(Ne)tradièné, (ne)humorné a (ne)špecifické v Rozkošových Prozaických textoch

Author(s): Patrik Šenkár / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 2/2017

The contribution analyzes the importance of tradition and humor as the basic foundations of nationality in the Lowland. It points to the thematic diversity of the different prototypes: from the erotically tuned novel to the tragicomically understood story of simple people. It echoes some experimental experimentation in the background of everyday protagonists' actions. Its interesting part is the texts relating to drivers and driving. The opposition of the village / city, man / woman, close / far is determined by the regional aspect and the principle due to various encounters. Effective descriptions are alternated with attractive dynamic thematic gradients. This is also the author's specificity in the development of Slovak literature in Romania. The basic reflection bridge of the contribution is the individual prose of a Slovak author from Romania – Pavel Rozkoš.

Adaptačné prístupy inscenátorov k románovému prototextu v súčasnom slovenskom divadle

Author(s): Miran Pukan / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 2/2019

Dramatization as well as adaptation of the classical epic works for contemporary theatre; usually drama; has its own logic. It is the reaction on confused or mediocre aesthetic value of contemporary national as well as European drama which probably cannot adequately refl ect present-day problems of the addressee. Heterogeneity of adaptation procedures realized by domestic as well as foreign producers; concerning the novel pretext; can be illustrated by fi ve analyses of theatre performances presented in the prestigious professional theatres after the year 2000. There are several reasons for their choice: they mean constitute the theatre stages which represent the artistic top of the Slovak theatre thanks to their production and staging projects and at the same time they have the status of individual institutional form. First one is Slovak National Theatre Bratislava which presented two adaptations of Slovak cult novels – fi rst one from interwar period; Švantner´s Nevesta hôľ (2015); directed by Roman Polák; and second one; contemporary Pišťanek´s Rivers of Babylon (2016); directed by guest director from Slovenia Diego De Brea. However; it was Theatre of Alexander Duchnovič Prešov (DAD); previously called Ukrainian National Theatre until 1900; in which two dramatizations of prestigious Russian novels were presented; namely Goncharov’s Oblomov (2000); directed by Matúš Oľha; a Dostoyevsky’s Idiot (2005); directed by guest British director Jan Willem van den Bosch. Apart from these dramatizations; DAD presented also the adaptation of well-known Grimmelshausen’s baroque novel Dobrodružný Simplicius Simplicissimus under the title Princove halušky alebo Uhorský Simplicissimus (2002) which was directed by Matúš Oľha; too. The choice of these theatre ensembles and their plays was not accidental because both the companies represent cultural theatre spots developing and cultivating national identity (in the fi rst case) and ethnical identity of Ruthenians who live in the Eastern Slovakia and their theatre aesthetics includes many exceptional procedures and progressive development tendencies not only in the context of Slovak professional theatre (in the second case). Solving typological and terminological questions is very complicated and urgent task; apart from other reasons also because of pragmatism (e.g. the question of copyrights). On the basis of long-term research activity concerning adaptations of literary works; theoreticians adopted the view that it is not possible to judge adaptation and dramatization procedures or diff erent author attitudes in general and that it is necessary to specify diff erent ways of treating the literary text in the complicated intersemiotic and intertextual transformational process resulting into autochthonous stage play.

Ako Svätopluk svoju zem za bieleho koňa predal... Vzájomné obrazy Slovákov a Maďarov v slovenských a maďarských dejepisných učebniciach vydávaných v rokoch 1918 až 1989

Author(s): Slávka Otčenášová / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 2/2012

This article deals with the mutual images and stereotypes of Slovaks and Hungarians presented in Czechoslovak, Slovak and Hungarian history textbooks published between 1918 – 1989. The textbooks employed the same principles while creating the image of the Self and the Other. In all cases the authors of the textbooks opted for creating a positive image of their own nation by employing images of its cultural and moral superiority, while the Others were characterized as immoral traitors on a lower degree of civilisational development. Narratives presented in official history textbooks reflect the political agenda, desirable values and the efforts the political elites made in order to create a collective identity of the citizens of the state and to develop the loyalty of subjects to the country they live in. Thus, every change of political regime brings with it the necessity to reinterpret the past and to reconstruct the national history – as such, in which the current state, or the current ambitions and political programs of the elites would be seen as the natural, legitimate and most desirable result of historical development.

