Poetry
Sláva's Daughter
Slávy dcera
Ján Kollár · 1824
Opening lines
V onom kraji, kde se květorouchá
Sála dolinami rozstřela,
po nichž někdy silná kráčela
noha pověstného Miliducha;
In that land where, robed in flowers,
the Saale has spread out through the valleys,
where once there strode the mighty foot
of the renowned Miliduch;
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from digitalniknihovna.cz
Synopsis
A vast set of sonnets, opened by a prelude, in which the poet travels through the lands the Slavs once inhabited, along the Saale, the Elbe, the Rhine, the Vltava and the Danube, and meditates gravely on their fate. In them he sings of Mína, his beloved, whom the poem makes the daughter of the goddess Sláva: his love for her and his love for the homeland gradually merge into love for the whole Slavic family. Accompanied by Milek, the Slavic Cupid, he finally reaches Lethe and Acheron, which have become the heaven and hell of the Slavs.
Context
The cycle grew out of the Básně, a collection of sonnets published in 1821. The 1824 version has three cantos; the Pest edition of 1832 has five and six hundred and fifteen sonnets, with a volume of explanations, and those of 1845 and 1852 enlarge it further, up to six hundred and forty-five sonnets. Written in Czech, the poem mingles the manner of Petrarch with that of Dante, serves as a model for the poetry, at once amorous and patriotic, of the Czechs and Slovaks, and is regarded as one of the founding texts of cultural Pan-Slavism. Charles S. Kraszewski translated it into English, without cuts, in 2026.
Who it is for
A very long poem, full of historical allusions, now readable in full in its English version.
Prizes and reception
The work that made its author famous and left a deep mark on the Czechs, the Slovaks and the other Slavs.