Karel Hynek Macha

Mácha, Karel Hynek 

Born Nov. 16, 1810, in Prague; died Nov. 6, 1836, in Litomefice. Czech poet.

Mácha came from a poor urban family. He graduated from the law department of the University of Prague in 1836. He was close to the Czech liberation movement and to the developing radical-democratic ideology. In his philosophical and intimately lyrical poetry, in the poem Mdj (1836), in the novellas Křivokldt (1834) and The Gypsies (1835), and in the diary sketches From My Life (1834), Macha wrote as a representative of Czech revolutionary romanticism. His poetry is the expression of a rebellious yearning for freedom, of philosophical riddles of spirit and matter, and of the contrast between the harmony of nature and the disharmony in human relations. Macha’s works are very subjective and lyrical. His poems are melodic and resonant.

WORKS

Spisy, vols. 1-3. Prague, 1959-72.
In Russian translation:
Izbrannoe. Preface by V. Martem’ianova. Moscow, 1960.

REFERENCES

Nikol’skii, S. V. K. G. Makha. In Ocherki istorii cheshskoi literatury XIX-XX vekov. Moscow, 1963.
Dejiny ceské literatury, 2nd ed. Prague, 1960. (With bibliography.)

S. V. NIKOL’SKII