Shakespeare in Slovakia

Summary

So far as can be determined, the history of Shakespeare in Slovakia starts with the year 1806. It was then that a voluminous collection of poems entitled Poezye was published by the poet Bohuslav Tablic, who later made a great contribution to Anglo-Czechoslovak cultural relations by publishing in 1831 an anthology of translations from English poets called ‘The English Muses in Czechoslovak Garb’. His Poezye contained a translation of the famous ‘To be or not to be’, wherein the spirit of the original was not unsuccessfully rendered, even though the Slovak poet permitted himself much freedom and changed Shakespeare’s iambic measure into trochaics.

The first attempt at a systematic translation of Shakespeare's plays was made by Bohuslav Križak (d. 1847). He produced versions of Hamlet, Macbeth and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, but none of these has come down to us complete. At the same time, the impress of Shakespeare was laid heavily on the work of many of the young romantic poets and dramatists active about the middle of the nineteenth century. Other translations were made later,5 but it is only when we come to the great Slovak poet Hviezdoslav (1849-1921), that we find anything of real value. Hviezdoslav produced his translation of Hamlet (1903) and of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1905) after much fruitful activity in the fields of poetry and drama, and his seriousness of purpose is shown by his own declaration that he was "imbued with true piety towards the author's masterpiece", and "inspired by a special reverence for each word that had come from his pen".