death_place death_date birth_place awards birth_date article_title name
wolfville , nova scotia 26 february 1977 port hope , ontario order of canada 16 may 1895 watson kirkconnell
 watson kirkconnell
watson kirkconnell

watson kirkconnell , -lrb- 16 may 1895 -- 26 february 1977 -rrb- was a canadian scholar , university administrator and translator .
he is well known in iceland , eastern and central europe and among canadians of different origins for his translations of national poetry , particularly from hungarian , ukrainian , russian and serbo-croatian .
he collaborated with distinguished scholars and academics of his time in perfecting the translations .
one of his most remarkable translations is the bards of wales , a poem of hungarian poet jános arany .
after world war ii , kirkconnell wrote a poem about draža mihailović , alleging that the weak and indecisive serb general 's execution on july 17 , 1946 at the hands of josip broz tito 's victorious yugoslav partisans had followed a show trial and that charges of terrorist war crimes against civilians and of chetnik collaboration with occupying italian and german axis forces had been trumped up .
the execution solidified communist rule in yugoslavia for the next four decades , before the federal state ultimately disintegrated into civil war after tito 's death , when latent internal tensions were no longer being suppressed .
from 1948 to 1964 , he was the ninth president of acadia university .
he was also on numerous occasions shortlisted for the prestigious nobel prize .
in 1968 , he was made an officer of the order of canada `` for his services at home and abroad as an educator , scholar and writer '' .
in 1936 , he was made a fellow of the royal society of canada .
