Janko Jesenský

Born Dec. 30, 1874, in Martin; died Dec. 27, 1945, in Bratislava. Slovak writer.

Jesenský began to publish in the late 1890’s. He wrote intimate lyrics (Verses, 1905) and civic poetry, notably the collections Out of Captivity (1919), After the Storm (1932), and Against the Night (1945). The stories m Provincial Tales (1913) and From Old Times (1935) satirically expose bourgeois philistinism. In his satiric novel The Democrats (vols. 1–2, 1934–38), Jesenský criticizes the social structure of bourgeois Czechoslovakia. He condemned the rise of fascism in Slovakia in the 1930’s and early 1940’s. His work, the highest achievement of critical realism in Slovak literature, was guided by Russian literary traditions. Jesenský was one of the best translators into Slovak of the works of A. S. Pushkin, A. A. Blok, and S. A. Esenin.