History of Slovak Literature

A History of Slovak Literature In spite of its richness and long history, Slovak literature is one of the least-known Slavic literatures in the English-speaking world. Few translations of Slovak works exist and until now there has been no systematic English-language history of this field. A History of Slovak Literature pro- vides an excellent introduction to this important but overlooked body of writing. Starting with the Great Moravian period, Peter Petro surveys one thousand years of Slovak literature. He examines the medieval, renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, realist, and modern periods and highlights the contributions of such writers as Nedozersky, Tranovsky, Papanek, Safarik, Kollar, Zaborsky, Vajansky, Hviezdoslav, Kukucm, Hronsky, Tatarka, and Rufus. Like Czech, Polish, and Ukrainian writing, Slovak literature tran- scended the merely literary to become an influential political and cultural tool: Slovak writers and poets played an important role in promoting and protecting the culture and language of their people against invading cultures. A History of Slovak Literature will be a welcome addition to the field of Slavic studies. PETER PETRO is associate professor of Russian, East European, and comparative literature, University of British Columbia. This page intentionally left blank A History of Slovak Literature PETER PETRO McGill-Queens University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Buffalo McGill-Queen's University Press 1995 ISBN 0-7735-1311-6 (cloth) ISBN 0-7735-1402-3 (paper) Legal deposit fourth quarter 1995 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper Paperback edition 1996 Published simultaneously in the European Union by Liverpool University Press. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen's University Press is grateful to the Canada Council for support of its publishing program. Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Petro, Peter A history of Slovak literature Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7735-1311-6 i. Slavic literature - History and criticism. I. Title. PG5401.P48 1995 89i.8'7og 095-900408-4 This book was typeset by Typo Litho Composition Inc. in 10/12 Baskerville. Contents Acknowledgments vii Preface ix Introduction 3 1 Medieval Literature (800-1467) 8 2 The Renaissance (1467-1636) 14 3 Baroque (1636-1780) 25 4 Classicism (1780-1828) 42 5 Romanticism (1828-71) 64 6 Realism (1871-1918) 93 7 Modern Literature (1918-90) 130 Conclusion 154 Bibliography 157 Index 161 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments I would like to thank Kevin Michael Grace for his assistance with the fi- nal draft of my manuscript: his editorial skill, criticism, and erudition were as appreciated as his friendship. I am also very thankful for the support my project has received from the Cultural Foundation of the Slovak World Congress and its direc- tors. My inquiries to Matica slovenska, in Bratislava, were promptly an- swered, through I do regret that I did not have the opportunity to do research in its library. I am very grateful for the practical help of Father Felix Litva, sj, professor at the Gregorian University in Rome, without whose personal in- tercession the bulk of my manuscript would not have been written. Father Sebastian Kosiit's indomitable optimism and helpfulness and my conversations with Stano Dusik in Florence were both extremely helpful. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Imrich Kruzliak, who sug- gested this project to me and believed that I could execute it. Much of the last chapter was originally presented as a lecture to a conference on Czechoslovakia 1918-88, on October 28, 1988, in To- ronto. Josef Skvorecky's kind and encouraging comments were extremely helpful, as were the suggestions of Professor H. Gordon Skill- ing. Much of what I have to say about Hronsky, Sikula, the surrealists, and the 19605 appeared in the periodical Slovakia (1982-83). I received encouragement in the writing of these articles from Professor Bogdan Czaykowski, of the University of British Columbia, who sup- ported my interest in Slovak literature. viii Acknowledgments All translations are mine. For texts quoted from well-known classics, I assume standard editions and do not provide citations. Occasionally, I provide a source quotation, as an example or when the text has extra- literary implications. Preface Those who read the story of Slovak literature may be compared to the old rafters on the river Vah. They made their rafts upstream, al- most at the source of the river, high in the mountains, where the riv- ers are born. When they first launched their craft, they sped down the river. With each part of their journey, the river became wider, as the heretofore constricting valleys gave way to a wide, open plain. There was more to see, and what there was appeared more complex and more difficult to make out from the middle of the river. Finally, they arrived at the mouth of the Vah, where it joins the Danube. The Vah was a mature river here, its waters not that different from those of the bigger, cosmopolitan Danube. And so it is with Slovak literature: in its maturity, it is a distinguished member of the European family of literatures. Slovak literature itself can be compared to Cinderella: the beauty, ability, and potential for fame are there, but it is unknown, or at any rate less well known than it deserves to be - to the English-speaking word, at any rate. Few translations exist to remedy this lack of knowl- edge. Nevertheless, the world is beginning to take notice of Slovak literature, as evidenced by the international conference, organized by the University of London's School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, entitled "Slovak Prose After 1954" (1987). The first to deal with this literature and a fitting testimonial to its growing importance, the conference dealt with more than a dozen very talented Slovak nov- elists. This is a step in the right direction. The next step should be systematic translation of the best Slovak literature, past and present. x Preface This work is intended as a guide for those who would like to be in- troduced to Slovak literature, as well as Slavists. Knowing this literature also means getting acquainted with the people who have lived for over a millennium right in the centre of Europe, whose culture and language have survived against all odds, and whose literature is in a sense unique - for in it we see, as in a mirror, a reflection of the unceasing battle for a subtle balance between the great forces of East and West, North and South. Above all, as a great Slovak poet, Hugolin Gavlovic, said, "There is no greater wealth than literature." With this kind of wealth, such considerations as the size of the country and its political success or failure do not really matter. What does matter is the expres- sion of genius through the medium of literature. This book is an invi- tation to meet this genius. A History of Slovak Literature This page intentionally left blank Introduction Because Slovak literature has a millennium of history behind it, I shall begin my study with the ancient, sometimes contradictory, often in- complete record of the Great Moravian period. Indeed, the standard Slovak histories of literature begin with this epoch, though they do not dwell on it at great length. Alternatively, I could begin at the end of the eighteenth century and cover only the last two hundred years (1780- 1990). A far greater amount of Slovak literature appeared in this period than did in the roughly eight hundred years that preceded it. In History of Slovak Literature (Dejiny literatury slovenskej, 1890) written at the end of the nineteenth century, Jaroslav Vlcek stated that Slovak literature was one hundred years old, for what remained of the pagan times was but a faint shadow and writing in the first centuries of Chris- tianity was in Latin, while from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries Slovak literary production was formally linked with the Czech. To get a more complex and satisfactory answer, we must turn to the beginning of the flowering of Slovak literature, in the first half of the nineteenth century. This flowering, though certainly stimulated by the ideology of nationalism emanating from France and Germany, was not a creation ex nihilo. Each of the great writers of the Slovak national re- vival could point to a predecessor; the predecessors could do likewise. We can follow this chain of literary tradition back to one time: Moravia Magna, the Great Moravian period. If it makes sense to adopt this chronological approach, we must also face another problem that may seem rather surprising: much Slovak literature before the eighteenth century was not written in Slovak. 4 A History of Slovak Literature Thus, before discussing medieval literature, I shall give a brief overview of the historical and linguistic background of Slovakia, with a note on the influence of the Christian missionaries. HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND Slovakia is a West Slavic nation, and its religion, language, and literature reflect its geographical situation. No less important than this geographical fact is the historical fact that from a position of relative eminence as the main constituent element of the first Slavic state - the Great Moravian Empire - Slovakia disappeared, politically speaking, from the map, after the Magyars defeated it at the beginning of the tenth century (907) and absorbed it into the kingdom of Hungary. It reappeared again as a part of a new state, Czecho-Slovakia, in 1918, but this state broke up in 1939; between 1939 and 1945, the Slovak Republic existed.

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