Serbian poet of Romanian descent.

Epic poet with a vast vision.

Succinct modernist style that owed much to surrealism and Serbian folk traditions and absolutely nothing to the Socialist Realism that dominated Eastern European literature after World War II. Unique poetic language, mostly elliptical, that combines a modern form, often expressed through colloquial speech and common idioms and phrases, with old, oral folk traditions of Serbia – epic and lyric poems, stories, myths, riddles, etc. In his work, earthly and legendary motifs mix, myths come to surface from the collective subconscious, the inheritance and everyday are in constant interplay, and the abstract is reflected in the specific and concrete, forming a unique and extraordinary poetic dialectics.

Vasko Popa was born June 29, 1922 in Grebenac, Serbia.  After  high school, he enrolled in The Faculty of Philosophy at the Belgrade University.  During World War II he fought with a partisan group, was captured and imprisoned in a German concentration camp in Beckerek (Vojvodina, Serbia). Later he studied in Bucharest and in Vienna and completed his education at the University of Belgrade in 1949.Popa took a job as an editor in Belgrade, and published his first major verse collection in 1953.  Over a thirty-eight year career, he wrote eight volumes of poetry and received numerous awards.   From 1954-1979 he was the editor of the publishing house Nolit. His Collected Poems, 1943–76, a compilation in English translation, appeared in 1978.  In 1972 Vasko Popa founded The Literary Municipality Vršac.  Popa was a member of Serbian Academy of Science and was one of the founders of Vojvodina Academy of Science and Arts which was established on 14 December 1979.  

Vasko Popa wrote with a modernist style derived more from French surrealism and Serbian folk traditions than the Socialist Realism that prevailed in Eastern European literature after World War II.  He created a unique poetic language that combines a modern form with old, oral folk traditions of Serbia –

In 1995, the town of Vršac established a poetry award named after Vasko Popa. It is awarded annually for the best book of poetry published in Serbian. The award ceremony is held on the day of Popa’s birthday, 29 June.

Popa died on 5 January 1991 in Belgrade and is buried in the Aisle of the Deserving Citizens in Belgrade’s New Cemetery.