150th anniversary of the birth of Ivan Krasko

€10 silver collector coin

Ivan Krasko (real name Ján Botto, 1876–1958) is one of the canonical poets of Slovak literature. His two collections of poetry—Nox et solitudo (Night and loneliness, 1909) and Verše (Verses, 1912)—marked a breakthrough in the development of Slovak poetry, signalling a turn towards literary modernity. He devoted himself to writing during his student years in Brașov and Prague and later while working in Bohemia as a chemical engineer. After 1912, however, his literary output became increasingly sporadic. During the First World War, Krasko served on the Eastern Front. After the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, he returned to the new state and joined the civil service, before entering politics—first as a member of the Chamber of Deputies and subsequently as a senator in the National Assembly. He understood artistic creation as a form of confession and self-revelation. Alongside intimate lyric poetry, his work explores existential crises of faith and knowledge. Another group of his poems addresses social and national themes, often marked by motifs of rebellion and revolt. Krasko was a leading figure of Slovak Moderna, an early twentieth-century poetic movement, with his poetry reflecting a modernist outlook on life and perception of the world.