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Kosovel Srecko 1904 - 1926 (22)

What is joy? The wish to live. The joy of life. Who care for awards!


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Ljubliana

is asleep



Srecko Kosovel (March 18, 1904 - May 26, 1926), was a Slovenian poet, today he is considered as one of the most important modernist poets. Born in Cezana, Slovenia in 1904, he was the youngest of five children in a family in which the father was a teacher; his mother instilled in all of her children a love for the arts. Sretsko's sister played the piano, one of his brothers became a writer and he published his first poem at the age of 11.

His childhood was marked by World War I as one of the worst fronts of the war was near their home; he was 12 years old when he saw devastation with mutilated bodies or corpses lying a short distance from his village. His parents sent him with his sister to Ljubljana in 1916 to keep them out of the war. Kosovel studied Classic and Slavic Philology, participated in the editorial team of the student newspaper and founded the literary magazines Lepa Vida and Mladina; he also became the co-editor of the progressive magazine Vidovdan.

In the winter of 1926 he contracted meningitis and returned to his homeland to recover, but eventually he died on May 26. Three days later he was buried in the presence of Italian "carabinieri" who attended the funeral in order to prevent possible "nationalist reactions" of the poet's companions. A year after his death, his first poems were published in a book, as during his lifetime his poems had been published only in literary magazines. The complete publication of his poems, it will be completed in 1977 in three volumes.

His poetry is a combination of Impressionist and Expressionist orientations, with Europe at the core of his work. Kosovo criticizes the dysfunctions of modern civilization, seeking the collapse of troubled and outdated institutions and hoping for the birth of a new world based on humanitarian ideals.