Ján Kostra

Ján Kostra as a young man in 1937

Ján Kostra ( December 4, 1910 in Kisselmec , Austria-Hungary ; † November 5, 1975 in Bratislava , Czechoslovakia ) was a Slovak poet , translator and essayist .

Life

Ján Kontra comes from a family of small farmers. His father was a Wagner (bike maker) and mayor of his birthplace. After attending primary school, he attended the state secondary school in Sillein from 1920 . After graduating from high school (1928) he went to Prague , where he attended the arts and crafts school. However, he also enrolled as an external student at the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in Prague. Between 1930 and 1933 he studied architecture at the Technical University in Prague; he also devoted himself to painting and sculpture. During this time he also joined the "Detvan" association that supported Slovak students in Prague.

In 1934 he began his two-year military service in Leutschau . After completing his military service, he became a civil servant at a bank ( Zemská banka ) in Pressburg in 1936 . In the years 1937–1938 he was the culture editor of the workers' newspaper (“Robotnícké noviny”). In 1938 he worked as the editor of the Slovak Radio, first in Eperjes and from 1942 in Pressburg. He carried out this activity until 1949. Between 1949 and 1956 he was secretary of the "Slovak section" of the Czechoslovakian Writers' Union and editor-in-chief of the Slovak cultural magazine Kultúrny život . From 1956 Kostra worked as a freelance writer.

Kostra also worked as a translator. He translated works by Villon , Gorki , Baudelaire . In 1961, he translated the Sorcerer's Apprentice and other ballads of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe into Slovak.

Ján Kostra was married four times. In his second marriage he was married to the writer Krista Bendová (* 1923, † 1988), from this marriage the sons Jan, Juraj and Michal emerged. In his third marriage, Kostra was married to the publicist Hana Ponická (* 1922; † 2007). For the fourth time he married the editor of the satirical magazine Roháč Milka Lopašovská.

Ján Kostra died on November 5, 1975 in Pressburg and was buried in the Nachtigalltal cemetery there.

Literary work

Memorial plaque on the house of Ján Kostra in Bratislava at Kupfergasse 35 (Slov. Medená)

Ján Kontra is considered to be the founder of modern Slovak poetry with an extraordinary expression of the purity of the word and the form. Throughout his life he expressed his admiration for women in his poetry , which stems from his deep reverence and love for his own mother. He drew his inner values ​​from nature, justice and humanism . In the emotional relationship between man and woman he saw the peak of beauty, but also of morality. His poetry is almost always apolitical, he viewed it as something "private" throughout his life. His verses are pure but at the same time inimitably erotic.

He wrote his first poems as a schoolboy, which he published individually in various magazines of the time.

His first work was the poetry collection Hviezda ( Eng . "Star"), published in 1937, in which he celebrates his carefree childhood and village life in his homeland. For the first time, beginnings of his love poetry, which would later make him famous, can be heard in it.

The cycle of poems Ave Eva from 1943 is to be regarded as the climax of his poetic work. Jan Kostra sees the woman in her as a mother, but also as the sufferer of injustice. He describes her as the bearer of life. “The woman, this fragile one, is the enemy of death!” He writes. It is an apotheosis on women and on motherhood. This collection of poems from Kostras is one of the most beautiful works of all modern Slovak love poetry.

In the prologue to this volume of poetry, which appeared in 1974 with Kostka's own illustrations as a magnificent leather-bound edition, he writes:

Si polovica môjho sveta.

Môj svet je ako telo jediny.

Môj svet je ako celá veta:

keď roztrhnú ju - zhynie.

Zabíjajú ma hodiny,

keď never si pri mne .

Further collections of poetry followed in the years 1939 to 1968. Here is a selection of the most important volumes:

• 1939 Moja rodná (My country of origin)
• 1940 Ozubený čas (The Interlocked Time)
• 1942 Všetko je dobre tak (Everything is fine)
• 1943 Ave Eva
• 1946 Presila smútku (The overwhelming power of grief)
• 1953 Javorový list (The maple leaf)
• 1968 Len raz (Only once)

literature

Encyklopédia slovenských spisovateľov, Obzor Bratislava 1984, vol. 1, p. 315ff (Slovak)

Web links

• Short biography ( Slovak )

• Biography (slovak)

• Jan Kostra - religionalizmus

• [1] At the Kerepescher Friedhof (poem)

• September sun (poem from Ave Eva)

• Krista Bendová short biography (Slovak)

annotation

1. ↑ German translation: You are half of my world. / My world is like a single body. / My world is like a whole sentence: / if it is torn apart - it dies. / The hours kill me / when you are not with me.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Charles University, founded in 1348 by Emperor Charles IV , was divided into a German and a Czech university in 1882 due to increasing national conflicts. The students from Slovakia now studying at the Czech university came together in the “Detvan” cultural association founded on March 15, 1883.
2. ↑ The Slovak Writers' Union was founded in 1923 (SSS = Sväz Slovenských Spisoavateľov). After the Second World War it lost its independence and was incorporated into the Czechoslovakian Writers' Union on September 9, 1949 as the "Slovak Section".
3. ↑ The magazine was founded in 1946 and mainly dealt with literature, art and cultural politics. It was discontinued at the end of August 1968 after the crackdown on the Prague Spring and the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops .
4. ↑ Krista Bendová was a well-known Slovak children's book author. The little hero of their youth books is called "Osmijanko" which has almost achieved cult status among children in Slovakia. She also wrote a variety of books for young people. Because of her very critical attitude towards the rulers of communist Czechoslovakia, she was banned from publishing and was socially defamed. (Ž ivot magazine from April 18, 2010)
5. ↑ Hana Ponicka was a Slovak publicist. She was dismissed because of her critical attitude towards the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops in 1968. She was considered a dissident and no longer had a place to stay in Bratislava. So she moved to a small Slovak village ( Lukavica ) near Sliač . In 1977 she was one of the signatories of Charter 77 . In 1988 she was tried for publicly commemorating the 20th anniversary of the event.
6. ^ The Slovak satirical magazine Roháč was founded in 1948. It was a weekly newspaper loyal to the communist regime , in which the "class enemy" of the time - capitalism - was denigrated.