Laco Novomeský

Laco Novomeský (full name: Ladislav Novomeský) (December 27, 1904 , Budapest — September 4, 1976 , Bratislava) was a Slovak poet, writer, publicist and communist politician.[1]

Laco Novomeský in 1937

Early life

Novomeský was born in to the family of a tailor that immigrated from Senica to Budapest, where he was born. The family moved back to Senica to continue his studies. He later graduated from the teacher training institute in Modra. Novomeský started to work as a teacher while at the same time enrolling as an external student of the Faculty of Arts at the Comenius University where he became involved in literary and political activities.

Literary and political career

He joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1925 and worked for its press. He was the editor of the Communist Party's newspaper Pravda (previously it was named the Truth of Poverty).[2]

In 1927 he was arrested by the Czechoslovak authorities for press offence and sentenced to 10 years in prison however he was released by bail.

He went to Prague and joined the group of left-wing intellectuals around the DAV magazine.[3] Novomeský rejected the Manifesto of the Seven and supported Klement Gottwald and the Sovietisation of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. He wrote against the seven left wing intellectuals and called for the intellectual left to support the new Party line by saying "The intellectual left cannot stand above the party".

In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out against general Franco's insurgency, in which Novomeský became involved in Czechoslovakia by organizing International Brigades (he also founded the Club of Friends of Spain). A year later, he participated in the congress in Paris and became a direct participant in the fighting (he got directly to the Czechoslovak combat units fighting the fascists) and the congress of the International Association of Writers for the Defense of Culture in Valencia, Barcelona and Madrid. Many of his memoirs about the Civil War were later published. [4]

In 1939 he moved back to Slovakia and continued his communist activities despite the ban of the Party. In August 1943, together with his younger friend Gustav Husák, he became a member of the 5th illegal leadership of the Communist Party of Slovakia, led by Karol Šmidke . He was one of the leading organizers of the Slovak National Uprising. He was also a co-founder and vice-chairman of the insurgent Slovak National Council in 1943 which later became the highest legislative and executive body in socialist Slovakia.[5]

In the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic

After the war he became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the Commissioner of Education from 1945 to 1950 as well as a member of the Constituent National Assembly.[6]

At the congress of the Communist Party of Slovkia in 1950, he was accused of bourgeois nationalism and was arrested on February 6, 1951 together with Gustav Husák. In 1954 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a staged trial with a subversive group of bourgeois nationalists. While Gustáv Husák was not completely broken in custody and tried to oppose the investigators, Novomeský and other accusers cooperated with the security forces and confessed to all the fabricated points. He could not publish at this time. In prison, he wrote 4,000 poems on tobacco papers, but smoked most of them. On December 22, 1955, he was released on parole.[7]

Some of Novomeský's statements were used in the Slánsky trial against his friend Vladimir Clementis, thus contributing to his death sentence. [8]

Novomeský then lived in Prague and was not allowed to return to Bratislava and was under police supervision. Then, until 1962, he worked at the Monument of National Literature in Prague. In 1963, Novomeský was fully rehabilitated. He moved to Bratislava, where he worked at the Institute of Slovak Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. After the Soviet occupation on August 21, 1968, he again became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and in the same year he also chaired the Matica slovenská. In 1970, he resigned from the Central Committee of the Party and soon became seriously ill. In July 1970, a stroke completely removed him from social life. Opinions therefore differ as to whether, at least initially, he contributed to the so-called Husák’s "normalization" In the cultural and political field.[9]

He died on September 4, 1976 in Bratislava.[10]

Works

Poetry
  • Sunday, 1927 (proletarian poetry)
  • Romboid, 1932 (This collection is influenced by poetism)
  • Open windows, 1935
  • Saint behind the village, 1939
  • Villa Teresa, 1963
  • To the city 30 minutes, 1963
  • Stamodtúd et al,  1964
  • An Unnoticed World, 1964
  • The House I Live In, 1966

Journalism and essays [11]
  • Marx and the Slovak Nation. 1933
  • Education of the socialist generation. 1949
  • The new spirit of the new school. 1949
  • Sounding Echoes. 1969
  • Honorary duty. 1969
  • Manifestations and protests.  1970
  • Ceremony of Certainty.  1970
  • Bonds and liabilities. 1972
  • About Hviezdoslav. 1971
  • About literature. 1971
  • The new spirit of the new school, 1974
  • Work I, Work II. 1984
  • Repayment of large debt I. 1993
  • Repayment of large debt II. 1993

References
  1. "Dobrý deň človek... alebo biografia Laca Novomeského od Štefana Druga". DAV DVA - kultúrno-politický magazín (in Slovak). 2020-10-26. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
  2. "Until 1924, it was The Truth of Poverty and was published in Vrútky ; then in 1924 the editorial office moved to Ostrava and was managed by Klement Gottwald ; with the arrival of Novomestský in 1925, it gained the status of the central press body of the Communist Party of Slovakia".
  3. "The Red Seven starts (about the Davists untraditionally) and Štúr's program on our flags (Davisti about Štúrovecs), books about the Davist generation by Štefan Drug. DAV DVA - cultural-political magazine [online]".
  4. Perný, Lukáš (18 February 2017). Lac Novomeský's Cultural Revolution: Ladislav Novomeský on culture, art and politics. . ISBN 9788097255800.
  5. "Ladislav Novomeský on the SNP: The uprising is alive and lasting. DAV DVA - cultural-political magazine [online]".
  6. Perný, Lukáš (18 February 2017). Lac Novomeský's Cultural Revolution: Ladislav Novomeský on culture, art and politics. ISBN 9788097255800.
  7. Rychlík, Jan: Czechs and Slovaks in the 20th Century . Prague: Vyšehrad, 2012.
  8. Aktuality.sk. "Kalendárium: Laco Novomeský bol podstatne lepším básnikom než politikom". Aktuality.sk (in Slovak). Retrieved 2020-11-19.
  9. BLAŽEK, P. et al .: Rolling a boulder. Bratislava 2013, in Daniela Čižmárová: The Slovak Face of Normalization, MagistraHistoria, December 27, 2014.
  10. "Laco Novomeský. Profile (Slovak)".
  11. "PERNÝ, Lukáš. A complete work of Lac Novomeský's journalism in seven volumes. DAV DVA - cultural-political magazine".
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