Ján Kollár

Ján Kollár

Ján Kollár
Born 29 July 1793
Mosóc, Kingdom of Hungary (now Mošovce, Slovakia)
Died 24 January 1852 (aged 58)
Vienna, Austrian Empire
Occupation Writer, poet, pastor
Nationality Slovak
Notable works Slávy dcera
Relatives Matej Kollár (father)
Katarína Frndová (mother)

Ján Kollár (29 July 1793 in Mošovce (Mosóc), Kingdom of Hungary, Habsburg Monarchy, now Slovakia 24 January 1852 in Vienna, Austrian Empire) was a Slovak writer (mainly poet), archaeologist, scientist, politician, and main ideologist of Pan-Slavism.

Life

He studied at the Lutheran Lyceum in Pressburg (Pozsony, Kingdom of Hungary, now Bratislava,[1] Slovakia). He spent most of his adult life as a chaplain to the populous but poor[2] Slovak Lutheran community in Pest[3] (Kingdom of Hungary, today part of Budapest, Hungary). From 1849, he was a professor of Slavic archeology at the University of Vienna, and several times he also acted as a counselor to the Austrian government for issues around the Slovaks. He entered the Slovak national movement in its first phase.

His museum (since 1974) in Mošovce was installed in the former granary, which was the only masoned part of Kollár's otherwise wooden birth-house. The rest of the house burned down in a fire on 16 August 1863. In 2009 was built a replica of the original Kollár's birth-house, which is now a museum.[4]

Views

He worked out a conception of Slav reciprocity. He admitted 4 standard languages: Russian, Polish, Czechoslovak and Serbo-Croatian.

Works

Besides writing poetry he also wrote technical literature.

In this work he worked out the conception of Slavic reciprocity. He expressed his feelings to a woman but this love had transformed to a love to his homeland. The main thematics of this work are: •love •patriotism

It is divided into 5 chapters and it has a foreword.

Předzpěv
The author expressed his fears that the Slovaks will disappear from Europe like other Slavic tribes did it before. He asked the Slovaks to ask for help from the Russian nation.

1. Sála
This part contains love sonnets. He glorified his love and made from her an idol of Slovak women. From this time the girl is Mína,the daughter of goddess Sláva.

2. Labe, Rén, Vltava
In these parts the author took us to places where Slavic tribes lived before. He is disappointed because these areas belong to foreign countries now.

3. Dunaj
The author arrived to Slovakia. He had to see the poverty of this area. He is highly disappointed and he longed for death.

4. Léthé

5. Acheron
Mína, the daughter of goddess Sláva (the author's love), turned into a fairy and took the author to the heaven and to the hell of Slovaks.

Gallery

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ján Kollár.