Jaroslav Durych

Jaroslav Durych (2 December 1886 – 7 April 1962) was a Czech prose writer, poet, playwright, journalist, and military surgeon.

After serving as a military doctor in Galicia during World War I, he established a private practice in Přerov.

Throughout the Nazi occupation and the communist regime, he remained isolated and was able to publish only a few newspaper articles, written under pseudonyms.

Under the influence of Josef Florian, he published his first novel, Bloudění [cs] (Wandering, 1929), an historical piece set in the time of the Thirty Years' War, then Služebníci neužiteční (Roughly: Useless Servants), a novel about Jesuit missionaries in 17th-century Japan, led by Charles Spinola.

Durych's Catholic viewpoint was often at odds with the prevailing intellectual climate in the Czechoslovak First Republic; notably his positive evaluation of the developments in Bohemia and baroque culture in general that followed the Battle of White Mountain.