In Defence of the Defenceless
In Defence of the Defenceless

Summary/Abstract: The fate of the first work of Slovak literature encapsulates the trials and tribulations that accompanied its later development. Having banned his epigrams a few years earlier, ecclesiastical censorship prohibited the publication of part II of Jozef Ignác Bajza’s The Adventures and Experiences of the Young Man Rene (René mládenca príhody a skúsenosti, 1784). However, writers learned how to “self-regulate” within a few decades. As they embarked on their romantic quest of developing national self-awareness which was accompanied by a dangerous increase in national oppression, their writing was expected to perform a weighty role and to stand in for non-existent national institutions. Writers were expected to adhere to a strict military discipline, not unlike that of an ascetic religious order. Anything that protruded from the tight formation was ruthlessly eliminated, like undesirable new shoots disfiguring a carefully trimmed hedge.

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