CONTENT
personally and impersonally
Nadežda Čepanová,Some Reminiscences 241
sTUDIES
Dalibor T ur e č e k, Romanticism and/or/contra Biedermeier? 243
Christian P r u n it sc h, Littleness of the Culture in the Middle Europe for Example Slovensko ajeho život literárny (Slovakia and Her Literary Life) by Jozef Miloslav Hurban 252
Peter Ká š a, Levoča As the Other An Alternative Centre of Slovak Culture And Education in the First Half of 19th Century 262
Joanna G oszc z y ń ska, Messiahnism inPolish andSlovak Romantic Concept 270
Jana P á c al o vá, Function of Fairy Tale in Slovak Romanticism 278
Ľubica Som ol ay ov á, About Messiahnistic Poetic Language of Samo Bohdan Hroboň 286
René Bílik, The Birth of the Past (Historic genre in the prose of Slovak Romanticism) 296
German R i t z, Słowacki did not come to Berlín (Romantic Irony As a Form of Escape from aNew Model of National Literatures And Like Its Expansion) 318
Peter Zajac, Kocúrkovo As aSlovak Anti-Myth 348
VIEWS
Csaba G. Kiss,„Patriots“ and „Pan-Slavic“ in the Area of Upper Hungary in the Novels of Kálmán Mikszáth and Svetozár Hurban Vajanský 369
Romanticism and/or/contra Biedermeier?
Dalibor T ur e č e k, South Bohemian University, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
The term Romanticism presents a traditional way of inner structuring and explanation of the history of Czech literature of the 19th century, but this term has been used differently in particular literary historical concepts. The pluralistic concept of Romanticism has not had afirm position in the Czech literary historical context, which is contrarily to the Slovak concept represented by O. Čepan and P. Káša. In the Czech concept Vodička’s model is used, designating the works of Jungmann’s generation as Pre-Romanticism and limiting Romanticism as its subjective, Mácha’s variant. The character of the true Romantic texts does not prove this limited conception. These texts were written in the second period of the national revival but some Romantic features also appeared in the works with syncretistic character, connecting for example Romanticism and Classicism. Biedermeier was understood by the Czech literary historians in the latest years as anegating “contrafacturae” of Romanticism and was used as asynonym for a part of work of the 30s called in the Vodička’s concept “convergion of literature and life”. The translation of German sentimental tragedies of the 20s and the 30s of the 19th century has shown that axiological horizon, basic groups of motives and also typical poetics of Biedermeier have been well known in the Czech environment since the 20s. There were elements of subjective Romanticism co-existing here. Since the 19th century the mutual proportion between the Romanticism and Biedermeier has changed in the Czech culture from acomplementary belonging to polemic contradiction. In amodern concept of Czech literature it would be useful to accept the thesis of P. Zajac about pulsating, synoptic character of literary processes as well as to use and in maximal possible measure to extend a subject field of validity of Čepan’s concept of Romanticism as an innerly pluralistic, open structures withwide transitionary zones and possibilities of convergence and meeting with phenomena of different nature.
Littleness of the Culture in the Middle Europe for Example Slovensko ajeho život literárny (Slovakia and Her Literary Life) by Jozef Miloslav Hurban
Christian P r u n it sc h, Institute of Slavik Studies, University Regensburg, Germany
“Littleness” appears as relevant for certainculture when it is determined by its own or foreign texts. This determination in an intercultural contact behaves as an explicit or implicit valuing act approached within the positions of superiority, inferiority, identity a alterity, translativity, singularity, as well as ancienity and juvenility. In the specific situation of the Slovak national revival an essay by Jozef Miloslav Hurban Slovensko a jeho život literárny (Slovakia and Her Literary Life) is an important text of apologetic legitimating strategy of Slovak culture in the Central European context. Hurban uses mostly the term“vitality of Slavs”, which had been attributed to them since Herder, andin comparison with ancient European cultural nations he creates apicture of a dynamic Slovak young man, smartly walking towards anew epoch. Both an argument of time and an argument of placing were presented to stress the central position of Slovaks in the project of renewing the Central Europe. The argument of placing was usually presented in the glorification of High Tatras. In the changed constellation of the 20th century motivating power of important ideological potential of the essay was weakened. Hurban’s suggested a concept of future Slovak culture, also outlined with the aim against Czechs and Magyars, resisted only to avery limited extent the pressure coming from the Central European constellation after 1848, as also proved in the final passages of his essay.
