Andrej Sládkovič v chorvátskej recepcii

Author(s): Marijan Šabić / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2/2021

The article is a contribution to the research of Slovak-Croatian literary and cultural relations. It focuses at the reception of Andrej Sládkovič (1820 – 1872) in the Croatian context. The second half of the 19th century is investigated through the analysis of contributions to Croatian literary magazines and newspapers such as Danica, Dragoljub, Vienac, Slavonac and Nada. The analysis of the 20th century and contemporary reception looks at texts published in various magazines, books and anthologies which contain translations by Luko Paljetak, Dubravka Dorotić Sesar and others. Since Sládkovič did not have any personal contacts with Croatian intellectuals of the time, the presence of his work in the 19th century Croatian cultural space was scarce. Wider recognition of his oeuvre came much later and in the late 20th century, it was intensified by the establishment of a Slovak studies programme at the University of Zagreb (as part of Czech studies in 1994 and as a separate programme in 1997). While in the 19th century, period magazines and newspapers – albeit sporadically – do mention Sládkovič, but do not contain any translations of his work, nowadays, translations are available, but are usually only known in the narrow academic circles of (mainly) Slavic studies experts.

DAROVEC, Peter: ON, PIŠŤANEK

Author(s): Pavel Matejovič / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2/2021

Review of: DAROVEC, Peter: ON, PIŠŤANEK. Bratislava: Literárne informačné centrum, 2020. 272 s.

Literatúra – mesto – Bratislava (po roku 1918): stav výskumu a vybrané kontexty

Author(s): Radoslav Passia / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 3/2021

At the turn of the 21st century, the spatial turn that took place in various fields of humanities and social sciences could also be observed in literary studies. On the international level, research was inspired by topics and theories from such fields as architecture, urban studies, sociology or anthropology. Slovak literary studies, however, has not been significantly inspired by geopoetics and has not devoted systematic attention to the study of urban locations and motives. This article provides a basic overview of existing research into the representations of urban settings in Slovak literature. It maps topics and methodological background of individual research initiatives with a special focus on literary and artistic representations of Bratislava. The paper also outlines new lines of inquiry, such as the relationship between literary representations of the city in the post-socialist Central Europe and the phenomenon of nostalgia. It also suggests the possibilities of comparative research. With regards to the latter, the author argues that juxtaposing literary representations of Bratislava with representations of urban settings in the literatures of other European “small nations” (Miroslav Hroch) offers more fruitful ground for research than searching for similarities in culturally and geographically closer Hungarian or Czech literature. The article also provides a list of selected literature on the problematics of urban representations in Slovak literature and culture.

Subjekt a mesto (a politika): Polstoročie Bratislavy v textoch Janka Alexyho

Author(s): Matej Masaryk / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 3/2021

The article aims at providing a picture of how Bratislava was portrayed in the texts of the Slovak author and painter Janko Alexy (1894 – 1970), written between 1921 and 1968. The paper combines the knowledge of Slovak and Czechoslovak culture and history with biographical and artistic facts about Alexy’s life and work. With regards to the biography of the author, the article drew on his own memoirs, Ján Abelovský’s monograph, texts by Ján Smrek and various period articles. The paper also makes use of the work of O. Mongin, P. Málek and V. Barborík. It provides an insight into the relationship between the city and the subject and reconstructs the complex image of the period circumstances in its background. It outlines several periods that document Alexy’s changing attitude towards the city and the gradual national appropriation of Bratislava. The identity of the current capital of Slovakia was changing from a multi-ethnic town to a city occupied by a single majority ethnic group. These shifts are illustrated on several Alexy’s texts.

Bondyho bratislavská Epizóda

Author(s): Radoslav Passia / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 3/2021

The introductory section of the article reconstructs the arrival of the Czech writer, philosopher and foremost member of underground culture, Egon Bondy (1930 – 2007) to Bratislava in 1993. There he became part of the city’s intellectual and cultural (literary, musical and artistic) life. The novella Epizódaʼ96 [Episode ʼ96] Bondy wrote in Slovak is an important contribution to the literary identity of the city. The article interprets the close relationship between Bondy’s narrator and space and also looks at the central topoi present in Bondy’s portrayal of Bratislava. He presents the city via “emptiness”. Diachronically, this means putting into spotlight some of the key episodes (unknown territories) of the weakened historical memory of the city (life and work of the sculptor F. X. Messerschmidt and the fates of the Jewish community). Synchronically, the author focuses on the structure of the city formed by socialist planning and on the empty spaces as natural spaces that to a great extent determine Bratislava’s genius loci (the Danube, the Little Carpathians).

