Page:Conversion of St Vladimir.pdf/11



The translator of these verses was born in the same little Bohemian town, attended the same little two-room school house as Karel Havlicek, but left his homeland almost fifty years ago, like so many thousands of others, to seek his fortune in that new Eldorado which has been his home ever since.

Never having seen in print any of the writings, in prose or verse, of that great patriot and martyr, in the English language, the translator here attempts to present a literal translation rather than a poetical rendition of one of the best known poems of that Bohemian satirist.

Havlicek wrote his poems, essays and epigrams in the plainest language, readable and understandable by the masses of his countrymen who were so near to his heart and for whom he sacrificed his liberty and his life. It is difficult to translate verse literally and still give it the expression and feeling of the original poem—an art given but to few of the immortals and to whose laurels the translator, but an amateur in versifying, does not attempt to aspire.

These verses were translated as a tribute to that great Bohemian patriot by one of his former countrymen for the benefit of some of those of Bohemian birth or origin who know well the name and fame of their compatriot but are not familiar with his writings, not being able to read them in the original; and also for the portion of the English reading public which may be interested in the writings of one whom President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia considers a great figure in Bohemia’s, and subsequently Czechoslovakia's history.

This is my apology for having translated “The Conversion of St. Vladimir.”

Ernst Altschul