Poetry
The Bloody Sonnets
Krvavé sonety
Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav · 1919
Synopsis
Thirty-two sonnets written in Dolný Kubín at the beginning of the First World War. The first sixteen depict the catastrophe that is falling upon Europe; the next sixteen ask how it can come to an end and what will follow. The poet seeks those responsible for these horrors, condemns the moral and social decay of his age and hopes that humanity, taught by the ordeal, will at last learn to live in peace.
Context
The cycle was born in August and September 1914, in response to the first news of the war. The text could not be printed while the conflict lasted, but the author's circle of friends knew of its existence; it appeared in volume in Prague in 1919. The manuscript, kept in the literary archives of the Slovak National Library, was digitised in 2014 for the centenary of the war. Charles Moisse published a French translation in Bratislava in 1964, and John Minahane gave in 2018 an English version illustrated by Dušan Kállay.
Who it is for
A cycle of sonnets in a dense and demanding language, to be read slowly, in Slovak or in one of its translations.
Prizes and reception
The great Slovak cry against the conflict of 1914, still read and translated a century after it was composed.