author
Otokar Brezina
1868–1929
A major voice in Czech Symbolism, he wrote visionary, deeply spiritual poetry that helped shape modern Czech literature. Much of his life was spent working quietly as a schoolteacher in Moravia, far from literary centers but closely engaged with the big artistic ideas of his time.
1 Audiobook
Hymnen
by Otokar Brezina
About the author
Born Václav Jebavý in 1868, he became known by the pen name Otokar Březina and is widely remembered as one of the most important Czech Symbolist poets. He was also an essayist, and his work is often described as philosophical, mystical, and searching in tone.
Březina spent much of his life in Moravia as a schoolteacher, living at some distance from public literary life. Even so, reference works and museum sources note that he remained attentive to wider Czech and European intellectual movements, and his writing went on to influence the development of 20th-century Czech poetry.
He died in 1929. Today he is still read as a poet of inner vision and spiritual ambition, with a body of work that reaches for meaning beyond everyday experience.