Jan Chalupka

Chalúpka, Ján 

Born Oct. 26, 1791, in Horná Mičiná; died June 15, 1871, in Brezno. Slovak writer and dramatist. Brother of S. Chalúpka.

J. Chalúpka graduated from the faculty of theology and philosophy of the University of Jena in 1817. From 1824 to the end of his life he was a priest in Brezno. His first and best satirical comedy was Kocúrkovo, or How Not to Remain Fools (1830; Russian translation, 1955), which exposes the stagnation, complacency, and narrow-mindedness of the petit bourgeois strata. This work marked the beginning of Slovak national drama. Chalúpka wrote the comedies It’s All the Wrong Way Around (1832), The Wagtail (1833), and The Old Grumbler (1835). His later works—the play Volunteers (1854) and the comedy The Jeweler (1868)—are less original. Chalúpka is also the author of the satirical novel Bendeguz, Gyula Kolompos, and Pista Kurtaforint (1841), a number of publicistic works, religious poetry, and sermons.

WORKS

Výber z diela, vols. 1–2. Bratislava, 1953–54.

REFERENCES

Solntseva, L. P. “Ian Khalupka.” In lstoriia slovatskoi literatury. Moscow, 1970.
Noskovič, A. Ján Chalúpka: Tvorca slovenskej veselohry. Bratislava, 1955.
Ormis, J. V. “Zo života Jána Chalúpku.” Slovenské pohl’ady, 1956, no. 12.
Ján Chalúpka, 1871–1971: Zborník materiálov z vedeckej konfeprencie. [Bratislava] 1973.