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LITERARY NOTES
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Balmont, Konstantin Dmitryevitch (b. 1867). Russian poet, whose lyrical diction is remarkable for its eminently musical qualities. Balmont, as he himself proudly announces in "My Songcraft," has enriched the Russian language with new musical and rhythmical devices. His work as a translator is extensive—it includes Russian versions of Shelley and Whitman—but rather unequal in quality. Balmont has exerted a great influence on the development of modern Russian poetry.191
Bezruč,[1] Petr (pseudonym, according to "Ceská Lyra," of Vladimír Vašek, b. 1867). Czech poet, whose "Silesian Songs" contain some of the most powerful verses in the whole of Slavonic literature. In this one small volume, Bezruč has uttered the swan-song of the Silesian Czechs, whose numbers ("The Seventy Thousand") are rapidly diminishing through the encroachment of surrounding nationalities. Several of these poems are of local interest and are strongly coloured with dialect. But about half a dozen of them attain such a degree of tragic utterance, that the
- ↑ Pron. Bezrutch.