Alexander Matuška – neľútostný kritik slovenského tradicionalizmu

Author(s): Vlasta Jaksicsová / Language(s): Slovak / Publication Year: 0

Po viac ako dvadsaťročnej spolupráci s historikom Ivanom Kamencom, ktorá akosi prirodzene prerástla aj do ľudskej roviny, som počas mnohých, pre mňa veľmi obohacujúcich diskusiách s ním nadobudla vnútorné presvedčenie, že v jeho ľudskom i profesionálnom živote zastávajú (vlastne už de facto zastávali) pevné miesto dva ľudské a profesionálne vzory. Bol to historik Ľubomír Lipták, ktorý bol zároveň i jeho „učiteľom“, zaúčajúcim svojho mladého ašpiranta histórie krok za krokom do tajomstiev „historického remesla“, a najvýznamnejší predstaviteľ slovenskej literárnej kritiky a esejistiky 20. storočia Alexander Matuška. Vzhľadom na význam oboch osobností v slovenskej historiografii i literárnej histórii, tento výber nie je na prvý pohľad až taký prekvapujúci. Bolo akosi prirodzené, že mladý absolvent histórie a dejín umenia sa aj svojou ľudskou a mentálnou výbavou bude uberať tou ťažšou cestou, a to večným, azda aj nekonečným hľadaním morálneho imperatívu v dejinách, predovšetkým však konaním a postojmi ľudí, ktorí tieto dejiny tvorili a ovplyvňovali. Matuška bol Kamencovi blízky najmä svojím povestným, neľútostným kriticizmom a glosovaním spoločenských javov (do vlastných radov), rád ho cituje – a nie je sám – lebo tohto briskného ekvilibristu slovenského slova citujú mnohí, jeho totiž nemožno „len“ prerozprávať. Sám Matuška nemal túto charakteristiku rád, ale sa za ňu ani nehanbil. Tým, čo ho označovali iba za verbalistu, ktorý neprináša nič nové, odkazoval: „hovorili o mojom hračkárení, naznačovali čosi o verbálnom efektníčení, ba aj o verbalizme. Tým chceli povedať, že síce pekne píšem, ale neprinášam nič nové, lebo ako by to bolo – však? – aj pekne aj nové? Pretože oni nevedeli písať, mysleli si, že sú hlbokí ... uznávam, že ... bez trošku hry to tomu, kto s ním [so slovom] pracuje po celý život naozaj nejde...“.

Aspekt dieťaťa a princíp hry v čítaní pre mladého čitateľa

Author(s): Viera Žemberová / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 2/2018

The study deals with effective ways of coping with both semantics of literary prose texts and their artistic values for a young reader. Semantics of artistic text is relevant for comprehension of a story. Artistic value analysed in the article concerns the poetics utilised by an author of literary text. Important author’s strategies include text composition, child’s aspect, adult’s aspect and playfulness. With a focus on text comprehension, the authors Hana Lasicová and Ľubica Brix modified the way in which they harmonised communication contact of the narrators and the acts of children’s characters in both of their texts. The potential of both texts is fulfilled in cognitive, educational, moral and emotional forms of contact between the main idea and the story.

Attempt to Outline the Situation in the Publication of Literature in Slovakia (1980 - 1989)

Author(s): Marián Grupač / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

Básnik a mesto : Viedenské roky Jána Kollára

Author(s): Tatiana Ivantyšynová,Peter Podolan,Miriam Viršinská / Language(s): Slovak / Publication Year: 2015

