Numerous scholars, including John Tyrrell and Vladimír Hudec, have noted similarities between Smetana's “Vyšehrad” (the first movement of his Má vlast) and Zdeněk Fibich's symphonic poem Záboj, Slavoj and Luděk. In particular, they point out that the contour and rhythm of Smetana's opening theme for “Vyšehrad” (ex. 2.1) bears a resemblance to Fibich's “Záboj” theme (Fibich labeled his themes in the score; see ex. 2.2) and that both composers include prominent writing for the harp in their works. The commonalities between the two composers’ symphonic poems have been framed in the past as a threat to Smetana's originality—one that a number of scholars have attempted to neutralize. Brian Large, for example, argued that the patterns of ink types that Smetana used in his autograph manuscript revealed that he began “Vyšehrad” before Fibich began his own symphonic poem, “exonerat[ing] Smetana from any suggestions of plagiarism.”

Rather than regarding the similarities between Smetana's “Vyšehrad” and Fibich's Záboj as a problem, this chapter embraces them as a starting point. Situating these composers’ works and the reception of their symphonic poems within the broader discourses of the UB illuminates the larger, shared intellectual and aesthetic space from which they emerged. This shiftin perspective allows us to move away from a preoccupation with an “anxiety of influence” (as set out by Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence, 1973) toward a process of contextualization that shows how both composers’ works constructed each other and how they themselves were constructed through contemporary criticism. Such an examination allows us to rethink even fundamental understandings of Smetana's relationship with nationalism. It reveals Smetana not as a “lone genius”—a composer untainted by influence—nor as the iconoclastic or even primary originator of a Czech nationalist voice. Instead, it positions the composer within an actively negotiated dialogue that shows different readings of Czechness emerging—driven by the agency of many different composers and critics—with overlaps and discrepancies between them. It suggests that claims of Czechness in music emerged as inflections of, engagements with, and contrasts to German genres and ideas—both in terms of compositional history and contemporary programmatic interpretations of the pieces at hand.