Ivar Ivask

Ivar Ivask ( born December 17, 1927 in Riga, † September 23, 1992 in Fountain Town at Cork / Ireland) was an Estonian poet and literary scholar.

Early years

Ivar Ivask was born in Riga, the son of an Estonian father and a Latvian mother. In 1944, he fled the Soviet occupation of Latvia into exile in Germany. At the Estonian School in Wiesbaden Ivask passed his Abitur. He studied German at the University of Marburg from 1949 and in Minnesota in the United States.

Literary scholar

1950 Ivask defended his master's thesis on Gottfried Benn and 1953 his doctoral thesis on Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Then Ivar Ivask was Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Oklahoma and chief editor of the prestigious journal World Literature Today. The predecessor magazine Books Abroad was co-founded in 1970 by him. On his initiative, will also return the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

From 1991 until his death he lived as a literary scholar in Ireland. He now lies in the cemetery of Rõngu, his father's homeland in southern Estonia, buried.

Private life

Ivar Ivask was married since 1949 with the Latvian poet and Romanistin Astride Ivaska, born Hartmane (* 1926). Both had met in a refugee camp in Germany. He also was a longtime, close friend of the Austrian writer Heimito of Doderer.

Poetry

Ivar Ivask is through his biography and his talent for languages, one of the most international Estonian poets of the 20th century, without, however, he had forgotten his Baltic homeland. He wrote his poetry in Estonian, German and English.

Poetry collections

• Tähtede tähendus (1964)
• Päev astub kukesammul (1967 )
• Mirrored Earth (1967 )
• Ajaloo OIOS: Kolmas Kogu luuletusi (1970 )
• Oktoober Oklahoma (1973 )
• Verikivi (1976, with illustrations by the author )
• Elukogu (1978)
• Verandaraamat yes teisi luuletusi (1981 )
• Baltic elegies (1987 )

More Releases

• In addition, published by Ivar Ivask numerous literary works, such as: with Otto Basil and Herbert Eisenreich: The great heritage: essays on Austrian literature. Panorama to the demise Kakania, publishing Stiasny, Graz / Vienna 1962.