Levoča As the Other An Alternative Centrum of Slovak Culture And Education in the First Half of 19th Century
Peter Ká š a, Philosophical Faculty of Prešov University, Prešov, Slovakia
In this contribution Ideal with therole of the multicultural environment of Levoča in the history of Slovaks, mainly during the process of forming of Slovak national consciousness. I ampointing out to the fact that Levoča was thecentre of Hungarian and Central European culture, it was abusiness and spiritual crossroad between Baltic aMediterian territory and between “Pax Latina” a “Pax Orthodoxa” . In modern history the primary role was played by local Lutheran seminary, as an important centre of education and culture and later ( since the 30s of the 19th century) also of national movements. As in Bratislava, inLevoča just in this period another alternative centre of Slovak national activities was formed. New westernly-eastern Slovak, “považsko-tatranská” communicational line with the centre in Liptov was created. It is a symbolic desire to create a geographically and spiritually united Slovak ethnic national community. The activities of Slovak students of the seminary in Levoča were aiming to this in the 30s and 40s of the 19th century.
Messiahnism inPolish andSlovak Romantic Concept
Joanna G oszc z y ń ska,Uniwersitet Warszawski, Institute of Wester and Southern Slavic Studies, Warszawa, Poland
In the beginning of the study there are differences introduced as they appeared in the approach to Messiahnism in the Polish and Slovak concepts of literary scholarship. Thenthe study deals with thetypological construction, proposed by thePolish literary scholar Andrzej Walicki – it is an ideal model of Messiahnism. This concept enables to distinguish between atrue Messiahnism (which was considered as an ideology in the 19th century) andother doctrines (philosophical, social, political), in which Messiahnism appears only in metaphorical sense. The study is also an attempt to defend thethesis that true Messiahnism existed in Slovak literature only after 1849. Before that time there were only some elements of a Messiahnistic thinking or Messiahnistic toposes, derived from “general Messiahnic atmosphere”, prevailing in Europe in the first half of the 19th century.
Function of Fairy Tale in Slovak Romanticism
Jana P á c al o vá, The Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava , Slovakia
The contribution comes out from our view of a fairy tale as an integral part of Slovak Romanticism. It is just an outline of functions the fairy tale supplied in the period of Romanticism in the area of fine literature (fairy tale as literary art and the influence of so called folk fairy tale on the Romantic literature), as well as out of it (influence on the formative process of standard Slovak language, Romantic mythology). We focused on the problems of literary andoral character of fairy tales, communicational aspects of this relationship, character of manuscripts andpublished fairy tales, and we follow these factors on the scene of genesis of fairy tale texts, which is, in our opinion, essential for literary communicativeness andpersistence of the tales. Our goal is to find out an anchorage of the tales in the history of literature that would enable to deepen the knowledge about aform of Slovak Romanticism. This issue is still aneglected topic.
About Messiahnistic Poetic Language of Samo Bohdan Hroboň
Ľubica Som ol ay ov á, The Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
The base of the study is the presumption that Messiahnism as an independent artistic movement disposes with unique, specific language. The author of the study on the bases of her interpretation of thepoem Krajolik by Samo Bohdan Hroboň points out to those aspects of used poetic language, which appear as distinctive in relation to other contemporary works of Slovak Romanticism. She tries to define thenature of its exclusivity, which was described by attributes of being overburdened or closed by historians of literature. Hroboň ’s strategy is to bring move into the space of apoem through word formation. The focal point does not appear in adynamic, truthful description that means in averbal interceding but in powerful evoking through word formations or from the word formation structure producing onomatopoeic words. Such attempts to intercede the verbal dynamic speech of a superbeing through description of acountry, or growing generating, regenerating of particular elements refer to alinguistic principal of mystically-pietistic origin, which presents abase of Messiahnic expression of exclusivity.
