- Ivan Trnski
Ivan Trnski (
May 1 ,1819 -June 30 ,1910 ) was aCroatia nwriter ,translator andpuzzle designer. Glorified by his contemporaries as a great poet and patriot, he is now considered a skillful (but not great) poet and a prolific author of occasional verses.Life
Trnski was born in a family of teachers in the village of
Nova Rača nearBjelovar . He completed his primary education inGrubišno Polje in 1830. When his father died, Ivan was sent to the diocesanorphanage inZagreb , where he went to the Gymnasium. He completed the three-year course for administrative border officer inGraz . After serving for several years on theMilitary Frontier , he was promoted toLieutenant Colonel in 1867 and toColonel in 1869. He was the firstprefect of theBjelovar -Križevci County from July 1871 till February 1872, when he renounced the post. He died in Zagreb.Works
Trnski wrote patriotic, occasional and popular songs ("Oh The Long Nights of Autumn"), poems (the collections "Pjesme krijesnice" and "Popijevke i milosnice mladenke") and short stories ("Slutljivac" (The Seer), arguably the first work of
supernatural fiction in Croatian).He translated from English, German, Russian and Czech (Shakespeare, Schiller, and Pushkin's "
Eugene Onegin ").Trnski also contributed to issues of
linguistics andmetrics . His essay "On Writing Verses" ("Vijenac ", 1874) earned him the popular title of the "Father of Croatian Metrics".He was glorified by his contemporaries as a great poet and a fighter for the people's rights. The modern literary historians consider him a skilful (but not great) poet and a prolific author of occasional verses. He was the main organizer (1900) and president of the
Croatian Writers' Association . He contributed to many magazines, from Gaj's "Danica ilirska " (1835), "Neven " and "Vijenac ", to "Savremenik " (1910).Trnski was an important designer of
puzzle s, such asanagram s and acrostics, for 50 years. Many of his puzzles were written in verse.As a puzzle designer, he used the
pseudonym s "Skrivnatin" and "Skrevnatin". Both areanagram s of his name, only spelled differently.
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