mersiowsky - 10-6-2016 at 10:17 AM
Lětopis Abstract 2012 1: Scholze-Šołta, Dietrich: The Lyric Poet Jan Lajnert. On the 120th Birthday of the “Poet of the Sorbian
Heath“
The lyric poet, Jan Lajnert (1892–1974), had an original subject as the „Poet of the Sorbian Heath,” which he gave expression to in
subjectively symbolic poems. German poetry had fascinated him as a young teacher; his interest in a – quasi exotic – region, the woods and ponds of
Upper Lusatia to the north of Bautzen, was based on patriotic feelings, which had their artistic roots in (neo) Romanticism. In the 1920s Lajnert
created a modern form of nature poetry with neoromantic, impressionistic and naturalistic features, which demonstrated parallels with Czech and Polish
vitalism. The landscape of his homeland represents in it a counterpoint to the unsatisfactory nature of contemporary Sorbian life; on the other hand,
his sense of national responsibility did not allow for aestheticism. In his small number of late works an increasingly philosophical notes tone can be
discerned, together with a note of optimism in keeping with the times.