The study presents a historical overview of the previous editions of Bedfiich Smetana’s correspondence published since the end of the 19th century, and in the course of the 20th century. Next to the editions of single or limited selections of letters in the journals, we have a number of book editions of Smetana’s selected letters, and series of correspondence to several personalities, in a few cases even their mutual correspondence. The editions vary in quality ranging from simple reprints of the texts to the fully commented editions. The editions also vary greatly from the transcription point of view, ranging from the translation into the contemporary language to the effort to preserve the specific forms of Smetana’s language. No edition so far, however, had a clearly defined, as well as pronounced transcription format; and they always contained editors’ amendments, some of which went out of control. In this study, we compiled a list of all edited collections of Smetana’s correspondence, and analysed the first two attempts to the general critical edition, the first made by František Bartoš, and Zdeněk Němec in the 1940s, and the second by the Museum of B. Smetana in the 1980s.
The study offers the information on the current state of the project of the critical edition of Smetana’s correspondence conducted by the Museum of Bedfiich Smetana (shortened as MBS). The edition forms a part of the scientific research project Personalities of the Czech Science and Culture 2005–2011 held by the National Museum. New acquisitions to the MBS were added to the list of letters, and completed with the information gained from other sources. The bulk of the correspondence was transcribed on the computer, and corrected against the originals, the whole mass of the correspondence from the MBS, and some parts from other institutions were digitalised, and a database for storing information contained in the letters was created. The final format of the edition will be generated on the basis of this database. Currently, the template of the critical edition of all letters sent and received by Smetana in chronological order is under construction, as well as are the generic structure, and problem-solving procedures applied during the editing of the documents: headings, transcription of the text, critical apparatus, indices. As a part of the study, attachment 1 contains the prescribed format of the transcription, and attachment 2 shows its practical application.