Watson Kirkconnell, (16 May 1895 – 26 February 1977) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

scholar, university administrator and translator. He is well known in

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

, Eastern and Central Europe and among Canadians of different origins for his translations of national poetry, particularly from Hungarian,

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

and

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and ...

. He collaborated with distinguished scholars and academics of his time in perfecting the translations, including literary critic

Pavle Popović Pavle Popović ( sr-cyr, Павле Поповић; 16 April 1868 – 4 June 1939) was a Serbian literary critic and historian, a professor and rector at the University of Belgrade. He is the brother of Bogdan Popović, also a well-known and equa ...

. One of his most remarkable translations is

The Bards of Wales ''The Bards of Wales'' ( hu, A walesi bárdok) is a ballad by the Hungarians, Hungarian poet János Arany, written in 1857. Alongside the Toldi trilogy, it is one of his best known works, published anonymously to evade censorship. Background Ara ...

, a poem of Hungarian poet

János Arany János Arany (; archaic English: John Arany; 2 March 1817 – 22 October 1882) was a Hungarian poet, writer, translator and journalist. He is often said to be the "Shakespeare of ballads" – he wrote more than 102 ballads that have been transl ...

. After World War II, Kirkconnell wrote a poem about

Draža Mihailović Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović ( sr-Cyrl, Драгољуб Дража Михаиловић; 27 April 1893 – 17 July 1946) was a Yugoslavs, Yugoslav Serb general during World War II. He was the leader of the Chetniks, Chetnik Detachments ...

, alleging that the Serb general's execution on July 17, 1946 at the hands of

Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his deat ...

's victorious

Yugoslav Partisans The Yugoslav Partisans,Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene: , or the National Liberation Army, sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska (NOV), Народноослободилачка војска (НОВ); mk, Народноослобод ...

had followed a

show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so th ...

and that charges of

Chetnik war crimes in World War II The Chetniks, a Yugoslav Royalist and Serbian nationalist movement and guerrilla force, committed numerous war crimes during the Second World War, primarily directed against the non-Serb population of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, mainly Muslim ...

and of collaboration with occupying Fascist Italian and Nazi German forces were false and trumped up. The execution solidified Communist rule in Yugoslavia for the next four decades, before the federal state ultimately disintegrated into civil war after Tito's death, when latent internal tensions were no longer being suppressed. From 1948 to 1964, he was the ninth President of

Acadia University Acadia University is a public, predominantly undergraduate university located in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada, with some graduate programs at the master's level and one at the doctoral level. The enabling legislation consists of the Acadia ...

. In 1968, he was made an Officer of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the ...

"for his services at home and abroad as an educator, scholar and writer". In 1936, he was made a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...

External links

János Arany: Bards of Wales - translated by Watson Kirkconnell

- ''One of Tibor Tollas's poems in English, translated by Watson Kirkconnell'' * * * * * * Archives of Watson Kirkconnel
(Watson Kirkconnell fonds, R1847)
are held at

Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; french: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada) is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is th ...

. Fonds consists of three drafts of the translation from Ukrainian of ''The Poetical Works of Taras Shevchenko''. 1895 births 1977 deaths Canadian Baptists Canadian university and college chief executives Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Formalist poets Hungarian–English translators Officers of the Order of Canada Translators from Old East Slavic Translators of The Tale of Igor's Campaign Translators from Russian Ukrainian–English translators 20th-century Canadian translators 20th-century Baptists {{Canada-translator-stub