Vladimír Holan

Vladimír Holan (1905 - 1980) was a Czech poet who became famous especially for his language obscurity, dark topics and pessimist views in his poems. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in late 1960s.

Related Topics:
1905 - 1980 - Czech - Nobel Prize

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Holan was born in Prague, but he spent most of his childhood outside the Capital. When he moved back in 1920s he studied law and started a job as a clerk that was a large source of his dissatisfaction. He lost his father and in 1932 married V?ra Pila?ová. In the same year there was the collection of poems Vanutí (Breezing) published that he considered to be his first piece of poetic art (there were two books preceding it: Blouznivý v?jí? /1926/ and Triumf smrti /1930/). It was the only collection of his that was reviewed by the knight of Czech critics, F.X.?alda - he compared him favourably with the French poetStéphane Mallarmé.

Related Topics:
Prague - F.X.?alda - Stéphane Mallarmé

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In 1930s he continued writing his obscure language lyrical poetry and slowly started to express his political feelings (reacting to the Spanish Civil War at first). Political poems Odpov?? Francii (The Reply to France), Zá?í 1938 (September 1938) and Zp?v t?íkrálový (Twelfth Night Song) were reactions to the situation in Czechoslovakia from September 1938 till March 1939. They also made him more intelligible and popular. The poem called Sen (The Dream) is a presage of a cruel war (amazingly published in Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren in April 1939). During the war he published several poetic stories in verse inspired by national humiliation. After the war he brought out an apocaliptical record of the past war in his Panychida and chanted about the Red Army in Tob? (To You), Rudoarm?jci (Red Army Soldiers) and Dík Sov?tskému svazu (Thanks to Soviet Union). He left the Catholic Church and became a member of the Communist Party.

Related Topics:
Spanish Civil War - Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren - Catholic Church

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In 1949 after the communist takeover he was involved in an incident against Soviet influence in the new regime and his work was on the index of Czech literature. He left the Communist Party and reentered the Catholic Church. He lived in poverty in the very heart of Prague in Kampa.

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In the 1950s and 1960s he wrote longer poems with a mixture of reality and lyrical abstraction. He is best known in English for his postwar works, both the often teasingly obscure longer poem Noc s Hamletem (A Night with Hamlet, 1964), and his short, gnomic lyrical reflections, with occasional submerged notes of political protest. He became a legendary poet-recluse.

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He had a daughter Kate?ina born in 1949 in his bad years and in addition to the social problems she suffered from Down's disease (he wrote a poem called Bajaja for her which is with Jaroslav Seifert's Maminka one of the basic Czech children poetical works of Czech modern literature - also illustrated by Ji?í Trnka. When she died in 1977, Holan lost the sense of life and ceased writing. He died in a Kampa flat in 1980 and was buried in Ol?anské h?bitovy (Ol?any cemetries).

Related Topics:
Jaroslav Seifert - Ji?í Trnka - Ol?anské h?bitovy

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