Ján Jesenský

He was born on 30 December 1874 in Martin. After graduating from high school in Kežmarok, he graduated from the law academy at the Evangelical College in Prešov (1893 - 1896). He received his doctorate in law in Cluj, Romania, and passed the bar exam in 1905 in Budapest. He worked as a lawyer in Bánovce nad Bebravou. 

After the outbreak of World War I he was on the Russian front, where he joined the Czechoslovak legions. In 1922 he was a mayor in Rimavská Sobota and then a grand-mayor in Nitra. From 1929 he was a government councillor in Bratislava and later vice-president of the Regional Office. From 1930 to 1939 he was vice-president of the Slovak Writers' Association and from 1933 editor-in-chief of the journal Slovenské smery umelecké a kritické (Slovak Directions of Art and Criticism). In November 1945, he was the first Slovak to receive the title of national artist. He died on 27 December 1945 in Bratislava.

He began to devote himself to literary work during his studies in Kežmarok. He was both a poet and a prose writer. During his stay in Prešov he wrote 60 poems, among others Na shohu Torysy, Na rumoch Šariša, Na Kapušianskom hrade, and two hilarious plays, Kisses of Struggle and Medicine Works. Later he also wrote a novella Karol Ketzer. In poetry he came up with themes of personally experienced love emotion and published several collections of Verses. 

As an intellectual type of poet, he also responded to social issues in the collections Our Hero, Black Days, and On the Wickedness of the Day. In his prose work, he began with satirical and humorous anecdotal stories from the small-town environment, which he published under the title Small-Town Tales. The culmination of Jesenský's prose work is the extensive novel The Democrats, in which he put his lifelong experience of public engagement in the political-administrative sphere. His works have been published in several languages and some have been the subject of film and television adaptations. He has also translated Russian poetry by Pushkin, Yesenin and Blok, and written literary and cultural journalism. His work made him an important representative of modern Slovak literature.

Jesensky's stay in Prešov is commemorated by a commemorative plaque on the Evangelical College and one of the streets.

Source: Regional Library P. O. Hviezdoslav in Prešov; Micro-project.
Photo source: Author Slovak Bookshop, Prague - The Pictures of Slovak Writers Serie, vol. 1 (The Pictures of Slovak Writers Series, Series 1), Free Works, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10680412