Hviezdoveda a národnoobrodenecký ideál

Author(s): Ľubica Schmarcová / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 4/2021

The article provides an interpretation of the educational publication Hviezdoveda, alebo Životopis Krutohlava, čo na Zemi, okolo Mesiaca a Slnka skúsil a čo o obežniciach, vlasaticiach, pôvode a konci sveta vedel [Star-science, or The biography of Headshaker: his travels on the Earth, around the Moon and the Sun, his knowledge of planets, comets, the beginning and the end of the world]. Gustáv Reuss (1818 – 1863) wrote the piece in 1856, but it was only published more than a century later, in 1984. The author drew on the tradition of tractates and educational and popularising texts of the Enlightenment phase of the Slovak National Awakening and attempted to present educational contents – information about the universe, especially the solar system – to the lay audience by means of an appealing narrative. The text is considered to be the first representative of the science fiction genre in Slovak literature, but fantasy elements do not form a coherent layer in it. In a sober Enlightenment spirit, Reuss accentuates rationalism (even scepticism) in his work. At the same time, he is ironic towards the fabricated national ideal of the engaged Romantic nationalists and the messianic conception of the Slavic predestination according to which all temporal and spatial obstacles can be overcome by all-embracing pan-spirituality. Owing to these elements, Reuss’s authorial strategy gains the air of Romantic irony.

Možnosti a výzvy kvantitatívneho modelovania fikčnej sémantiky farieb – blízky pohľad na čítanie z diaľky (Poznámky ku knihe Richarda Změlíka Konceptualizace barev v narativní fikci na pozadí kvantitativních modelů)

Author(s): Peter Getlík / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 4/2021

The article takes as its topic quantitative approaches used in the study of literature. In the field of digital humanities, these are most readily represented by the method of distant reading developed by Franco Moretti. The aim of the article is to evaluate the possibilities and challenges the given method poses. At the same time, it wishes to offer new solutions with regards to the explanation of the seemingly asymmetrical quantitative data in the context of possible interpretations of a work of literature from the perspective of cognitive literary studies. Reflections presented in the paper are based on Richard Změlík’s quantitative research. In his methodologically-centred monograph Konceptualizace barev v narativní fikci na pozadí kvantitativních modelů ([Conceptualisations of colours in narrative fiction on the background of quantitative models] Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého, 2019, 320 pp.), he summarised the distant reading of colour semantics in the fiction of the Czech writer Ján Čep (1902 – 1973). A close critical reading of Změlík’s research reveals strengths and weaknesses of the method he employed. Greatest attention is paid to developing supplementary conclusions regarding the reading of Čep’s book Modrá a zlatá [Blue and gold]. The collection of short stories works with specific colour semantics and as such presents a challenge to the quantitative method employed by Změlík.

Kvantitatívna komparatistika v literárnovednom výskume (na príklade knihy Richarda Změlíka: Konceptualizace barev v narativní fikci na pozadí kvantitativních modelů)

Author(s): Marek Debnár / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 4/2021

The article focuses on distant reading approaches and the ways literary studies can use these for research of various semantic fields of authors’ corpora (or subcorpora). It provides a closer look at the methodological facets of these approaches, evaluates their adequacy and the possibilities of implementation of chosen linguistic methods in literary studies. These aspects are reflected in polemics with methods and conclusions presented in Richard Změlík’s Konceptualizace barev v narativní fikci na pozadí kvantitativních modelů ([Conceptualisations of colours in narrative fiction on the background of quantitative models] Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého, 2019, 320 pp.) in which the author employed the methodology of distant reading on the corpus of fiction written by the Czech writer Ján Čep (1902 – 1973). The paper aims at contributing to a wider discussion on quantitative methods of distant reading, their application in literary studies and the creation of authors’ specialised and general reference representative literary corpora.

Za Viliamom Turčánym (1928 – 2021)

Author(s): Lenka Rišková / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 4/2021

Katolícka literárna kritika v rokoch 1945 – 1948

Author(s): Edita Príhodová / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 5/2021

The article provides an insight into the writings of Slovak Catholic literati published between the end of World War II and the establishment of the communist totalitarian rule in Czechoslovakia in 1948. The writing of Catholic literary critics concentrated in two religious-cultural periodicals Nová práca and Verbum. For both magazines, the article draws on their respective historical-contextual backgrounds and points to differences in their visions of cultural work. Subsequently, it characterises the way the periodicals profiled their literary criticism in reviews, glosses, commentaries and articles dealing with more general cultural topics and provides profiles of the three most significant literary critics – Aloš Stankovský (1925 – 2002), Vojtech Mihálik (1926 – 2001) and Jozef Kútnik Šmálov (1912 – 1982). The article is a contribution towards a better knowledge of the Catholic literary criticism that formed alongside the poetry of Slovak Catholic Modernists. The work of Catholic literary criticism has not been studied as much as the poetry of Catholic Modernists and this article aims at rectifying this deficiency somewhat.

