Jan Kollár

Jan Kollár (1793–1852), Lutheran pastor and poet, Kollár is one of the most important poets of the Romantic Period in Central Europe. Born in Slovakia, a tireless defender of the rights of Slovaks, Croats, and other peoples in the Hungarian Kingdom subject to increasing Magyarisation, Kollár was nonetheless a Pan-Slav. In his view, all Slavs — Poles, Czechs, Russians, etc. — are not separate nations, but ‘tribes’ of one great Slavic nation. His greatest work of poetry is Slávy dcera (1821 – 1852), which proclaims his ideal of the cultural and political integration of the Slavic peoples of Europe. In five Cantos named after rivers both real and mythological, Sláva’s Daughter combines both the style of Petrarch’s Il Canzionere with the epic breadth and motivation of Dante’s Divine Comedy.