50 Korun Janko Jesenský

Janko Jesenský was a Slovak poet, prose writer, and lawyer whose anti-fascist stance during the Slovak State period of World War II kept him marginalized until the communist government later found him useful as a cultural symbol. This coin was issued on the centenary of his birth. The choice of a Slovak literary figure for a Czechoslovak federal commemorative in 1974 reflected the post-1968 constitutional restructuring that gave Slovak cultural identity slightly more official room — a political gesture minted in silver.