The revolutionary years 1848 – 1849 had a significant impact on the lives of all people in the multi- ethnical Habsburg monarchy. The revolution brought the Austrian empire and its sovereign new issues which had to be solved inevitably. In the new circumstances the main task for the imperial court was the adjustment of the public administration in the country which was to be handed over to new and reliable people. At the beginning of 1849 the government created a new advisory institution. The governmental advisors became the main proponents of the Slovak issues at the governing circles in Vienna. Ján Kollár was named the adviser at the beginning of April 1849 and thus, after thirty years in Pest, he came to Vienna where he later also died. In his new role Kollár focused on solving the Slovak issue – national rights of Slovaks which, in his opinion, were to be extended in Hungary in a several phases. Firstly he pursued to completely and definitely eliminate magyarization and finally bring it to its end. Following this aim he made some elaborates for the government. One of them, about national administration is still undiscovered. In others he was dealing with changes in the school system and in the Lutheran church in the Habsburg monarchy. Both documents are summarizations of Kollár’s ideas about how school system and Lutheran church should function in the monarchy with the emphasis on language and national equality. While working as the governmental adviser he also engaged in other spheres. He used his good relationships with the Austrian governing authorities for the benefit of Slovaks. He recommended people whom he trusted for important posts. He managed to put through the so called Old Slovak language (Czech language with some Slovak elements) as a literary language, was zealous to establish a great Slovak principality and he made efforts to solve all contemporary problems of Slovaks in Hungary. Shortly after arriving in Vienna he found himself at the Vienna University as a professor of “Slavic archeology“, which made it possible for him to devote his time to his greatest passion, i. e. studying Slavic past and mythology towards the end of his life. Thanks to Kollár’s stay at the university, his last works were dedicated to the oldest history of Slavs in the European area. He became the pioneer of archeological research in which he tried to use the available scientific works and also to create new scientific terminology. Staroitalia slavjanska… with almost 900 pages was Kollar’s largest volume published. It was a mixture of the method of his previous scientific works aimed mainly at etymological explanation of national names (Rozprawy…, Sláwa Bohyně…) with a new archeological range. The last elaborated sphere of Kollár’s scientific interest at the end of the 1840s and the beginning of the 1850s were the so called Prillwitz idols allegedly representing the deity from Retra, about which, towards the end of his life, Kollár wrote a vast book with the same title which was never published.

Bilješke o narodnom životu u romanima Martina Kukučina

Author(s): Nevena Škrbić Alempijević / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 16/2004

This article discusses the way and the mode in which fiction can be used as a source of ethnographic data, using the novels of the Slovak writer Martin Kukučin (1860-1928) as a case study. Novels by Kukučin can be used as a source of ethnographic data to Croatian ethnologists because the author spent almost half of his life living among Croats. For thirteen years he lived in the village of Selca on the Island of Brač, while he spent the next fifteen year among the immigrants from the island of Brač in Chile. He based two of his novels on his experiences there: Kuća u strani, which is located in a patriarchal, somewhat idealized rural community on the Island of Brač, and Mati zove, in which he described the life of Croatian, mostly Dalmatian immigration community in the Chilean county of Magellanas. Both novels are filled with descriptions of different segments of traditional culture (notes on traditional economy, clothing, traditional architecture, customs, magical rites, etc.). The importance of folk heritage in the work of Kukučin is emphasized in such a way that his starting points can be compared with the principles which Antun Radić, his contemporary, has introduced into folk research. In creating a model for his literary, fictional societies, the author frequently employs traditional worldviews and concepts, and especially emphasizes the distinctive characteristics which one community carries in relation to Others, as well as the conflicts which exist inside the community itself, between different strata in society. Novels by Kukučin can be interesting for ethnologists for a number of reasons. For example, in Kuća u strani, he describes: cultural differences between different groups inside the village community, between Us and Them, everyday life of village people which Kukučin includes in his novel; the organization of village family, unwritten rules and moral principles followed by the community. In the novel Mati zove he tackles the following issues: integration of Dalmatian immigrants to the apparently homogenized Croatian community in Chile, assignment of collective character and mentality to all the members of a given community. He also includes memories of homeland in the form of ethnographic description, where he emphasizes the notion of the undiminished value of rural heritage; a conflict but also an inter-fusion of two different ways of life seen from the point of view of the immigrants: which elements of their own culture have they preserved in the immigration, which new elements have they adopted in the new country. However, in accepting Kukučin's novels as sources of ethnographic data, we have to bear in mind that they were written by a person whose cultural background was quite different; many paragraphs signify a certain intercession between the two cultures. In his works on Brač and the immigrant Dalmatians, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, he includes data from another traditional culture the one he originated from.

