Antonín Sova

Antonín Sova (26 February 1864 – 16 August 1928) was a Czech poet and the director of Prague Municipal Library.

Life He was born in Pacov, a small town in South Bohemia, then part of the Austrian Empire, but from the age of two he grew up in nearby Lukavec. His father, Jan, was a teacher and choirmaster who occasionally composed. His mother died when he was 15 and his father married again (Sova never had a positive relationship with his stepmother Sabina). Their marriage broke up after several years. The poet contracted a disease that paralysed him for the last two decades of his life (probably syphilis).

In 1897, Theodor Mommsen wrote a nationalist letter addressed to Germans in Austria (An die Deutschen in Österreich) which was published in Vienna's Neue Freie Presse. Antonín Sova wrote an answer in verses, To Theodor Mommsen.

The poem, in which he calls Mommsen a "covetous dotard" and an "arrogant spokesman of slavery", became the national answer to the German imperialism of that time, and Sova started to be one of the most famous poets of his generation.

Later work Údolí nového království (Valley of a New Kingdom, 1900), Dobrodružství odvahy (Adventures of Courage, 1906) – collections of social poetry, the new utopian kingdom is a symbol of hope Ještě jednou se vrátíme (We Will Return Once More, 1900) – intimate poetry about passionate love and the bitterness of life Lyriky lásky a života (Lyrics of Love and Life, 1907), Drsná láska (Scathing Love, 1927) – collections of poems about falling into and recovering from love Povídky a menší črty (1903), O milkování, lásce a zradě (1909) – collections of short stories Ivův román (Ivo's Novel, 1902), Výpravy chudých (The Poor's Tours, 1903), Tóma Bojar (1910) – psychological and social novels Pankrác Budecius, kantor (Pankrác Budecius the Teacher, 1916) – novel about a rural teacher in the 18th century