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Vincenc Červinka (August 2, 1877, Kolín - October 2, 1942, Prague) was a Czech journalist, publicist, translator, theater and literary critic. During the First World War he joined the 1st resistance against Austria-Hungary.
Vincenc Červinka was born in Kolín in the family of a local industrialist, a long-time member of the town council and leader of the Old Czechs Josef Červinka. In 1896 he graduated from the Kolín Grammar School and began to study medicine at the Czech University of Charles-Ferdinand in Prague. However, he soon left medicine and began to focus on philology and journalism he studied in Berlin and St. Petersburg.
After returning to Bohemia he got closer to Dr. Alois Rašín and his group around the weekly Slovo, where in 1901 - 1905 he was responsible editor. In 1905 he was sent as a reporter of the National Papers to St. Petersburg, where he spent about a year. Upon his return, he founded the New Czech Politics magazine with Karel Kramář, who was later converted to Den, and became its editor. Shortly thereafter, he started to work with the Golden Prague magazine by Jan Otto and became a member of his editorial staff. He also contributed to the magazines Osvěta, Česká revue, Lumír and Zvon. In 1907 he became a member of the editorial staff of Národní listy, in 1911 he became its secretary, later responsible editor and finally a deputy editor-in-chief. He led the section From the World of Slavic and wrote editorials. At that time he also began to work with literary translations, mainly from Russian and other Slavic languages. He first translated into Czech the works of Leonid Andreyev, Arkady Averchenko, Ivan Bunin, Denis Fonvizin, Vasily Nemirovich-Danchenko and others. Thanks to him, Czech was the first language in which the plays of the Viennese Jewish playwright Le Birinski were translated. His Mumraj was in Prague's National Theater in 1912 just three days after the German premieres. Leo Birinski was also mistaken for a Russian writer thanks to Červink's translation focus on Russian.
Politically, Červinka was close to Karel Kramář, he became a supporter of Slavic reciprocity, and later under his influence joined the idea of neo-Slavicism. He was a member of Kramář's national democracy, and for some time his personal secretary. At the same time he sympathized with Freemasonry, and in 1911 he was admitted to the Prague lodge Hiram. After the outbreak of the First World War he joined the First Resistance. In 1915 he was arrested with Karel Kramář, Alois Rašín and Josef Zamazal and sentenced to death for high treason and espionage after an eight-month trial on July 3, 1916. After the death of Franz Joseph I, by the grace of the new Emperor Charles I, the sentence was reduced to 20 years in prison, and in July 1917 he was amnestied and released. He later used the experience of this period in My Austrian Dungeons (1928).
After returning from prison, he returned to work in the National Papers. Soon after the declaration of independent Czechoslovakia, he was elected chairman of the Czechoslovak press daily. In 1919, he went to the USA to attend a lecture tour to the United States. On his way to Siberia and further to Russia to the units of the Czechoslovak Legions. He returned to Czechoslovakia in early 1920 through China, the Indian Ocean, and the Suez Canal, making his way around the world. He used his experiences and travel experiences to write several books with political and travel ideas.
In the interwar Czechoslovakia, he worked in the editorial office of the Národní listy, to whom he remained faithful until his retirement in 1934. He had a broad journalism, wrote political articles, commentaries, reflections on prominent personalities of various nations, literary and theater criticism. In addition to journalistic work in the years 1919-1933, he managed and edited the edition of the Russian Library in Otto's Publishing House, highly respected for editorial selection and for the quality of translations. He continued his translation work and introduced Czech readers to the works of Soviet authors and Russian emigrants. He was the first to translate the works of Valeri Bryusov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Valentin Katajev, Ivan Nizazin and Mikhail Zoshchenko. He introduced into the Czech language the use of the originally Russian words of the Lack, Kulak or Keren.
In 1921, Jan Amos Comenius was admitted to the newly founded Masonic Lodge and remained a member of it until his dissolution in 1938. He was a member of all Czechoslovak journalist organizations, Vice-Chairman of the Czechoslovak Writers Syndicate. He was also a member of the Slavonic Institute and, since 1934, Chairman of the Society of Slavic Reciprocity.