Can the dissident speak? The Czech woman writer in the work of Philip Roth and Dominik Tatarka

Author(s): Charles Sabatos / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2017

The Czech dissident movement that began in the late 1970s was a network in which women played a key role, but the Czech writers who gained fame in the West were invariably men. In Philip Roth’s 1985 novella The Prague Orgy, his alter ego Nathan Zuckerman meets a woman writer named Olga, whose pursuit of the American writer owes more to erotic fantasy than to the milieu Roth recreates in otherwise faithful detail. This portrayal of the Czech female as both sexualized and “other” can be traced back to twentieth century Prague-German writers,but Roth both politicizes and intellectualizes this archetype by making the desiring (rather than desired) woman a writer and dissident. A real-life perspective on the Czech disidentka (female dissident) appears in the work of Dominik Tatarka, one of the few Slovak writers tobe closely associated with the dissident movement. The last work Tatarka published in hislifetime was a memoir based on tape-recorded interviews with Eva Štolbová, who became Tatarka’s connection to Prague dissident circles. In 1988, these Navrávačky (Tapings) were published in edited book form in Germany, and it was not until more than a decade later that the full transcripts were published in Slovakia. While the female Czech dissident is eroticized in this text as well, Štolbová is not a mere object of desire; she portrays her side of the story inher own memoir, Lamento (1994). The gender dynamic between Štolbová and Tatarka subverts the cultural assumption in which the Czech language was constructed as “masculine”and Slovak as “feminine.” Thus both Roth and Tatarka illustrate the interplay between “otherness”and gender in the production of dissident culture, and its reception by domestic (both Czech and Slovak) as well as international readers.

Causa „Černoboh bamberský“

Author(s): Peter Podolan / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 18/2015

Ján Kollár (1793 – 1852) was well known Slovak representative, celebrated poet and ideologist. However his scientific career is still not well illuminated. This paper focuses on Kollár's interest in history and his discovery of the supposed Slavic pagan idol. During the honeymoon in autumn 1835 Kollár visited town Bamberg in Germany. Near entrances of the Bamberg cathedral he found two ancient sculptures of lions and copied supposed runic inscription. He believed that they represent Slavic deity "Černoboh" [Dark/Evil God] and that the inscription is evidence of the runic letters of the ancient Slavs. About his discovery he wrote to friends. Pavel Jozef Šafárik (1795 – 1861) informed the scientific spheres and also German scientists began to occupy themselves with problems of the sculptures and inscrip-tion. Although the final achievements proved that the inscription was not real Slavic relic and sculptures were created in the Middle Ages, Kollár believed in their authenticity for the rest of his life. The discovery also influenced his later scholar activities, when he became a professor of Slavic archaeology and occupied himself with problems so-called "Prillwitz idols".

CVIKOVÁ, Jana: KU KONCEPTUALIZÁCII RODU V MYSLENÍ O LITERATÚRE. Bratislava : Ústav svetovej literatúry Slovenskej akadémie vied a ASPEKT, 2014.

Author(s): IVANA HOSTOVÁ / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 1/2017

Daniel Krman a jeho cesty

Author(s): Igor Zmeták / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 2/2016

Daniel Krman is known in Slovakia as one of the main representatives of the Slovak Baroque literature. Nevertheless, it is less known that his Itineraria — Travel Diary is not only a precious literary work, but also a valuable historical source about the Great Northern War held in the first third of the 18th century. The Travel Diary dates back to the years 1708—1709, when the Hungarian protestant delegacy was on its way to the Swedish king Charles XII. Krman traveled through Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Moldovia, and his notes are one of the few remaining authentic documents of the witnesses from the batdefields of the Great Northern War. At the same time, they rank as a unique ethnographic source from that period. Another importance of the work, until now neglected, is a Hungarian (Slovak) travelers’ view of the Swedish army in Central Europe, as well as his view of King Charles XII himself.

Daniel Krman ako symbol prieniku lokálnej, konfesionálnej a národnej identity (na príklade Myjavy)

Author(s): Peter Macho / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 1/2017

The paper analyzes the importance and place of evangelical bishop Daniel Krman as a symbol in the local (the inhabitants of town Myjava), confessional (Protestants) and national (Slovaks) identity and memory. It examines folk manifestations, literary production and the societies, institutions and public spaces in Myjava that have adopted Krman´s name. The golden age of the institutionalized commemoration of D. Krman may be the first half of the 20th century. To date Krman predominantly functions as a significant confessional symbol, therefore Krmanesque festive culture is also closely related to the clerical and religious life. This symbol was usually pushed out of the context of various secular (public, national) festivals. The literary texts and ceremonial speeches written in the year 1940 (the 200th anniversary of Krman´s death) were marked by the resistance of the Lutheran community to the totalitarian regime of the Slovak State: despite the single attempt at the ecumenical understanding of the symbol, the literary image of Krman as a martyr of the evangelical faith became a tool of petrified confessional differences on the local as well as nationwide level.

