Ján Smrek (real name Jan Čietek) (1898-1982), poet, National Artist, translator, journalist and cultural organiser Jan Smrek was a journalist, from 1925 to 1930, editor-in-chief of Narodné noviny in Martin, and from 1930 to 1939 editor with the Leopold Mazáč publishing house in Prague. Exponent of a poetry of vitality and immediacy (Galloping Days/Cválajúce dm, Divine Knots/Božské uzly, Only Eyes/lba oči, Poet and Woman/Básnik a žena), in the Second World War he promoted the sanctity of human life (The Feast/Hostina, The Well/Studňa). In subsequent work he celebrated the natural world and returned to the motifs of his early poetry (Image of...