author
Petr Bezruč
1867–1958
Best known for the powerful collection Silesian Songs, this Czech poet wrote with unusual force about life in Austrian Silesia and became one of the memorable voices of modern Czech literature.
1 Audiobook
Songs of the Slav : Translations from the Czecho-Slovak
by Petr Bezruč, Svatopluk Čech, Vítězslav Hálek, Ján Kollár, J. S. Machar
About the author
Born Vladimír Vašek in Opava on September 15, 1867, he wrote under the name Petr Bezruč. He is remembered as a Czech poet and short story writer closely linked with Austrian Silesia, the region that shaped the anger, sympathy, and strong local feeling in much of his work.
His reputation rests mainly on Silesian Songs, a sequence of poems first published around the turn of the 20th century. The book stood out for its emotional intensity and its attention to social hardship, regional identity, and injustice, and it secured his place in Czech literature.
Away from literature, he worked for many years as a postal official in Moravia before retiring in 1928. He died in Olomouc on February 17, 1958, after a long life that left a lasting mark on Czech poetry.