Siegfried Kapper was the literary pseudonym of Isaac Salomon Kapper (21 March 1821, Smíchov – 7 June 1879, Prague), a Bohemian-born Austrian writer of Jewish origin. Born in Smichow, Kapper studied medicine at Prague University, later completing a Ph.D. at the University of Vienna. Kapper wrote excellent fairy tales and poems, and was one of the leading figures of Czech-Jewish assimilation. Kapper wrote in both German and Czech. He translated Mácha's Máj into German for the first time (1844).^[1] Austrian composer Nina Stollewerk used Kapper's text for her composition "Zwei Gedichte," opus 5.^[2]

After his death, the Kapper-Society was founded; its aim was Czech-Jewish assimilation and opposition to Zionism and German-Jewish assimilation.^[3]

Selected works

• "Das Böhmerland" (1865)
• "Die Handschriften Altböhmischer Poesien" (1859)
• "Die Böhmischen Bäder" (1857)
• "Fürst Lazar" (1853)
• "Falk" (1853)
• "Südslavische Wanderungen" (1853)
• "Die Gesänge der Serben" (1852 – in two parts)
• "Lazar der Serbenzar" (1851). Kapper had a Serbian predecessor in the person of Joksim Nović-Otočanin who published his book on the same theme at Novi Sad (Neusatz) in 1847.
• "Befreite Lieder dem Jungen Oesterreich" (1848)
• "České Listy" (1846)
• "Slavische Melodien" (1844)^[4]

English edition

• Tales of the Prague Ghetto. Prague: Karolinum Press (2022). ISBN 9788024649450. The stories Kapper wrote about the Jews of Prague (collected posthumously as Prager Ghettosagen, 1896).