The Birth of the Past (Historic genre in the prose of Slovak Romanticism)
René Bílik, Pedagogical Faculty of Trnava Univesity, Trnava, Slovakia
The Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava,
Slovakia
The study is focused on the research of basic features which constructed a content of cultural memory in the period of Slovak literary Romanticism. The research was done in terms of the materials – publicistic works of Ľudovít Štúr andJ. M. Hurban andprose works of Ján Kalinčiak andJ. M. Hurban, written in historic genre. The analysis and interpretation of texts confirmed that in the period of Slovak Romanticism basic elements of nationally determined cultural memory are constructed, mainly its symbols and a fine literature was one of its more powerful means in this process. The results of the research show that in Slovak Romantic prose written in historical genre there are two versions of the past as a theme: sceptically– ironic, represented by the works of Ján Kalinčiak andpanegyricly – mythic, which was presented by the prose of J. M. Hurban.
Słowacki did not come to Berlín (Romantic Irony As a Form of Escape from aNew Model of National Literatures And Like Its Expansion)
German R i t z,Faculty of Arts, Slavonic Seminar, University of Zürich, Switzerland
Die Ironie ist in vielen Texten Słowackis anzutreffen, vornehmlich in der Zeit zwischen 1832 bis 1842. Wir sprechen dabei von romantischer Ironie, weil die Ironie, worauf schon Krasiński hinwies, Fundament des ganzen Textes ist, nicht Darstellungsmittel ist, sondern poetologische Grundlage. Allgemein gilt, dass überall dort, wo Słowacki an der Konstruktion eines Mythos arbeitet, er die Ironie braucht, damit sich der Mythos nicht zu unmittelbar inszeniert. In Balladyna, Beniowski und Fantazy ist die Ironie primär gegeben und die drei Texte bilden gerade Kontinuum in bezug auf die Ironie ein Kontinuum. In Balladyna konstituiert sich die romantische Ironie und ermöglicht in diesem Akt zugleich das Sprechen von einem historischen Mythos. Ironie und Mythos müssen bzw. können dabei nacheinander und miteinander überschritten werden. In Beniowski ist die romantische Ironie bereits schon vorhanden, wird sie von Byron übernommen, ist gleichsam sekundär. Im historischen Material der Konföderation von Bar, der Schmiede der neuen Identität, wird aber kein neuer nationaler Mythos entworfen, an seine Stelle tritt der neue dichterische Selbstentwurf. In Fantazy schliesslich wird die romantische Ironie zur Figur. Das Stück ist voll von Spielleitern, die letztlich aber alle an ihren Weltentwürfen scheitern und sich gegenseitig entlarven. Die Unendlichkeit der Ironie und die damit nicht fassbare Meta-Instanz des romantischen Textes geht in ihrem ‚Sturz’ in den Text verloren.
Kocúrkovo As aSlovak Anti-Myth
Peter Zajac, Humboldt Univesity, Berlin, Germany
The Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava,
Slovakia
In the 70s and the 80s of the 20th century, a new view of Záborský’s literary work began to occur. A. Bagin formed the key hypothesis about Záborský as a modern author. The problem of comical in his works was opened by S. Rakús andA. Kruláková. A. Kruláková was also the first who depicted an irony line in the Slovak literature from Bajza, Chalupka to Záborský. Then J. Števček, V. Mikula aP. Darovec adopted it into their interpretations. In his interpretation of the prose by P. Vilikovského Večne je zelený ... (Ever Green Is...)P. Darovec worked it up until the present time.
In the 70s and 80s O. Čepan dealt with the poetics of Záborský‘s prose most intensively. In Záborský’s prose he identified paradox and irony as its primary features. Both O. Čepan and A. Kruláková revealed the domination of low (Bachtin) carnality. In his Summary to Faustiáda (1984) and mainly in his introductory study Staromilský novátor Jonáš Záborský? inDielo I (1989) Oskár Čepan changed his former thesis about Záborský as a late Classicist and he described his work as a part of Romanticism, its “reverse”, negative andnatural negation.
All main features of Záborský ’s prose texts as its intentional anti-myth character, heteronymous character, monsterlikeness, paradox, irony as a reflexive duplication of the text, metalepsis as a basic rhetoric figure, grotesque asa genre of “flying arabesques” prove that Záborský’s late proses mainly Faustiáda belong among the works that use the Romantic irony.
The latest Slavic research has identified the Romantic irony as adiscourse of the late Romanticism in Puškin’s Eugen Onegin (H. Meyer), inSłowacký’s Balladyne (M. Żmigrodska, G. Ritz) or in early works of Hálek (Z. Hrbata, M. Procházka). Also the study Kocúrkovo as aSlovak Anti-Myth belongs to this line of research.