Zbierka Amálie Sirotkovej
Amália Sirotková’s collection

Summary/Abstract: The paper is devoted to the collection of Amália Sirotková (1813 – 1892) – the oldest known Slovak woman storyteller. Part of her manuscript collection from the 1850s has been preserved thanks to the estate of Pavel Dobšinský (1828 – 1885) who prepared two of her tales for publication in his edition Prostonárodné slovenské povesti (Slovak folk tales, 1880, 1882). The preserved notebooks are probably a fragment of a larger collection, but the extent of the manuscript remains unknown. “Povesti od Amálie Sirotkovej [Tales by Amália Sirotková]” archive stored in the Literary archive of the Slovak National Library in Martin contains three notebooks by A. Sirotková and one notebook written by another person and probably unrelated to A. Sirotková’s collection. The first part of the article reflects on the question of authorship and the extent of the collection. The second part of the papee reconstructs the origin of the collection and outlines the possible ways in which the manuscript of A. Sirotková’s might have reached P. Dobšinský. The aim is not to reflect on the language, spelling, style, or genre of A. Sirotková’s tales, but on the contexts of the collection with regard to parallel manuscript sources and the way it was used by editors of fairy tale books in the 19th century. The third part of the paper deals with this issue in more detail.

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