Authors
Igor MALIJEVSKÝ
Poet, publicist and photographer Igor Malijevský (born on 15 April 1970 in Prague) graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague, where he studied theoretical physics while at the same time studying philosophy in the Faculty of Arts. After graduating, Malijevský worked in computer maintenance and then on the staff of the Czech weekly Literární noviny. He also taught physics and photography at a primary school. Malijevský lives in Čelákovice.
Malijevský's debut, an extensive collection of poems, Bělomorka, is full of melody and rhythm. His long colourful texts written in free verse, with only a rare and somehow not incidental rhyme, resemble songs, Kainaresque blues more than traditional poetry. These texts concentrate on a comprehensible narrative or simile more than figures of speech and metaphors. Bělomorka defies stylization; it is a book of genuine poetry further strengthened by the author's authentic experience of life. The reader opens a diary written by a penniless tramp dressed in rags smelling of Russian cigarettes (colloquially called bělomorkas), who has a bottle of vodka or at least a beer in his pocket. We browse through the life of someone from a village and not from a town or a city, from the past rather that the present. We turn pages that are saturated with love and friendship – terms that when stripped of redundant material appear in their original meaning. Malijevský's words are those of a new romantic, melancholic poet with a broad Slavic soul and a weakness for pathos. Because pathos, as Malijevský says, "comes from awareness of the fact that life has to be taken seriously" but "today, people tend to enjoy life more than to live it". In his poems and his black and white photos that illustrate and complement them, Malijevský is portrayed as a sad, conservative man who is always ready to ironize his own work. However, he does not lament over new times, nor does he try to instruct his readers. He uses far from aggressive poetic gestures and ignores that spectacular, vivid centre of the hypermodern world of today. Instead, he turns to the quiet but eternal magic of the periphery, to the other side of reality or common day. It is in the same way that his interest turns to the East. Malijevský is inspired by modern Russian poetry, e.g. Vladimir Vysockij – and not by France or Britain as is the tendency in modern Czech poetry. In 2005, Malijevský made his debut as a prose writer – he published Družba (Friendship) where he follows his own life from 1997 to 2005 with a poetic cinematic style.
His photographic CV 
(rk)
This portrait was updated on 1 October 2010