K výskumu slovenskej recepcie darvinizmu na prelome 19. a 20. storočia
K výskumu slovenskej recepcie darvinizmu na prelome 19. a 20. storočia

Summary/Abstract: The study deals with the reception of Darwin´s Theory of Evolution in the Slovak national movement around the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries. The reception of Darwinism is analysed as a phenomenon overhanging the framework of scientific theory and as a component of the all-European discourse, encompassing the worldview, philosophical, sociocultural and political polemics of the second half of the 19th century. The starting point of the analysis is a definition of reception as one of the forms of circulation of knowledge, including not only positive receiving of new ideas, but also their modification or denial. The ideas coming out of Charles Darwin´s theory were spread predominantly by texts with the character of popularization such as reviews, newspaper and journal articles, pamphlets or books. There was a lack of professional, scientific reception of Darwinism in Slovak publications up to the year 1918, a worldview character of reception was dominant. Authors usually did not limit themselves to factual explanation of evolutional theory and Darwin´s observations, they combined scientific facts and hypothesis with affective philosophical speculations in efforts to provide universal answers to the questions about the secrets of the origin and the essence of the existence of human beings and nature. The reception of the Slovak intelligentsia was focused on various “Darwinisms”, in which Darwin´s Theory of evolution inspired concepts like the monism of Ernst Haeckel or social Darwinism. The reception of evolutionary theory also influenced political practice and rhetoric. Instrumentalization and ideologization was an accompanying feature of the reception of Darwinian evolutionary theory throughout the European intellectual circles, including those active in the processes of national emancipation, as in the case of the Slovak intelligentsia.

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