Konstantin Biebl | |
|---|---|
 Konstantin Biebl | |
| Born | (1898-02-26)26 February 1898 |
| Died | 12 November 1951(1951-11-12) (aged 53) |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality | Czech |
| Notable works | S lodí jež dováží čaj a kávu Nový Ikaros |
| Spouse | Marie Bieblová |
| Signature | |
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Konstantin Biebl (26 February 1898 – 12 November 1951) was aCzechpoet andwriter. His first collection of poems was released in 1923, and his last in 1951, the year of his death bysuicide. During that time he also travelled widely as a reporter. Biebl was a member of theCommunist Party Czechoslovakia, and was closely associated with other CzechCommunist writers and poets includingJiří Wolker andVítězslav Nezval.
Konstantin Biebl was born inSlavětín nearLouny,Bohemia, thenAustria-Hungary. His father was a dentist inLouny, given to writing poetry and painting. He committedsuicide in 1916 while serving as a surgeon inGalicia.[1] Arnošt Ráž, a brother of Konstantin's mother, was a poet. Konstantin studied atgymnasium first in Louny (1909–1914) and then inMalá Strana,Prague.[2] In 1916 he was recruited into the army and sent toSambir. When his father died, he was sent home where he partly fakedtuberculosis (the diagnosis was uncertain) and was hospitalized in Louny. He completed his studies inPrague inJune 1917 and was sent to theBalkan Front. He fought inMontenegro and was injured, taken captive, and condemned to death. He escaped, and, suffering fromtuberculosis, was hospitalized inSarajevo and from there transported to Louny (Jiří Wolker was inspired by his war tale and wrote a short story calledIlda about it).[2]
He wrote his first poems in a studentalmanac, and sketched an unpublished collection calledSongs of a Tubercular Patient. Soon he joined the new avant-garde literary groupsDevětsil, Brno Literary Group and others.[3] In 1921 he started studying medicine atCharles University inPrague which he never finished. In the same year he made friends with Jiří Wolker with whom he went to theKingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1922 (to get treatment for TB, which caused Wolker's death in 1924; a girl he met there, Jarmila Mikšovská, was also ill with this lethal disease). They stayed inBaška on the island ofKrk. In the same year Biebl entered theCommunist Party. In 1923 he published his first book of poems together with his uncle Arnošt Ráž –Cesta k lidem (Voyage to the People; the foreword was written byZdeněk Kalista). When Jiří Wolker died, Biebl edited the almanacIn memoriam where many Czech poets described their relationship to the poet, includingJaroslav Seifert,Vítězslav Nezval andJosef Hora.
In 1925 he went toFrance, visited manyWorld War I battlefields and wrote literary reports for magazines. When he decided to leavemedicine he went to Louny to organize cultural and social life. In 1926 he was offered an opportunity to sail toJava, by his friend Olga whose brother-in-law was on the island.[2] Thus in 1926–1927 he accomplished his furthest voyage toCeylon,Sumatra andJava.[3] He was shocked by the ignorance of European settlers in the area and by colonial practices towards the locals. He talked to rebels from the communist and nationalist movements and was interrogated by the police. The voyage inspired Biebl to write a well-known collection of poems and several short stories, and he returned to the topic in most of his following works.[2]
In 1927 he fell in love with Marie Bulovová, daughter of a rich ironmonger from Louny. His friendKarel Konrád who introduced them told Biebl, "There is dough."[4]
In 1929 the most famous of his poems were published –Nový Ikaros (NewIcarus). When seven communist poets (Jaroslav Seifert,Josef Hora,Ivan Olbracht,Stanislav Kostka Neumann and others) stood against the new Communist leaderKlement Gottwald and left the party, Biebl was in thepro-Moscow group of poets withJulius Fučík,Vítězslav Nezval,František Halas andKarel Teige.[2]
In 1931 Biebl married Marie Bulovová in Louny. His best man wasKarel Teige; among the wedding guests wereJiří Voskovec,Jaroslav Ježek, Vítězslav Nezval,Adolf Hoffmeister and others. Konstantin Biebl became a well-off communist poet.[4] They spent their honeymoon in France,Algeria andTunisia.[3]
He worked as adental assistant in his mother's office in the 1930s. He also became active in the CzechSurrealist movement and signed most of the documents published by the Surrealist group inCzechoslovakia. He wrote little and did not acknowledge his previous work, except in 1936 when he published several poems to the memory ofKarel Hynek Mácha.[2]
DuringWorld War II he worked in film with theMelantrich publishing house.[3] After the war he worked in the film department of Ministry of Information. He was excited by the upcoming times of social justice which he saw in the communist government afterFebruary 1948, when he celebrated his 50th birthday.
In 1949 he became ill withpancreatitis and went toKarlovy Vary for a cure at thespa. He published his largest book (in its largest edition – over 10,000 copies), the collection of poemsBez obav (Unafraid) in 1951.[2] He committedsuicide in Prague, where he jumped out of a window on the fifth floor on 12 November 1951 (several sources state 11 November for the jump). Vítězslav Nezval wrote an excusatory poemKosťo, proč nezdvihs aspoň telefon? (Kosta, why didn't you just pick up the phone?).[3] The circumstances and especially the cause of the suicide have never been clear.
