PODOBY VEĽKOMESTA A MALOMESTA V SLOVENSKEJ LITERATÚRE NA PRELOME 19. A 20. STOROČIA (ÚVODNÉ POZNÁMKY K TÉME)

• Authors: Dana Hučková

Title variants

EN

Images of city and town in Slovak literature at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries (initial comments on the subject)

• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

A town as a literary setting began to be used more often in Slovak literature in the period of Realism, in about the 1870s. Increasing use of town as a motif was writers´ response to the new situation in the society and culture, which occurred as a result of the contemporary modernization, which also included new phenomena of urbanization and the related changes of lifestyle. The literary depiction differentiated between town (mainly Slovak environment) and city (most often Budapest, sometimes Prague and very rarely Vienna). The town was presented as ours, Slovak, whereas city as strange – that is unfamiliar (in terms of topography), different (with regard to the customs and morals), unknown (as for the language). Although the traditional Slovak opposition concept domestic – strange always contained an element of a priori assessment, where the domestic definitely meant the positive and the strange mostly associated with the negative, the connotations of the town/city were not just black and white. The ´black-and-white spectrum´ was present there but it only functioned as a starting point whose significance was further reviewed or openly questioned within the changes of the genre. That way the original preconceived idea (either positive or negative) gradually developed into its opposite: originally idealized domestic town had to face criticism for its petit bourgeois character and superficiality (Jégé, Jesenský), and on the contrary traditionally disapproved city (namely Budapest) could be experienced as enriching even domesticated environment (Daniel Bachát-Dumný, Belo Klein-Tesnoskalský, Samuel Czambel). Although the contemporary literature placed weight on the realistic depiction of the world, its first and foremost intention was not to depict towns and cities realistically but to present ideologically motivated concepts of town and city being either a minority-friendly (acceptable), or dangerous (unacceptable) place.

Keywords

EN

TOWN; CITY; SLOVAK LITERATURE; CULTURE; HISTORY; URBANIZATION

• Publisher: Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovenská literatúra (Slovak Literature)
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 58
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 505 – 521

Contributors

author

Dana Hučková

• Ústav slovenskej literatúry SAV, Konventná 13, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovak Republic