Celebrating 40 years since Jaroslav Seifert’s Nobel Prize win

Widely regarded as one of the greatest Czech poets of the 20th century, Seifert began his literary journey as a proletarian poet in the early 1920s, before rising to prominence as a leading figure of Czechoslovakia’s avant-garde movement.

Jaroslav Seifert|Photo: APF Czech Radio

To this day, he remains one of the nation's most cherished poets, celebrated not only for the clarity and simplicity of his verses but also for his profound love for his homeland.

Born in 1901 in the working-class suburb of Žižkov, not far from today’s Seifertova Street, Seifert's background deeply influenced his early political and artistic views. He joined the Communist Party in 1921, only to be expelled eight years later for his criticism of its growing Bolshevik tendencies.

Seifert's prolific career spanned six decades and traversed various literary styles—ranging from proletarian poetry to playful avant-garde pieces, from poems celebrating love and women to more serious works dedicated to his country.

'Mother' by Jaroslav Seifert|Photo: Albatros

However, after falling out of favour with the post-war communist authorities, Seifert was blacklisted multiple times, particularly after endorsing the Charter 77 human rights manifesto. It was only following his Nobel Prize win in 1984 that the communist regime reluctantly allowed his works to be published once more, albeit in a censored form.

For English-speaking readers, several of Seifert’s works are available in translation, including early collections like City in Tears, Sheer Love, and On the Waves of TSF, as well as later volumes such as The Plague Column and An Umbrella from Piccadilly.

Read more about Jaroslav Seifert here. (Exactly 40 years ago today, Czech poet Jaroslav Seifert became the first and only Czech recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.)

Jaroslav Seifert|Photo: Jaroslav Krejčí, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED