Janko Kráľ, considered the most turbulent poet of the Štúr generation, already received the nickname Weird Janko during his lifetime. His nature as a revolutionary and his life shrouded in secrets were to blame. He called himself that already in the famous work The Haunted Virgin in Váh and the Weird Janko, which was inspired by his childhood. The king's real face was not captured by any painting or photograph, so all textbook depictions of him were based on memories of memorials or descriptions from the pen of literary figures, including Bozena Němcová, who focused primarily on his character traits.
He was born on April 24, 1822 in Liptovský Mikuláš. From 1842 he studied at the Evangelical Lyceum in Bratislava, where he met Ľudovít Štúr. He was one of the first (1843) to write poems in Štúr's Slovak. Similarly, like many other students, he also left the lyceum in 1844 in protest against the dismissal of Ľudovít Štúr. The Duma Bratislava poem was created on this occasion. He returned to Liptovský Mikuláš and contributed to the founding of the Tatrín association. A famous poem dedicated to freedom is the Spring Song. Unforgettable are his poems about bandits, collected in a collection called Excerpts from Jánošík. He studied Juraj Jánošík himself in court files, walked in his footsteps. For a while, after 1845, his life was shrouded in legends. He literally wandered through Slovakia, and his pilgrimage continued to Serbia and Croatia. In 1848, he was imprisoned in Šahy and in Pest for organizing local protests and sentenced to death. Later, his sentence was changed to torture and he was released after a few months. The prison and the disappointments of the revolutionary failure inspired him to write the poem Šahy.
Before his imprisonment, he worked in a law firm. In the post-revolutionary years, he worked in the state administration and at the court in Zlaté Moravce. He had three sons and a daughter from his marriage to Mária Polexina Modrányiová. She was born in Čadca. In the period from 1854 to 1858, he worked at the local Servants' Office, but during this period he did not manifest himself significantly in the field of culture. He died on May 23, 1876 in Zlaté Moravce as a result of typhus infection. There is speculation about his final resting place. Some opinions question the transfer of his real remains to the National Cemetery in Martin and consider the local grave only symbolic. The original grave in Zlaté Moravce was lowered, which could lead to incorrect identification. His birthplace stands in Liptovský Mikuláš on the square near the museum.
The author of the proposal is Adrian Ferda.
The portrait of Janko Kráľ is made according to a contemporary drawing. In addition to the depicted realities such as the city of Liptovský Mikuláš and the panorama of the Liptovská landscape, there are singing birds on the motif, as a symbol of romantic-poetic inspiration, and on the left side Slovak poetry is also personified in the form of a young maiden with a bouquet and flowers in her hair.
Euro Souvenir JANKO KING
Quantity: 5000 pcs
Price: €3
Date of sale: 10.4.2022
Place of sale: INFORMATION CENTER of Liptovský Mikuláš
Peace Square 1 (OC Central, at the entrance to the historic centre), Liptovský Mikuláš www.mikulas.sk
