Hovoriť striebro: Konverzačná kultúra v nizozemskom „Zlatom veku“
Speech is silver: Conversation culture in the Dutch “Golden Age”

Summary/Abstract: The boisterous conviviality we know from Dutch genre painting of the 17th century expresses only one side – albeit an important one – of the culture of conversation in the Dutch “Golden Age”. The author writes about what the ideal image and everyday life of conversation looked like in the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, the freest European country of the Baroque period. The picture of the multifaceted culture of communication in the Netherlands of the era can be shown by means of not only visual, but also rich literary material. Diaries, memoirs, correspondence, conduct manuals and, in many cases, literary works of the time show what rules governed free communication, what habitats were predominant in sociable conversation and what was permitted in it. However, it was not only great personalities of Dutch education such as Hugo Grotius or Constantijn Huygens Jr. who commented on the sociability of their time; impressive images of it were also provided by numerous foreigners who travelled to and admired the Netherlands.

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