available now

57 minutes

Last on

Thu 19 May 2022 21:30

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

CONTRIBUTORS








READING LIST

Jan Čížek, The Conception of Man in the Works of John Amos Comenius (Peter Lang, 2016)

John Amos Comenius (trans. Howard Louthan and Andrea Sterk), The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart (first published 1631; Paulist Press, 1997)

John Amos Comenius, The School of Infancy (first published 1633; Kessinger Publishing Co, 2003)

John Amos Comenius (trans. M. W. Keatinge), The Great Didactica (first published 1657; White Press, 2018)

John Amos Comenius, Orbis Sensualium Pictus / The Visible World Depicted (first published 1658, Gale ECCO, Print Editions, 2018)

John Amos Comenius (trans. by A.M.O. Dobbie), Panorthosia or Universal Reform: chapters 1-18 and 27 (Sheffield Academic Press, 1995)

John Amos Comenius (trans. by A.M.O. Dobbie), Panorthosia or Universal Reform: chapters 19-26 (Sheffield Academic Press, 1993)

John Amos Comenius (trans. E. T. Campagnac), The Way of Light (Hodder & Stoughton, 1938)

Robert J. W. Evans, Rudolf II and His World (Oxford University Press, 1973)

Mark Greengrass, Michael Leslie and Timothy Raylor (eds), Samuel Hartlib and Universal Reformation (Cambridge University Press, 2002), especially 'Comenius and his Ideals: Escape from the Labyrinth' by Dagmar Čapková

John Edward Sadler, J. A. Comenius and the Concept of Universal Education (first published 1966; Routledge, 2013)

Andrew Spicer, 'Religious Representation in Comenius’s Orbis sensualium pictus (1658)' (Reformation and Renaissance Review, Vol. 21:1, 2019)

Matthew Spinka, John Amos Comenius: That Incomparable Moravian (University of Chicago Press, 1943)


RELATED LINKS





Broadcasts

  • Thu 19 May 2022 09:00
  • Thu 19 May 2022 21:30

Featured in...

In Our Time podcasts

Download programmes from the huge In Our Time archive.

The In Our Time Listeners' Top 10

If you’re new to In Our Time, this is a good place to start.

Arts and Ideas podcast

Download the best of Radio 3's Free Thinking programme.

Podcast