An Anthology of Czechoslovak Poetry/Slovak Poetry/Jan Kollár
JAN KOLLÁR
(1793–1852)
Kollár was born in Mošovce in Slovakia, not far from the old centre Turčiansky Sv. Martin, in 1793. In 1817 he went to the Protestant Theological Faculty in Jena. He was ordained a Protestant minister and took charge of the Slovak Protestant Church in Budapest, where he remained until 1849. He died in 1852. His great work, The Daughter of Sláva, a collection of sonnets written in Czech, was a plea for Slavonic coöperation and a glorification of the ancient Slavonic civilization. He was the modern inspirer of this idea, and he has thus exercised a tremendous influence on Czechoslovak thought.
THE DAUGHTER OF SLÁVA
Canto III, Sonnet LXII
A hundred times I spoke, but now I callTo you divided, O Slavonians!Let’s be a whole and not a part in clans;Be one in harmony or naught at all.
A dove-like nation we in scorn are styled.But doves you know are come of such a stockThat loves to live within a common flock,And so may you apply this trait reviled.
O Slavs, thou race of many fragments torn!United forces e’er results will show,But waste and dry the circling currents mourn.
O Slavs, who are of many heads a race!The wise indeed a death no worse can knowThan life that sloth, void, darkness doth embrace.Translated by Otto Kotouč
Canto III, Sonnet CX
What will the Slavs be in a hundred years?What will the whole of Europe come to be?Slav life, just as a mighty flood appears,Shall everywhere extend its boundary.
That tongue, which German henchmen falsely lowProclaimed a tongue of slaves to all around,Shall ’neath our rival’s palace ceilings soundAnd even spoken be by every foe.
The sciences shall Slav exponents see;Our people’s customs, dress and music willOn both the Seine and Danube modish be.
O would that I had been begotten whenThe Slavs shall rulers be! Or better still,Let me but rise up from my grave again.Translated by Otto Kotouč