Jiří Wolker

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Jiří Wolker

Jiří Karel Wolker (born March 29, 1900 in Prostějov , † January 3, 1924 there ) was a Czech poet .

Life

Wolker grew up as the son of a wealthy upper-class family in Prostějov. When Wolker began studying in Prague in 1919, he came into the circle of left-wing intellectuals who met in Prague coffee houses. He wrote poetry and was influenced by contemporary poets AM Píša , Miloš Jirko , František Němec , Zdeněk Kalista and Josef Suk in his search for a new poetic style .

In 1921 he published his first collection of poems Host do domu (German guest in the house ). The poems viewed the world through the eyes of a "child poet" and were characterized by a simple, unpretentious style, by harmony and childlike simplicity.

The poem Svatý Kopeček appeared in the magazine Červen ( June ) and expressed the experience of returning home to the family. In contrast to the poets of the contemporary Czech avant-garde, Wolker designed a stable worldview based on a socialist worldview. He became a member of the Literární skupina ( Literary Group ) in Brno , which was planning a magazine called Host ( The Guest ) based on the title of Wolker's collection of poems. After the publication of their manifesto, which he rejected as utopian, he left the group again in September 1922. He first became a member of the artists ' club Devětsil , but left this group again after they turned to a rather apolitical poetry.

After that, Wolker began to experiment with dramas and prose . He published a collection of one-act plays and prose texts under the title Tři hry ( Three Pieces ). His declared goal is to include more narrative elements in the poetry instead of pure lyric poetry. His poetry was literarily influenced by the ballads Karel Jaromír Erbens , Jan Nerudas and Petr Bezručs . He contrasted the childlike view of the world that was prevalent in his early poems with the sensitive heart of man that appealed to action and addressed social grievances such as oppression, poverty and injustice. Overall, there was a strong influence of communist ideas on Wolker's poetry.

In April 1923 he fell ill with tuberculosis . With his mother he traveled to a sanatorium in Tatranská Polianka (Weszterheim) in the High Tatras . The disease worsened and Wolker wrote his own epitaph in November 1923, impressed by his impending death . At the beginning of January 1924 he succumbed to the disease.

Soon after his death, Jiří Wolker became a cult figure. A controversy arose between communist intellectuals, who claimed Wolker's work for their political goals, and poets of the avant-garde, who fundamentally rejected a connection between poetry and political programs. After the establishment of communist rule in Czechoslovakia in 1948, Wolker's work was interpreted as the embodiment of the values ​​of socialist poetry.

  • Statue of Jiří Wolker in Prostějov

  • Bust of Jiří Wolker in Prostějov

  • Jiří Wolker's birth house in Prostějov

Works

  • Host do domu ( guest into the house ), 1921
  • Těžká hodina ( The Difficult Hour ), 1922
  • Tři hry ( Three Pieces ), 1922
German edition
  • Jiří Wolker: I grow like a bright day . In: Ilse Seehase (Ed.): Reclams Universal Library . 2nd, expanded and modified (1st illustrated) edition. tape 178 fiction. Reclam, Leipzig 1977.

Web links

Commons : Jiří Wolker  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Wolker, Jiří
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wolker, Jiří Karel (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech poet
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Prostějov
DATE OF DEATH January 3, 1924
Place of death Prostějov