P. O. Hviezdoslav a májové oslavy 1918 v Prahe. Česko-slovenská cesta ku kanonizácii cultural saints

Author(s): Anna Zelenková / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 6/2021

Sourced even on hitherto unexplored contemporary materials, the paper analyses the impact of P. O. Hviezdoslav`s participation in the celebration of the 50th anniversary of laying the foundation stone of the National Theatre on 16th-18th May, 1918. It is methodologically grounded in the comparative-analytical model of the canonisation of cultural saints as outlined by J. Leerssen and M. Dović (J. K. Helgason – M. Dović: National Poets, Cultural Saints: Canonization and Commemorative Cults of Writers in Europe, 2017). Our study uses Hviezdoslav`s visit to follow the transfer of his works and personality from the secluded microcosm of intellectual elites into the public macrocosm of the future state community. The poet`s transformation into a cultural saint, facilitated among others by his address to Czech and Slovak extra-literary recipients at the celebrations, signified his approval for the ideology of Czechoslovakism. The historic importance of this visit to Prague consisted namely in the fact that it was the first public acceptance of the envisaged integration into a common state.

Mária Klapáková: Perspektívy prítomnosti. Metakritika slovenskej literatúry po roku 2000

Author(s): Dana Hučková / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 1/2022

Review of: KLAPÁKOVÁ, Mária: PERSPEKTÍVY PRÍTOMNOSTI. METAKRITIKA SLOVENSKEJ LITERATÚRY PO ROKU 2000. Prešov: Filozofická fakulta Prešovskej univerzity v Prešove. Opera Litteraria 14/2020. 131 s.

Hodnotové aspekty kázňovej prózy Bohuslava Tablica

Author(s): Erika Brtáňová / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 6/2022

The poet, author, and Protestant priest Bohuslav Tablic (1769 – 1732) only published seven occasional speeches from his sermon writings. As he explained, this was due to the lowered interest of the readers in religious literature as such. Sermons that were published strongly aimed at forming the readers’ values and opinions with respect to general religious issues. Influenced by Enlightenment rationalism, Tablic focused on moral norms in his sermons. He saw the solution to the critical state of his own Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession and the loose morals of its members in a deepening of the confessional awareness of the community. He believed in a strong (supernatural) motivation of religion towards moral purity and sought the benefits of religion in spiritual unity of the society, its effective working, and quality social relations. He saw religion as a significant educational and culture-forming phenomenon. The country’s progress in Tablic’s view was to be based on active participation of morally mature and educated citizens on the religious and public life. In his sermons, like in his other writings, he is a moderate enlightened thinker and author.

Kázňová tvorba Jonáša Záborského a stratégie boja proti poverčivosti kresťanov

Author(s): Katarína Žeňuchová / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 6/2022

As a priest, J. Záborský (1812 – 1876) not only delivered sermons, but was also in daily direct contact with the members of his congregation. After briefly outlining the attitudes of the society and church towards the issue of the rich and still viable system of superstitions, the article analyses Záborský’s sermons and offers a look at specific forms of everyday life in rural areas of Slovakia in the mid-19th century. The two volumes of his collected sermons came out under the title Múdrosť života ve chrámových řečech [Wisdom of life in speeches in the temple] and were published in Vienna in 1853. The texts are of high linguistic and literary value and among other things tackle social vices including superstition and spiritual limitedness of the people. Záborský criticises superstition several times in his sermons and expresses the opinion that education through the service of the word leading to an intimate knowledge of the true Christian teachings is the only way in which superstition can be uprooted. One of the sermons deals exclusively with superstition and the fact that it is widespread. The article takes this text as the basis for the analysis and in doing so provides an insight into both the “unofficial” folk beliefs rejected by the church and author’s attitudes towards the matter.

VRÁBLOVÁ, Timotea, ed.: PODOBY PRÍLEŽITOSTNOSTI V STARŠEJ SLOVENSKEJ LITERATÚRE.

Author(s): Angela Škovierová / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 6/2022

Review of: VRÁBLOVÁ, Timotea, ed.: PODOBY PRÍLEŽITOSTNOSTI V STARŠEJ SLOVENSKEJ LITERATÚRE. Bratislava: Veda, 2022. 240 s.

Zviera ako nástroj v kresťansky orientovanej spirituálnej poézii

Author(s): Ján Gavura / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2/2023

The immediate connection between animals and humans became the basis for a long-lasting and highly structured relationship which also found its place in art and poetry. Slovak poetry uses animal elements with great intensity and variety taking into account a number of aspects: human dependency on nature as environment; the animal ancestry of humans on the one hand and exceptional qualities and faculties that distinguish humans from animals; the hierarchical ordering of the world based on the evolutionary progression leading to the superiority of the human. Examples from Slovak Christian-based spiritual poetry show that animal elements are most commonly used for defining the human character and for testing moral values. Less common, although still numerous, are poems with de-humanized depictions of people that reveal a possible crisis of an individual or of society. Spiritual poetry also reveals a hidden tension between the declared high value of nature and the inherent anthropocentrism of both art and Christian religion which outline clear hierarchies.

