Václav Hanka

Václav Hanka (1791–1861) was a Czech philologist, librarian and poet of the Czech National Revival; Bowring writes his name Waslaw Hanka and notes his appointment as librarian of the National Museum at Prague in 1818. He is also remembered as the forger of the Králové Dvůr manuscript.

The four songs here are given by Bowring as Hanka's own; he says two of them come from the collection Dvanáctero písní (1816). They are love songs in a folk manner; nothing from the forged manuscripts is included.