Ivan Olbracht's reputation as one of the most important interwar Czech authors stems largely from his works dealing with Ruthenia, a region south of the Carpathian Mountains that after World War I became part of the newly formed nation of Czechoslovakia. His novels and stories deal with the interaction between the two major ethnic groups occupying the region at that time: the Ruthenians, who were mostly peasants; and the Jews, who were mostly merchants. Nikola The Outlaw focuses on the Ruthenians and is considered Olbracht's masterpiece. He wrote several novels and shorter works and translated Arnold Zweig, Thomas Mann, and others into Czech. Olbracht is best known for this novel and for the story collection The Sorrowful Eyes of Hannah Karajich (1937). Maria K. Holocek's translation of Josef Pešek's Story of Czechoslovakia appeared in 1990. Her most recent translation is Alois Jirásek's Old Czech Legends (Dufour 1992).

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