Milada Blekastad

Who was Milada Blekastad?

Milada Blekastad was a Norwegian literary historian.

She was born in Prague, but married Norwegian Hallvard Blekastad. She was a lecturer in Czech language at the University of Oslo from 1957. She took the dr.philos. degree in 1969 with the thesis Comenius, Versuch eines Umrisses von Leben, Werk und Schicksal des Jan Amos Komenský. She was a Government scholar from 1970.

She wrote several academic and popular works on Comenius. Books about him include Menneskenes sak, and translations include Verdsens labyrint and Informatoriet for skulen hennar mor.

She was a prolific translator between Czech and Norwegian, being awarded the Bastian Prize in 1969 for translating Ludvík Vaculík's The Axe. She wrote historical overviews Millom aust og vest and Millom bork og ved as well as publishing the fairytale collection Tsjekkiske og Slovakiske eventyr in four volumes between 1939 and 1955.