Srečko Kosovel, poet

Srečko Kosovel (1904–1926) is one of key Slovenian poets. His opus remains highly influential even 100 years after his death and firmly places him among the most important poets in all of Slovenian history.

Life

Kosovel was born in the town of Sežana but spent his childhood in the village of Tomaj. After concluding primary schooling in Tomaj, Kosovel continued his education in Ljubljana - first in the secondary school Vegova, and then at the newly established University of Ljubljana where he enrolled in Romance studies, Slavic studies and philosophy. He also attended lectures in comparative literature and art history. Tragically, his life was cut short by a disease in 1926, when he was only 22 years old.

Poet and thinker

Despite his very short life, Kosovel was incredibly productive as a poet and a thinker who wrote more than 1000 poems. On one hand, his poetry was influenced by the political and social collapse of his times, especially World War I which resulted, among other consequences, in annexation of the littoral region where Kosovel was born and lived, to the Kingdom of Italy. His poetry also includes many motifs from the natural world with which Kosovel was surrounded for most of his life, e.g., Karst pine trees or the fieldfare bird.

On the other hand, Kosovel’s poetry was marked by new avant-garde literary movements that he was able to come in contact with through newspapers, books and colleagues. Consequently, Kosovel’s poetry combines various literary influences, from expressionism to constructivism. The latter was especially important in regard to Kosovel’s influence on Slovenian poetry of the 20th and 21th century but was more thoroughly researched only after World War II under the editorship of literary historian Anton Ocvirk.

In his lifetime, Kosovel never managed to actually publish any book of poetry, although he planned to publish a selection of his poems in the poem collection ‘’The Golden Boat’’.

Read also

• Slovene Poetry
• A Short Overview of Slovene Literature from Romanticism to Modernism

See also

• Srečko Kosovel Homestead in Tomaj, Goriška Museum]
• Municipality of Sežana
• Kosovel Library, Sežana
• Sanje ('Dreams') Publishing House
• Institute of Slovenian Literature and Literary Studies

External links

• Srečko Kosovel on Wikipedia
• Kosovel’s poem Cons Z on the Versopolis web portal (in English and Croatian)