Jaroslav Seifert

Jaroslav Seifert, born Sept. 23, 1901, in Prague, is known as a writer, poet, and columnist. Seifert made a living as a journalist until 1950, but his first book of poetry, Město v slzách (“Town in Tears”), was published in 1920. During this time, he was considered a leading representative of the Czechoslovakian artistic avant-garde. His early poetry reflects his youthful expectations for the future of communism in the Soviet Union. As he matured, however, Seifert became less enchanted with that particular government system, and his poetic themes began to evolve. In 1929, while working as an editor, Seifert came to be expelled from the Communist Party due to his courage in suppressing Nazi and Communist political views. In 1956, his criticism of the Communists made it difficult for him to publish new work. In the 1960s, political views were changing, and in 1967, Seifert became appointed as National Artist of Czechoslovakia. Two years later, he was elected chairman of the Czechoslovakian Writers’ Union. He was an innovative author, publishing more than thirty volumes of poetry over sixty years, and therefore earned him a Nobel Prize in 1984 for his works of Literature. Seifert is widely considered the Czech national poet and one of the foremost Czech literary figures of the twentieth century.