The thesis focuses on virtuoso pianist, teacher, musical theoretician and composer Josef Jiránek (1855 - 1940). The thesis draws from Josef Jiránek's own estate, as well as resources kept at various archive institutions in Prague. It underlines Josef Jiránek's merit as regards the art of the piano and piano education in particular, while emphasizing Hugo Riemann's influence on his music-teaching as well as theoretical ideas. In the light of the Prague resources, Josef Jiránek may be viewed as a follower of the traditional interpretation legacy of Bedřich Smetana. Nonetheless, by further elaborating Smetana's legacy from a purely scientific perspective and with his analytical and rational approach to piano work, Josef Jiránek had indeed largely contributed to the development and evolution of piano education and piano reproduction art - regardless of the fact that his ideas and methods were later overcome. The objective of this thesis is to open a gateway that would attract greater attention of musicologists to Josef Jiránek, who has been on the periphery of their interest and whose true picture remains hidden under the label "Bedřich Smetana's pupil".

This work exposes, evaluates and summarises academic and professional career of Jan Nepomuk Vaclav Zimmermann (1788-1836), who worked as a scriptor and a censor. It reviews his censoring and book-examining skills across all fields of book culture. It investigates and evaluates whether contemporary critical testimonies depict Zimmermann's rather negative character rightfully and accurately or not. Zimmermann devoted his time to examining and censoring Czech books and also Hebrew books. As a scriptor at University library, he was responsible for collecting, archiving and organizing manuscripts into catalogues. These catalogues have been filed in National Library for many years. Palaeographical analysis of the catalogues will bring in new facts concerning Zimmermann's autorship. This thesis also presents a list of Zimmermann's work with its historical critical evaluation and compares it to the recent research. Keywords: Jan Zimmermann, Manuscript Catalogues, University Library, Censorship, Censoring Hebrew Literature, Censoring Czech literature, of the Cross with the Red Star, Reformation of Catholic Church under the reign of Joseph II