Longest love poem in the world: Marina

Today, I was checking my blog and clicked on the most visited post ever published on https://iliveisuffer.blogspot. 

I didn't realise until now that some of the information provided in the post: the Longest Love poem ever written was out-of-date. 

I am very sorry for that, it was not my intention at all to provide incorrect facts about the longest love poem in the world. 

When I wrote the above post in 2016, the data was 100% correct. 

I loved the fact that  „The Evening Star” held the world record for the longest love poem ever written for it was written by a fellow national poet: Mihai Eminescu or Mihai Eminovici. 

Or published, to be precise. 

Who knows how many love poems are written and kept secret? 

„Unique bank of love in Slovakia
The Slovak Spectator
The poem Marína was written in 1846 by Andrej Sládkovič to his love Marína, a love that wasn’t destined to be. 

The poem is 2,900 verses long and it is officially recognized as the longest love poem in the world, Dobré Noviny wrote.” 

Fragment from https://www.worldrecordacademy.org. 

I have looked for an English translation of „Marina, the longest love poem in the world,” and the only one I found was this: 

„I can deny myself your mouth,

I can refrain from your hands,

I can escape into dolorous far-aways,

I can turn into a despised,

I can wilt my mouth with thirst,

I can grieve forsaken,

I can seclude my life in deserts,

I can un-live my life,

I can exterminate myself,

I cannot do anything but love you.” 

Translation taken from here: https://www.proz.com/kudoz/slovak-to-english/art-literary/45596-mozno-mi-tvojich-ust-sa-odrieknut.html. 

Don't these verses make you feel the pain in the Slovak poet's heart? 

However, on this website, https://zlatyfond.sme.sk/dielo/17/Sladkovic_Marina/2, I used automatic translation and copied these 4 stanzas of the longest love poem in the world, which were written in Slovak: 

„1

I sing sweet desires, desires for beauty

, excited by beauty,

and in this echo of my soul, my

world is completely closed;

she shines for me from the heights of the Tatras,

she flies to me from the fires of heaven,

she moves my worlds;

she beckons to me from a hundred lives:

Well, the center, the element, the sky, the unity

of my beauties, my Marina!

2

Like you, Tatras, when

you cast a golden cloud on your mountains:

so she with her spirit clothe me

in the dawn of life.

How you over there, the flames of God, are sources of

light, torches, roots:

she is the lightning of my thought! —

Like you, the eternal laws of the world,

the harmony of God's magical tones:

so give me axis, zenith, college!

3

If my feelings spill

over the hearts of those living in the Tatras;

if my echoes blow

stealthily into future times: the

natives of my soul, the land!

embrace the image of my Marina with the

love of holy objects;

the one who sings the beauties of history,

did not take the Lady's rosemary,

he loves the love of the worlds.

4 

Beauty is an idol that the one who creates miracles himself

likes to call upon, the rab from the wild banks of the Ganges looks at her with hanging chin : There she will appear to you in the eyes of the Madonna, there in the clouds spread out in the sky, there she will sound to you in Zaboja's songs, there the chisel of Canó will create it for you,

there flashes from Parom's fist,

there storms in the sea's outpourings!

.....”

Isn't this love poem extraordinary? 

It touched my romantic nature to the core. 

Who was Andrej Sládkovič? 

„Andrej Sládkovič (31 March 1820 - 20 April 1872), born as Andrej Braxatoris, was a major Slovak romantic poet, literary critic and translator, who belonged to the ‘Štúrovci' (the generation of Slovak intelligentsia around Ľudovít Štúr). Among his first works were the philosophical, reflective poem Sôvety v rodine Dušanovej (Talks in Dušan's family). One of the high points of his oeuvre is the long poem Marína, which brings together elements of amorous and reflective lyrical poetry and stands as one of the most impressive works of Slovak poetry. With his lyrical epic poem Detvan, Sládkovič responded to contemporary demand for poetry with a patriotic focus. This work and Marina together constitute the pinnacle of his poetic output. Sládkovič was involved in the organisation of the Slovak National Assembly in Martin (1861) and was a founding member of Matica slovenská, a nationwide Slovak cultural institution established in 1863. Through his organisational activity, literary criticism, and own works (especially those of a topical or patriotic nature) Sládkovič had a significant and enduring impact on Slovak cultural life.”

This amazing 19th-century Slovak poet started to write this poem in the autumn of 1844; when he found out that his beloved Marína was going to marry someone else. He finished the last verses
in the summer of 1846. A year (or almost) after Marína’s wedding. 

How lucky we are to have people writing verses so deeply moving? 

Luckiest people in the world, aren't we? 

I absolutely love „Marina”! 

I actually fell in love with the name, too, and I'll be using it in my novels. 
And I am no longer upset that it took the world record of the longest love poem ever written from „The Evening Star”. 
What is right, is right. 

„Non fa una piega.” 

👩‍❤️‍👨

When I was doing my research to rectify the out-of-date in my previous post, I found that Banská Štiavnica – the Most Romantic Slovak City – Banská Štiavnica in Love, is the place where Andrej Sládkovič fell in love with Marina. 

So, this Slovak city competes with Verona and Paris in Love. 

Here is more: 

https://www.welcometobratislava.eu/the-most-romantic-slovak-city-banska-stiavnica-in-love/

Thank you so much for your visit. 

Have you read any of my stories and liked them?
Why not support me by leaving a review on Goodreads and Amazon? 

📚

If you haven't read my books and are interested in doing so (English+Romanina), feel free to click on this link. It will take you to an external page (Amazon). 

The e-books in Romanian, signed with Cristina Gherghel (no longer Cristina G.), can be found here (Google Play). 

My author blog is here, just in case you were looking for it. 
Were you? 

Credit pictures

Some are from Pixabay, and some others from PNGtree. 

In case you are feeling generous and would like to help an author help others, click here. 

It will take you to PayPal. 

No amount is too little. 

I thank you from the bottom of my heart.