Ivan Krasko is considered the father of modern Slovak poetry. His two collections of symbolist poems from the beginning of the twentieth century extracted Slovak poetry from its esthetic conservatism and thematic preoccupation with the problems of the Slovak nation and brought to it a more universal view of humanity. The dominant theme of Krasko's poetry is the individual in a state of emotional and philosophical crisis, although in part of his work he did not entirely eliminate national and utilitarian tendencies. Evidence of his influence on Slovak poetry is visible throughout most of the twentieth century and emphatically in the 1960s, when the revival of the Krasko line of thinking became one of the possibilities for disrupting socialist realism, which had been installed by the communist regime in the 1950s as the only allowable artistic doctrine.

Ivan Krasko was born Ján Botto on 12 July 1876 in...