Zvieratá mesta – mesto zvierat. Príroda a civilizácia v poézii Štefana Moravčíka

Author(s): Jaroslav Šrank / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2/2023

The article tackles the shaping of the relationship between nature and civilisation in the poetry of Štefan Moravčík (b. 1943). It focuses on urban and natural (particularly animal) motifs in the poet’s collections from the 1980s – Moravčík’s second creative period. The article notes the qualities that have characterised Moravčík’s poetry since his collections Erosnička ([Treerotic frog] 1981) and Tichá domácnosť ([Silent household] 1981) in terms of the conception of man and the world as outlined in Moravčík’s first collections of poetry from the 1960s. The reasons why Moravčík’s vitalism was problematized are linked to the opening of his poetry to the urban life: the nature of the relationship between nature and the city is an antagonistic one in his poetry. The analysis of the poem “Holutkan a potkábica [Pigeorat and she-ratgeon]” from the collection of poems Idiotikon ([Idioticon] 1989) focuses on the role animal motifs play in the shaping of the poem’s genre, the unfolding of its meaning, and also looks at what functions neologisms perform in the text. The article reflects on the poem’s parodic relationship to the fable and myth, notes the link between the poem’s ecological theme and its civic-protest focus with an existential undertone.

Zvieratá neurčité, zvieratá nemé

Author(s): Ivana Hostová,Veronika Rácová / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2/2023

Drawing on ecocritical approaches, the article tackles natural motifs (especially animals) and pantheistic elements in the poetry of Ivan Štrpka (b. 1944). Methodologically, the authors draw on ecocritical approaches. With regards to Štrpka’s early collections, they look at the way the poet employed the figure of the parrot in his critique of rhetorical emptiness of the socialist society. In the poetry published in the 1980s, on the other hand, it pertains that Štrpka used natural and animal motifs to portray erotic relationships and urban atmosphere. From his later poetry, the article focuses on the poems that demonstrate the poet’s pantheistic worldview and shows that Štrpka’s writing also offers fruitful ground for ecocritical reading. The last section of the paper looks at the collections Štrpka published after 1997. Nature is most often tied with civilizational contexts and dark, enigmatic, and sombre tones anticipating a catastrophic vision of the world prevail in these late poems. The article is thus both a contribution to the understanding of the development of the poet’s oeuvre and to the ways in which Slovak literature represents and constructs the animal and nature.

Vybrané reprezentácie fauny (hmyz, vtáctvo, veľryba) a človek ako „ľudské zviera“ v tvorbe Ivana Laučíka

Author(s): Matúš Mikšík / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2/2023

The article tackles selected representations of animals in Ivan Laučík’s (1944 – 2004) poetry. From the wide range of animals which the poet invites into his verse, it focuses on the motifs of insects, birds, and whales. In the world of Laučík’s poetry, insects serve as a litmus test for the quality and viability of an ecosystem. The poet, however, also handles insects in relation to the question of the expressive possibilities of language. Laučík’s ethical and ecological worldview also encompasses numerous motifs of birds which serve functions similar to those of insects. The motif of the whale occupies an important position in the poet’s debut collection, Pohyblivý v pohyblivom ([Mobile within mobility] 1968) and is also an indicator of how people relate to fauna and nature in general: as either conquerors or explorers. The ideal of a peaceful cohabitation of humankind with other animals can be glimpsed in Laučík’s handling of the human as a “human animal.” Such ethos can be observed both in individual poems and in the poet’s system of values in general. It accentuates an eco-friendly attitude towards nature to which the human is radically related.

Králiky vidia ružové. Svět věcí a zvířat Jozefa Mihalkoviče

Author(s): Michal Jareš / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2023

The article focuses on one of the groups of core motifs in Jozef Mihalkovič’s (b. 1935) poetry. Animals and life in the countryside in general play an important role in Mihalkovič’s verse and the poet often uses these in contrast to the world of buildings and new settlements. However, the countryside is not portrayed in an idyllic light here. On the contrary: Mihalkovič’s texts can be viewed as gripping environmental poetry. At the same time, the poet’s melancholy and nostalgia are acknowledgements of respect for nature and it is through empathy and sympathy that his early poetry resonates with his attitude towards nature. Intellectually, however, Mihalkovič tries to transfer the qualities of animals to situations that are highly unpoetic and concrete. In this way, he succeeds in creating novel connections and unexpected encounters which are frequently highly interesting. This, however, changes during the 1980s when only memories remain and pragmatic and “unpoetic” poetry in which animals are often replaced by things emerges.