Mrożkova „Zmluva“ a (ne)prítomnosť obrazu strednej Európy v slovenských televíznych adaptáciách 1990 – 1993
“The Contract” by Sławomir Mrożek and the image of Central Europe as a (non)presence in Slovak television adaptations (1990–1993)

Summary/Abstract: This article analyses the specific case of the Slovak television adaptation of Sławomir Mrożek’ slesser-known stage play The Contract (1986). The play was written before the fall of communismby the famous Polish exile playwright, and was shot for Slovak television in 1992 bythe ex-Yugoslav director Goran Marojević. This resulted in multiple shifts in the meaningsand visibility of various geopolitical concepts used in the play, including a reduction of referencesthat could render the director’s origin more visible. The paper focuses especially on thereplacement of significant references to Balkan and Orientalist discourse (which are parodicallyoverused in the play) with the more readable concept of Central Europe (which staysunnamed in the play). In the final section, the paper also analyses the position of The Contractwithin the broader context of contemporary Slovak television production, which usuallyavoided Central European authors or direct images of Central Europe, but on the other handadded indirect references to the concept of Central Europe even to works which originallylacked them. The result in both cases was the frequent usage of allegorical meanings, maskingor inversion that followed uncertainties typical for transition from the announcement ofSoviet perestroika to (un)expected post-communist condition.

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