Ľubomír Feldek
Ľubomír Feldek (born October 9, 1936 in Žilina , Czechoslovakia ) is a Slovak concrete poet, writer, playwright and translator.
Life
Ľubomír Feldek was born into a civil servant family and went to school in Senica and Žilina before he graduated from high school in 1954. He then studied Slovak language and literature at the Pedagogical University in Bratislava . During his studies he also began working as an editor at the Mladé letá publishing house, but had to leave the publishing house in 1958 for political reasons and was only able to finish his studies a year later. 1960–1961 he was the editor of a factory magazine in Nižná , 1961–1973 freelance writer and 1974–1986 publishing editor for the magazine Slovenský spisovateľ .
In 1989 he protested against the imprisonment of Václav Havel , signed the manifesto Some Sentences and was one of the founders of the association Verejnosť proti násiliu (Public Against Violence, VPN).
Today Feldek lives in Prague and Bratislava.
Trials of defamation and freedom of expression
Feldek made headlines in 1992 when he referred to the past of the newly appointed Minister of Culture Dušan Slobodník . He said that Slobodník briefly took part in a “terrorist course” in 1945 in a Gestapo camp near Sekule as a member of the Hlinka youth in the First Slovak Republic , and was therefore considered someone with a “fascist past” and was not allowed in a democratic government looking for. Furthermore, he wrote the following verse in his poem Dobrú noc, moja milá : "esesák sa objal s eštebákom" (an SS man hugged a ŠtB agent ), with the further reference to the past of Vladimír Mečiar , the former Prime minister.
As a result, Slobodník sued the poet for defamation . In October 1992 the Bratislava City Court dismissed Slobodník's lawsuit, which was subsequently appealed. The three-member Senate of the Supreme Court stated that the poem was "a gross character assassination and degradation of life, civil honor and fate and an unjustified interference with the personality of Dušan Slobodník" and sentenced Feldek to pay compensation of SKK 250,000 and an apology . The Appellation Senate of the Supreme Court then sentenced Feldek only to apologize, but not to pay the compensation.
Feldek and his lawyer Ernest Valko sued the Slovak state for allegedly obstructing freedom of expression at the European Court of Human Rights , which ruled in 2001 in favor of Feldek and awarded him compensation of SKK 500,000.
Works
literature for adults
- poetry
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- prose
- 1980 - Van Stiphout
- 2004 - Moja žena Oľga a nekonečno (My wife Oľga and the infinite)
- 2010 - Zlatá svadba (The Golden Wedding)
- drama
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Youth literature
- prose
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- poetry
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- Puppet shows
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Essays
- 1977 - Z reči do reči (From speech to speech)
- 1982 - Homo scribens
- 1989 - À propos svědomí (Á propos, conscience, Czech)
- 1998 - Svet je aj inde (The world is elsewhere too, with Oľga Feldeková)
- 2007 - Prekliata Trnavská skupina (The Cursed Trnava Group)
Translations
With the help of linguists, Feldek has also translated numerous works by foreign authors, such as G. Apollinaire , JW Goethe , WW Majakowski , Ch. Morgenstern , A. Rimbaud , AS Pushkin, W. Shakespeare , Sophocles and others.
Web links / sources
- Ľubomír Feldek on osobnosti.sk (Slovak)
- Entry about Ľubomír Feldek on Literárne informačné centrum ( German )
- A page about the civil dispute Feldek vs. Slovak Republic (Czech)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Feldek, Ľubomír |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Slovak writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 9, 1936 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Žilina , Czechoslovakia |