Ivan V. Lalià(8 June 1931 â 28 July 1996) was a Serbian and Yugoslav poet. He was also a translator of poetry from English, French and German into his mother tongue.
LaliÃÂ was born in Belgrade; his father, Vlajko, was a journalist, and his grandfather Isidor BajiÃÂ was a composer. His poems tell of a happy childhood, but also of two teenage traumas. As a child in Belgrade, many of his school-friends perished in a 1944 air-raid - as described in the poem "Zardjala igla (A rusty needle)". LaliÃÂ said that "my childhood and boyhood in the war marked everything I ever wrote as a poem or poetry". A second trauma was the loss of his mother, Ljubica BajiÃÂ, from tuberculosis in 1946.
Ivan V. Laliàfinished high school in Zagreb, where he studied law. Here he met his wife Branka (née Kaà ¡nar), who was studying English and music. They married in 1956. Ivan described her as "the spirit behind my poems", and her presence remains in his verse at all stages of his poetic oeuvre.
Ivan V. LaliÃÂ published his first poems in 1952, and his first collection of poetry in 1955; the last appeared in 1996, the year of his death. After initially working as a literary editor for Radio Zagreb, he moved to Belgrade in 1961 to take up a new post: Secretary of the Yugoslav Writer's Union. Then, from 1979 until his retirement in 1993, he worked as an editor for the Nolit publishing house in Belgrade.
Ivan and Branka LaliÃÂ spent the summers with their family in the Istrian town of Rovinj. They had two sons. The elder, Vlajko, died in a sailing accident between Rovinj and Venice in 1989. Ivan V. LaliÃÂ died suddenly in Belgrade in 1996. He was survived by his wife Branka, and his younger son Marko.
LaliÃÂâÂÂs use of vivid imagery and metaphor within a clear poetic structure has led Serbian critics to label him a âÂÂpost-symbolist,â following in the footsteps of W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Paul Valéry, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Serbian predecessors like Vojislav Iliàand Milan RakiÃÂ. Drawing on the landscapes, histories, and myths of the Eastern Mediterranean and its Italian, Balkan, and Greek hinterlands, he may also be viewed as a Mediterranean poet, akin to C.P. Cavafy, Giorgos Seferis, and Eugenio Montale.
In her obituary of LaliÃÂ, Celia Hawkesworth spoke of "the central place in his work of memory: fragile in the face of the collapse of civilisations, but all we have. Memory allows the poet to recreate brief instants of personal joy as well as to conjure up a sense of the distant past. It allows each of us, as individuals condemned to solitude, to connect with a shared inheritance and feel, for a moment, part of a larger whole."
LaliÃÂâÂÂs domestic reputation grew slowly. In the 1960s and 1970s, his work did not chime well with the avant-garde approach prevalent in Yugoslav poetry - nor with the emotive lyricism popular with broader audiences, as in the work of Branko MiljkoviÃÂ, whom Laliàaddresses in his poem "ProleÃÂna liturgija za mrtvog pesnika" ('Spring liturgy for a dead poet'). But through the 1980s and 1990s he gradually became recognized as a major voice in his country's poetry. By 1997, Aleksandar JovanoviÃÂ, editor of LaliÃÂâÂÂs 1997 Dela ('Collected Works'), described his oeuvre as standing "not only at the peak of Serbian poetry in the second half of [the 20th] century, but at the peak of Serbian poetry in generalâÂÂ.
Abroad, however, LaliÃÂ's reputation grew more quickly. He was among seven non-Anglophone poets featured in the inaugural 1965 issue of the UK journal Modern Poetry in Translation, edited by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort (see #Bibliography below). Hughes and Weissbort praised these poets for the way they tackled "universally comprehensible" issues and did "not fight shy of philosophy" â features which are central to LaliÃÂâÂÂs work.
Laliàis now recognised internationally as one of YugoslaviaâÂÂs and SerbiaâÂÂs most accomplished late 20th-century poets. Book-length translations of his poems have appeared in six languages (English, French, Italian, Polish, Hungarian and Macedonian). Individual poems have appeared in more than 20 languages. UK critics have described his poetry as "vital and intense", with a "magisterial transcendent quality", and his "lyrics [as] ablaze with successes of metaphor", with an "irresistible blend of private lyricism and public force".
Laliàalso wrote a radio drama (Majstor Hanuà ¡, 1965) and a body of literary criticism. He edited and translated book-length anthologies of modern French poetry, German poetry (with several co-translators) and American poetry (with Branka Laliàas co-translator).
LaliÃÂ was awarded many literary prizes, including Yugoslavia's and Serbia's most prestigious awards:
In English translation (see below), his poems have gained six awards:
Ivan V. LaliÃÂ published eleven collections of poetry in his mother tongue.
LaliÃÂ also produced two selections of his work:
A compilation of all Ivan V. LaliÃÂâÂÂs published work â Dela (âÂÂWorksâÂÂ) â was in preparation at his death in 1996. Edited by Aleksandar JovanoviÃÂ, it appeared in 1997. It contains three volumes of poetry and one of literary criticism.
Translations in English
Poems by LaliÃÂ, in his own translation, appeared in the 1965 first issue of Modern Poetry in Translation (ed. Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort) - an influential UK magazine which helped to establish 'new European poetry' as a driving force in UK poetic culture.
Two book-length selections of Ivan V. LaliÃÂâÂÂs poetry have appeared in Charles SimicâÂÂs translation:
Seven editions of Ivan V. LaliÃÂâÂÂs poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Francis R. Jones's translation:
Book-length translations in other languages