Zdeněk Jirotka
Illustration — Zdeněk Jirotka (Mladý svět, 1961) Zdeněk Jirotka (7 January 1911 – 12 April 2003) was a Czechoslovak writer of radio-broadcast plays and author of humorous novels, short stories, and feuilletons. He was born in Ostrava (Silesia), sat for the leaving examination at the secondary industrial school in Hradec Králové in 1933 and then joined the Army where he served until 1940. After the Nazis had annexed Czechoslovakia, Jirotka worked for the Public Works Ministry and in 1942, when his most famous novel Saturnin earned him great success, he became a full-time writer.
Also recorded as Zdenek Jirotka
Zdeněk Jirotka

Mladý svět: týdeník. Praha: Mladá fronta, 1961, 3(52), s. [16]. ISSN 0323-2042. Online: https: ndk.cz/uuid/uuid:40e51c80-69ed-11e4-85f4-5ef3fc9ae867 · Public domain
- Born
- 1911 · Ostrava.
- Died
- 2003 · Prague.
- Nationality
- Czech Republic
- Occupation
- writer · playwright · journalist · screenwriter · editing staff · radio editor
- Fields
- literature · drama · journalism · opinion journalism
- Languages
- Czech
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Illustration — Zdeněk Jirotka (Mladý svět, 1961) Zdeněk Jirotka (7 January 1911 – 12 April 2003) was a Czechoslovak writer of radio-broadcast plays and author of humorous novels, short stories, and feuilletons. He was born in Ostrava (Silesia), sat for the leaving examination at the secondary industrial school in Hradec Králové in 1933 and then joined the Army where he served until 1940. After the Nazis had annexed Czechoslovakia, Jirotka worked for the Public Works Ministry and in 1942, when his most famous novel Saturnin earned him great success, he became a full-time writer.
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Authority files
wikidata · Q168990 · wikipedia · Zdeněk Jirotka
In this article
Works
Works
Among other newspapers and magazines that Jirotka contributed to were: the Lidové noviny (1940-1945), the Svobodné noviny (1945-1951), and the Dikobraz (1951-1953 and after 1962).
• Saturnin, originally published in 1942 (translated into English in 1970), a humorous and satirical story of a charismatic servant, Saturnin, who carries out tasks given by his young employer, but not in the way one would expect. The book plays upon words and meanings of Czech proverbs. Its characters and events reflect the author's nostalgia for the epoch before World War II.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1911
Zdeněk Jirotka born at Ostrava.
2003
Zdeněk Jirotka died at Prague.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Ostrava.
Birth place
Prague.
Death place
Literature
• Sehnalová, Kamila. 2013. Comparative analysis of Czech, English, and German proverb in Jirotka's Saturnin. BA thesis, Charles University, Prague. Link to thesis
Citations
References
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reference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q168990: Zdeněk JirotkaWikimedia Foundation
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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