Dejiny slovenskej literatúry a srbská Vojvodina. Dva vojvodinské katechizmy a latinská ekloga Beata Bacska

Author(s): Erika Brtáňová,Oľga Vaneková / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 3+4/2018

The goal of the paper is to show that Lower-land Vojvodina (Northern Serbia), which was inhabited in the second half of the 18th century by Slovak evangelicals of the Augsburg confession for economic and religious reasons, was an enviroment where specific literary culture was created being mainly based on religious and educational literature. It focuses on one of the significant manifestations of this sort of literature, i. e. catechism production, which features two characteristic lines: the original domestic catechism (Matej Ambrózi Jádro náboženství křesťanského ku prospěchu evangelických konfirmantů/The Core of Christian Religion to the Benefit of Evangelical Confirmands, 1844) and the adaptation of a translation of a foreign (German) catechism (Leopold Abafi – Heinrich Wendel: Výklad malého katechismu D. Martina Luthera/ The interpretation of Dr Martin Luther´s Small Catechism, 1870). The second part of the article deals with occasional print by Michal Godra (1801-1874) Carmen pastoricium (Novi Sad, 1841). The paper focuses on the first of two eclogues titled Beata Bacska. Ecloga I. (Blessed Báčka, eclogue I.), which is composed of 97 lines written in hexameter. The article includes a transcription of the Latin text, a prosaic translation into Slovak and the interpretation of its themes and motifs.

Die Gestalt Jánošíks, des Gebirgsburschen, in der slowakischen Folklore und Literatur (1740–1820)

Author(s): Anna Gyivicsán / Language(s): German / Issue: 1(2)/2007

Predominantly, this study examines two issues. First, why in a very short span of time the real historical person of Jánošík turned into a folklore and literary character and what kind of interaction can be revealed between these two fields. Second, why compared to the whole of the Slovakian folklore the Jánošík tradition is so scarce in Slovakian communities of Hungary. The author also attempts to answer to the question how the Jánošík legends attested in these communities appeared among the Slovakians who settled down in Hungary in the late 17th and early 18th century.

Dieťa vo svete trpiacich alebo Interpretačné prieniky do próz Júliusa Barča-Ivana (Cirkus a Veľké tajomstvo)

Author(s): Martina Petríková / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 27-28/2016

In this paper we deal with selected motifs (of child, suffering, cicrus, guilt…) in the artistic text of Július Barč-Ivan, which is connected with the context of eastern Slovakia and which was formed by ideology, as well as socio-political situation of the first Czechoslovak Republic. We choose the Barč-Ivan's proses, which thematises the „story‟ of character determined by dark sides of reality and in which the choosen motifs are presented through the artistic means and methods „from the interface‟ of expressionism and existentialism. Barč-Ivan's literary works fulfill not only an aesthetic function, but also other functions, as they benefit from the difficult family or socio-political, or socially conditioned situation.

DODIRI DUŠE

Author(s): Jozef Leikert / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 2/2018

A poem by Jozef LEIKERT

Dominik Tatarka – scenárista

Author(s): Michal Michalovič / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 02/2019

The study interpretes the results of research focused on the specific area of the work of the famous Slovak writer Dominik Tatarka (1913 – 1989). During the years 1948 – 1972, Tatarka devoted himself to film work. This is evidenced by the preserved film stories, treatments or literary scenarios, as well as documentation on the literary-dramaturgical preparation of individual works (contracts, correspondence, reviews). The author of the study utilised materials available from the National Film Archive of the Slovak Film Institute in Bratislava, in conjunction with materials found at Tatarka’s estate in the Literary Archive of the Museum of Czech Literature in Prague. On the basis of the research, it can be stated that only one feature-length film based on Tatark’s scenario was created in the reviewed period: Miraculous Virgin directed by Štefan Uher (1966).

