Song about Viktorka

Jaroslav Seifert's poetic rendition of a well-known character from Božena Němcová's Grandmother

The well-known character of Božena Němcová's grandmother played out the author's imagination in such a way that he poetically portrayed her personality, her fate and the feelings with which her heart burned and suffered, and projected the writer's bitter human and emotional fate into them.

"I first read it (and listened to it from the lips of my classmates) in 1956. At the same time as Jaroslav Seifert. We hosted an evening of his poetry at the College of Education. She has charmed me permanently. Love, Music, Tragic, hope, Sadness, protest, it's all there, written in the most beautiful Czech. Whenever I'm not feeling well (or vice versa), I go back to it. It helps me to come to terms with impermanence, with contradictions, to forget eternity, to believe that "the world has never been without roses" and perhaps it never will be without them. I'll be glad if you can hear it from her too."
Miloň Čepelka