Slovak writer - poet and prose writer, translator from Russian, lawyer and civil servant by civil profession, Janko Jesenský, came from a nationally oriented family of landowners. He graduated from the evangelical lyceum in Kežmark, graduated in law from the Law Academy in Prešov, and received his doctor of law degree from the University of Cluj. As a clerk, he worked for several nationally recognized lawyers, operating his own office in Bánovce nad Bebravou since 1906. During his studies, he led a bohemian life, including defending his own honor by sword fighting. In 1909, he married Anna Bottová, the daughter of Slovak lawyer and historian Július Bott.
As a Pan-Slav, Jesenský had to enlist in 1914, in 1915 he was assigned to the Russian front, where he managed to get captured. After joining the Czechoslovak legions, he survived the rest of the war in service "with a pen" - he edited the legionary press and contributed to it himself. After returning home, he joined the civil service. He successively held the posts of county mayor in Rimavská Sobota and Nitra, after the change in the organization of the state administration, he moved to the Regional Office in Bratislava, where he worked first as a state councilor, then until 1935 as one of its two vice-presidents. In the years 1930 to 1939, he was the chairman of the Association of Slovak Writers.
His short prose drawing from the environment of a small town and his self-reflective love lyrics, which belong to poetic modernity, received a great response. His two-part novel Democrats, in which he satirically depicted contemporary social and political conditions, also became part of the literary canon. During the Second World War, he almost fell silent. As a staunch Czechoslovakist, he was in ideological opposition to the Ludák regime, and his reflective and political-satirical poetry from this period was published only after the Second World War. In 1945, he was the first Slovak to be named a national artist.
PhDr. Daniel Hupko, PhD
