Josef Václav Frič

Josef Václav Frič (5 September 1829 – 14 October 1890) was a Czech poet, journalist and radical democrat revolutionary. He was a participant in the revolution of 1848.

Life Frič was born on 5 September 1829 in Prague, Bohemia, Austrian Empire. When he was still in high school, he joined the illegal activities of the radical democrats. He had to flee from Prague (1846) and worked in Paris and London, among the Polish emigrants. In 1847, he returned to Prague and joined the secret society Repeal. In June 1848, Repeal launched an armed struggle. Frič organized fighting on the barricades. After the defeat of the rebellion he fled to Vienna, then to Zagreb and later he joined the Slovak revolutionary army of Ľudovít Štúr. In Slovakia he was seriously wounded.

In 1849, after an amnesty in Austria, he returned to Prague. His most important literary work is the patriotic poem The Vampire (1849).

Frič died on 14 October 1890 in Královské Vinohrady (now Vinohrady district of Prague), aged 61.