Slovakia Today, English Language Current Affairs Programme from Slovak Radio

During the early months of the First World War, Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav, one of Slovakia’s greatest literary figures, wrote a series of short but passionate anti-war poems which eventually became known as the ‘Bloody Sonnets’, but which were impossible to publish as long as the war lasted. Today we replay Jonathan’s interview with John Minahane, whose English translation of the Bloody Sonnets was published in 2018 and later presented to the late Queen Elizabeth II, about this remarkable work by one of Slovakia’s most renowned figures.