Pseudonym

Andrej Kadák; Vladimír Klen

Birth date

10. 08. 1925  [en] Veľké Rovné

Death date

24. 10. 2002  [en] Bratislava

Fields of interest

próza, literatúra pre deti a mládež, literatúra faktu, publicistika

Briefly about author

Vladimír Ferko, together with Vojtech Zamarovský, is considered to be a pioneer of non-fiction literature in Slovakia. After ten years of intensive journalistic work and travel reportage from China Typhoon is a Fine Wind, he discovered his life's theme and an original manner of its interpretation in A Dowry from Prehistoric Times - the world of nature, both animate and inanimate, perceived as an interesting, even mysterious phenomenon offering an adventure of knowledge. This book on rocks and minerals of Slovakia was published in 1962. In the same year Vojtech Zamarovský published his Discovery of Troy. Both books brought new themes into literature and a new approach to non-fiction. The adventure of discovery as an important phenomenon of non-fiction is characteristic also for his books At the Bottom of the World, Thirteen Golden Stones, The Cosmic Caravels, Golden Nostalgia, Diamonds, and Yellow Devil, Yellow God. His knowledge of Slovakia, acquired by a systematic and prolonged study of factual and scientific materials as well as his own research, Ferko put to good use in the encyclopaedic publication A Book on Slovakia, and a pictorial publication of a similar type, Slovakia - My Native Land. Ferko's long-held aim to present Slovakia as a country rich in culture, history and natural beauties found its consummation in this book. It is a considered choice of information from selected regions of Slovakia composed in such a way that general facts are enriched by regional features thus creating a balanced and rounded picture of the country, its history and natural peculiarities. All these works are dominated by the author's respect towards facts and fact-filled texts. Ferko later moved from a strictly defined genre of non-fiction to a form of a factual essay in his books, To the World, My Dears, To the World and Love in Slovakia. The first of these is an account of the history of Slovak tinkers drawing on family and regional traditions and the authentic folklore of the tinkers, their destinies and documents, presenting them as a well-informed and enterprising society of craftsmen, who may be assured of their adequate place in the economic history of Slovakia. Love in Slovakia presents a broad view of the different forms of love in Slovakia and the author used a wide range of archive material, court documents and family chronicles. Though based on fact, the theme is enlivened by its narrative treatment. The level of fabulation in some stories is so dominant that Love in Slovakia could be considered to lie on the borders of non-fiction and fiction. The tendency towards fictionalisation of themes that the author had already treated in their factual form dominates in The Truth of Rudo Pravdík and Like Wild Geese (co-authored with his son Andrej) which present prose syntheses of tinker themes. The book The Hempen Cross occupies a special place in Ferko's work. It is a collection narratives presenting the stories of Slovak people who had been unjustly accused after the war of collaboration with Fascism and deported by the Soviet Army to the Soviet Union, mostly to Siberia and the hell of the gulag. This work, the first of its kind to deal with this theme in Slovak literature, was taken out of the bookshops at the beginning of 'normalisation' and pulped. In 2000 Ferko moved into the genre of the essay. The Law of Cream is a collection of essays dealing with themes that had been taboo or deliberately suppressed - the co-existence of different ethnic groups within the historically exposed space of Central Europe. After thirty years of cultivating and innovating in the genre of literary fact Ferko is considered to be a classic. His share in the development of the genre was recognized by the award of the Egon Ervin Kisch prize in 1993 for his lifetime contribution to the field of non-fiction. Vladimír Ferko died in 2002.

Briefly about production

prose:
The Red Dolphin (Červený delfín, 1964), The Hempen Cross (Konopný kríž, 1970), The Devil's Rib (Čertovo rebro, 1982), The Sevenfold Voice (Sedmohlások, 1985), The Thousandfold Ducat (Tisícnásobný dukát, 1989), Martin on a Black Horse (Martin na čiernom koni, 1992), Tales of the Dragon Emperors (1994, together with Dzhu Wie-Chu and Chou Mei-Zhu), Like Wild Geese (Ako divé husi,1994, together with his son, Andrej Ferko), The Truth of Rudo Pravdík (Pravda Ruda Pravdíka, 1995)

non-fiction:
The Typhoon is a Fine Wind (Tajfún je dobrý vietor, 1959), A Dowry from Pehistoric Times (Veno z praveku, 1962), At the Bottom of the World (Na dne sveta, 1964), The Blue Kaleidoscope (Modrý kaleidoskop, 1965), Open, Grain (Zrnko, otvor sa, 1964), Thirteen Golden Stones (Trinásť zlatých kameňov, 1968), The Cosmic Caravels (Kozmické karavely, 1971), Golden Nostalgia (Zlatá nostalgia, 1975), Diamonds (Diamanty, 1975), A Book on Slovakia (Kniha o Slovensku, 1978), To the World, My Dears, To the World (Svetom moje, svetom, 1978), Yellow Devil, Yellow God (Žltý diabol, žltý boh, 1978), A Dictionary for Every Day (Slovník na každý deň, 1985), Roundabout of the Sun (Slncový kolotoč, 1985), The Magic Stones (Magické kamene, 1985), Love in Slovakia (Láska na Slovensku, 1988), Slovakia - My Native Land (Slovensko - moja vlast', 1996)

essays:
The Law of Cream (Zákon smotany, 2000)

Biography for author

He was born 10 August 1925 in Veľké Rovné. After finishing the town school he held a variety of manual jobs. In 1949 he became a journalist on the daily Smena and at the same time started his external studies. In 1954 he completed secondary school and in 1958 he graduated in Journalism at the Philosophical Faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava. From 1965 to 1969 he worked on the staff of the cultural and political weekly Predvoj (Vanguard, later renamed Nové slovo - New Word). For his journalism in 1968 he was banned from publication in the years following the occupation by the armies of the Warsaw Pact. He used a variety of pseudonyms, the most frequent being Andrej Kadák. He returned to work at the daily Smena, where he edited the week-end supplement Smena na nedeľu. He retired in 1985. He died in Bratislava on 24 October 2002.

about author

It is good that alongside Vojtech Zamarovský, who has revived ancient cultures, we have also Vladimír Ferko reviving Slovakia.

Zamarovský and Ferko demonstrate that it is not necessary to be a scholarly specialist; the author has, however, to have a large and profound knowledge in the sphere he is going to treat, and above all a profound sense of the interrelationships fanning outwards from this field towards man, his mind and his destiny. It is this that turns a work that has been merely a means of popularising science into literature. He must know how to reveal the drama within science itself, within the processes of discovery and learning, but also an interest and drama in the ways in which the processes and results of scientific observation change to a social value as they touch and mix with human destinies. In reality, and not in an imagined story.

Author about himself

Clearly the fates added curiosity to my genetic inheritance, the tinkers on the other hand represented fearlessness and courage. Moreover, from an early age I was fascinated by the mountain panorama round my native village with only a narrow view of the Strážovské hills behind which were the azure contours of the Mala Fatra. The configuration of the terrain held a straightforward appeal; what are those hills, what cliffs gleam whitely above them? In the local library there were books on travellers, mariners and African and Polar explorers. Thus when in 1957 I held in my hand a Special passport with a stamp saying All states of the world and back, I felt that one of the dreams of my childhood had come true. At the same time I was discovering Slovakia and I realised that it wasn't the navel of the world and learnt to perceive it in its right dimensions.

Awards

The Fraňo Kráľ Prize (1985)
Egon Erwin Kisch Prize (1993)
Prize of Matica Slovenská (2000)

Sample

THE TRUTH OF VLADO PRAVDÍK