Doświadczenie migracji we współczesnej prozie słowackiej (na przykładzie tekstów Zuski Kepplovej)

Author(s): Rafał Majerek / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2019

The article explores the problem of migration prose in Slovak literature and focuses on some aspects of Zuska Kepplová’s books: Buchty švabachom (Buns in the Schwabacher) and 57 km od Taškentu (57 km from Tashkent). Some characters of Kepplová’s debut prose, young immigrants from Central Europe living in their new countries, although realising their inferior status of “the Other”, attempt to take adaptive actions and get closer to local culture, while others, on the contrary, close up in the enclave of migrants, refusing to confront the new situation. The majority of the protagonists live in a state of limbo and indeterminacy, and their identity can be described as a hybrid identity.

Dramat słowacki w Polsce. Przekład w dialogu kultur bliskich

Author(s): Lucyna Spyrka / Language(s): Polish / Publication Year: 2016

The book is devoted to the Polish translations of Slovak dramatic works in the context of the dialogue between both cultures. In the first part of the work an attempt is made at formulating a definition and arranging concepts, beginning from the concept of the dialogue between cultures, translation, the competence of the recipients and the translator proceeding through a discussion of the determinants of cultural proximity and the factors which specify the contribution of translation in the intercultural dialogue, including its functions and value. There is an outline of the contacts between Polish and Slovak cultures, with reference to the contribution of translations of Slovak literature into Polish. The second part of the book contain a discussion of the particular translations of Slovak dramatic works and their reception, which is preceded by an outline of the development of Slovak drama as well as the discussion of the theoretical concepts of translating dramatic works and their possible participation in the dialogue between cultures. An attempt was made at determining the contribution of these works in the Polish-Slovak dialogue of cultures in reference to each work that was discussed and to indicate the reasons of the particular state of affairs in the case of a given translation. Reference has also been made to the information about the authors of the particular translations. We may distinguish three periods in the history of the presence of Slovak playwriting output in Polish culture: the pre-war years, the post-war years and the period after the Velvet Revolution. Each of these periods has a peculiar nature of its own, determined above all by the historical context in which the cultural contacts between both peoples developed. In the inter-war period Slovak dramatic works were not staged in Polish theatres, and only one work was published in print — a one-act play by Jozef Gregor Tajovský entitled “Matka” [“Mother”]. Another phase of the Polish-Slovak dialogue of cultures begins in the years that followed the Second World War. Both the Polish literature as well as the Slovak literature was subordinated to the standards determined by the third, Soviet culture. The intercultural contacts were ideologised and politicised. Therefore the notion of a dialogue of cultures hardly applies here. In this context we may mention the translations of the following dramatic works: “Experiment Damokles” [“The Damocles Experiment”] by Peter Karvaš and “Kráľovná noci v kamennom mori” [“The Queen of the Night in the Stone Desert”] by Ján Solovič. After 1989 the conditions of cultural contacts changed. There appeared an opportunity to forge intercultural relations based on an authentic interests of both parties involved. In this time, the number of translations that were published in print increased in comparison with the previous period, whereas the number and the frequency of performances considerably decreased. This stage of the Polish-Slovak dialogue of cultures saw the publication of translations of the following works: Próba [The Test] by Lubomír Feldek, “Nowa skóra” [“New Skin”] by Viliam Klimáček, “Armagedon na Grbie” by Rudolf Sloboda, “Uczuciowa mieszanka” [“A Mixture of Feelings”] by Zuzana Uličianska and “Stryczek dla dwóch” [“A Noose for Two”] by Ivan Bukovčan. The text of the translation may assume various positions in the new cultural context: it may be domesticated, being subject to acculturation or on the contrary — it may become a rejected or even alienated translation. The last chapter of the book is devoted to problems of this kind. Among the Polish translations of Slovak dramatic works there were none that would be domesticated in our culture. Slovak drama participates in the Polish-Slovak intercultural communication but it struggles to participate in the dialogue between both cultures. Apart from the content of the bulk of the dissertation there is a critical discussion of the anthology of modern Slovak drama that is the only publication of its kind that was heretofore published in Poland — “Nowy dramat słowacki/Most recent Slovak drama”.