Description

A large collection of classical poetry, embracing the period from the antiquity to the modern poetry, was translated to Esperanto by a Hungarian author Kálmán Kalocsay. The work starts with a translation of The Great Hymn to the Aten by Pharaoh Akhenaten

And finishes with a poem by an Estonian author Johannes Semper. Other poems were written by Sapho, Goethe, Japanese authors, Russian authors etc.    

Kálmán Kalocsay (1891-1976) was a Hungarian Esperantist poet, editor and translator, who had a major influence on Esperanto before WWII, especially in Hungary. He was also known by his name in Esperanto version Kolomano Kaloĉajo, as well as various pseudonyms: C.E.R. Bumy, Kopar, Alex Kay, K. Stelov, Malice Pik and Peter Peneter.

The book was published by Kalocsay’s Esperanto publishing house Literatura mondo, based in Budapest, which was since 1922 publishing an Esperanto magazine with the same title. During WWII the magazine and the publishing house were closed, because the Nazis forbade publications in Esperanto. The first magazine after the war was published in 1947.

References: Geoffrey Sutton, Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto, 2008, pp. 79-91.