Marycka Magdonová - Frýdek-Místek (North Moravia)
Posted by: Groundspeak Premium Member Dorcadion Team
N 49° 41.121 E 018° 20.964
34U E 308813 N 5507020
Depicted modern sculpture, located in a small park in centre of Frýdek-Místek, represents Marycka Magdonová - figure from an important collection of balladic poems called Slezské písne (Silesian Songs) by famous Moravian poet Peter Bezruc.
Waymark Code: WMKW8D
Location: Moravskoslezský kraj, Czechia
Date Posted: 06/02/2014
Published By:Groundspeak Regular Member Math Teacher
Views: 34

Depicted modern sculpture, located in a small park in centre of Frýdek-Místek, represents Marycka Magdonová - figure from an important collection of balladic poems called Slezské písne (Silesian Songs) by famous Moravian poet Peter Bezruc.

Silesia was a mining district with a considerable concentration of heavy industry. National and social conflicts there were exceptionally fierce, given the preponderance of Germans, with Polish and Czech minorities. This was the context of Bezruc’s sociocritical poetry lamenting the fate of Silesian Czechs. Although Bezruc came from a relatively wealthy and very cultured family, he did not finish his study of classics in Prague, and ended by working as a postal clerk in Brno. In his poetry he styled himself as a popular bard, a prophet ferociously criticizing German capitalists and landlords, as well as Czechs from Bohemia and Moravia who were indifferent to the sorrows of their compatriots. In his verses he mixed dialect and literary expressions and drew inspiration from folks ballads, Heinrich Heine, Walt Whitman, Josef Svotopluk Machar, the Bible, and classical antiquity; but his poems are always absolutely original, unmatchable in their rude directness. Silesian Songs was his first and last collection of fine poems. Afler his outburst of poetic creativity around 1900, he lived for almost sixty years and occasionally wrote poetry, which never quite attained the brilliance of Silesian Songs. The poetry was turned into music by Leoš Janácek in 1907. Bezruc’s poetry is today popular in performances by the singer and songwriter Jarek Nohavica, from Ostrava.


Marycka Magdonová

One night going home from Ostrava
old Magdon stopped at his wayside inn.
Ended in the ditch with a broken skull.
And Marycka Magdonová wept.

A truck of coal overturned on the tracks.
Buried beneath lay Magdon's widow.
In Staré Hamry Eve orphans were sobbing,
the oldest Marycka Magdonová.

Who will care for them, who give them bread?
Will you be father to them and mother?
Who own the mines, do you think they have hearts
like you, Marycka Magdonová?

Boundless the forests of Marquis Gero.
If father and mother are killed in his mines,
may the orphan gather an armful of wood,
what say you, Marycka Magdonová?

Marycka, it's freezing and there's nothing to eat.
In the hills, in the hills there is wood and to spare...
Mayor Hochfelder watched you gathering it,
should he say nothing, Marycka Magdonová?

What man have you taken to be your bridegroom?
Bayonet over shoulder, helmet and plume,
stern his looks, and you follow him to Frýdek,
will you go with him, Marycka Magdonová?

You a bride? Bowed is your head,
over your eyes the kerchief wet
with your tears bitter and burning,
what is it, Marycka Magdonová?

The rich men of Frýdek, the ladies of Frýdek
will laugh at you with malice arid scorn.
Mayor Hochfelder will watch from his window.
How goes it, Marycka Magdonová?

In the freezing cottage the little birds linger,
who will care for them, who bring them food?
The rich man never. What was in your heart
as you went your way, Marycka Magdonová?

Steep, Marycka, steep the rocks rise
Where the Ostravice wild and foaming
hurls its torrents down to Frýdek.
Do you hear, do you see, lass of the hills?

One leap to the left and all is over.
Your black hair caught on the rocks below.
red with blood are your white hands,
God be with you, Marycka Magdonová!

In Staré Hamry by the cemetery wall
without cross, without flowers, huddle the graves
of those who died by their own hand.
There lies Marycka Magdonová.


Translated from Czech by Ian Milner


Petr Bezruc, pseudonym of Vladimír Vašek (born Sept. 15, 1867, Opava — died Feb. 17, 1958, Olomouc), one of the finest and most individual Czech poets.

Bezruc studied in Prague and became a postal official in Moravia until his retirement in 1928. His literary reputation rests on a remarkable series of poems written during 1899 and 1900 and published in the periodical Cas between 1899 and 1903. The subject of almost all these poems is the people of Czech Silesia, whom Bezruc saw as a dying race, doomed to denationalization at the hands of German industrialists and Polish priests. From this local theme he created a poetry of national and, indeed, universal validity. The 31 poems of the Silesian issue of Cas (1903) had swelled to 88 by the last edition of the collected Slezské písne (1956; "Silesian Songs").

[Taken from Encyclopeadia Britannica]

Character Type: Literature

Character originator: Petr Bezruč

Internet Link: [Web Link]

Address or Location:
Radniční ulice 738 01 Frýdek Místek Czech Republic


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