The sermon literature, as documented by manuscripts and prints archived in Slovak memory preservation institutions, played an important role in Slovak literature of older periods since as early as the Middle Ages. Texts of sermons testify to the key developmental processes in the history of Slovak literature, document the changes in languages used (leading to the use of the native language – Slovak), and reflect the values and topical issues of individual periods. Other fields of research – besides theology – started focusing on Slovak homiletic literature after the Velvet Revolution when religious genres started enjoying greater scholarly interest. The widening of research focus so that it would encompass new themes and research viewpoints can most readily be observed in monographs from the fields of philology, history, and literary history. Religious writing is also the focus of three research projects concentrating on Slovak and Central European texts. A common feature of these is a mutual cooperation between specialists and intensified academic communication and exchange of experience on the international level.
The poet, author, and Protestant priest Bohuslav Tablic (1769 – 1732) published only 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. The 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.
The very first attempts at travel literature include accounts of the journeys made by two Humanist scholars Pavol Rubigal and Ján Dernschwam, whose lives and activities were associated with Slovak mining towns. Both of the humanists joined the Hungarian delegation that travelled to Constantinople to deliver political messages to the sultan. Their works, which represent a type of documentary literature, also reflect on the countries on the Balkan peninsula, especially Serbia and Bulgaria. In his Latin-language poem Opis cesty do Konštantínopola/The Account of the Journey to Constantinople (Hodoeporicon itineris Constantinopolitani, Wittenberg 1544), written in elegiac couplets, Pavol Rubigal provides a negative picture of the Serbs, whose manners and customs are conditioned by the harsh environment. His point of view is influenced by the disagreements between the Serbian and Hungarian representations. Bulgaria seems to be more civilized country and the Bulgarians´ decent behaviour is explained as the result of their deep Christian conviction. Cestovný denník do Konštantínopola a Malej Ázie/The Constantinople and Asia Minor Travel Diary (Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien, 1553 – 1555) by Ján Dernchwam develops the type of travelogue which is exemplified by The Travels of Marco Polo in medieval literature. Nature and culture are often seen by the author from the perspective of his other (Slovak) homeland. When exploring Serbia and Bulgaria, he adopts the approach of confrontation. He takes notice of similarities (language, confession) and differences (landscape, inhabitants). The novel Ladislav (1838) by Karol Kuzmány seems like a travelogue featuring elements of fiction. As a whole it focuses on the subject of mother country and nation and develops the idea of Slavic togetherness, with regard to which it promotes the struggle of the Serbian nation for freedom as well as their literary culture. By means of the apotheosis of Serbia Kuzmány tries to stimulate the development of Slovak national life and culture.
The paper is devoted to the textual analysis of the sermon Sincere Encouragement to True Repentance and Prayer (Věrné probuzení k pravému pokání a modlení), presented by Bohuslav Mezibrodský in the community of Lowland Slovak evangelicals in the village of Eška (Hungarian Öskü) in September 1749. The subject of the sermon is an unusual natural phenomenon – the arrival of locusts, which caused existential fears among the inhabitants and caused huge confusion among them. The same subject was elaborated by Matej Markovič senior in the poetic composition The Mourning Song about the Grasshoppers (Smutná pieseň o kobylkách, 1749), the analysis of which will serve us as a model.
The thematic background of Doležal´s Tragoedia (1791) is formed by the images of the ancestors Adam and Eve´s lives and the story of their son Abel´s tragic death. The life in the Garden of Eden as well as outside it is depicted by Doležal in the mode of an idyll, in the narrative and semi-dramatic (dialogue) form, which reflects human desire for a peaceful, non-conflicting and balanced being. Doležal´s idyll lies in the optimistic and positive concept of the world. By using the conventional biblical as well as non-biblical emblems (rivers, trees, flora, fauna and pleasant climate, natural resources) the Garden of Eden is presented as a lovely place (locus amoenus). In this carefully and efficiently organized space, full of beauty, Adam and Eve lead a harmonious life. Despite the fact they leave the paradise and face a radical change trading peaceful and carefree lives for hard and arduous work and pain, Doležal´s narration does not lose its idyllic tone. He lists the consequences of their sin which separated the ancestors from God, however, he considers the „new world“ to be better.: God let the sin happen in order to show the „beauty“ of infinite virtues. The sin brought about numberless benefits: new social and political structures, various occupations, the possibility of education and art, technological progress. While in the first part Doležal speaks of the world which the reader could never see, the depicted earthly world is to a great extent dependent on the space and time in which the author lived himself.
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 environment 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 Dr. Martina Luthera - The Interpretation of Dr Martin Luther´s Small Catechism, 1870). The paper, which is a result of literary and historical research methodologically and empirically anchored in the region of Vojvodina, is the first to clarify the circumstances and the context of creating both of the catechisms, although Abafi´s edition of Wendel´s catechism (nowadays archived in the parish library in Stará Pazova) is not available in Slovakia at all. Besides the first interpretative probe, which shows to what extent the artistic ambitions of the creators of the editions analysed were fulfilled, it interconnects and reflects on the discussion of the genre of catechism at that time.
The paper is concerned with the editions of fiction works associated with the name of the evangelical preacher and teacher Ladislav Bartolomeides. In the first part the subject of the analysis is Bartolomeides´s reeditions of two Czech translations: a popular didactic satire Spis užitečný a velmi potřebný od Doktora Grobiana z upřímnosti učinený (A Useful and Really Necessary Treatise by Doctor Grobian Written in a Honest Manner, 1784) translated from German into Czech around the end of the 16th century and a work written by the ancient historian Josephus Flavius O válce židovské knihy sedmery (Seven Books on the Jewish War, 1805), which was translated from Latin by Pavel Aquilinus Hradecký (1533). The analysis shows the goal and the motives of Bartolomeides´s editorial activities and analyses the extent of the changes he made to the texts. The second part of the paper deals with editorial possibilities of presenting Bartolomeides´s original work Rozmlouvání Jozefa Druhého s Matějem Prvním Korvínus řečeným v království zemřelých (A Dialogue between Joseph II and Matthias I Corvinus in the Kingdom of the Dead, 1790), in which the form of the Lucianesque dialogue is joined with the defence of the monarch Joseph II. In order to assess all the functions of the text objectively there has been an idea to publish all the three versions together – the diplomatic transcription, the transcribed form and the translation into contemporary Slovak.
The paper is dedicated to the literary historical legacy of the Slavist Rudo Brtáň (1907 – 1998). It is inspired by Brtáň´s research on Slovak-language Low-land literature, in particular the chapter Literature and Culture of Slovak Protestants in Sarvaš (1722 – 1918), which comes from the yet unpublished manuscript titled Slovak-language Low-land Literature until 1918. The paper focuses on the work of Michal Markovič Sr. (1707 – 1762/4), who worked in Sarvaš (present-day Hungary) as a Slovak evangelical priest. The analysis deals with Markovič´s collection of poems called Duchovní zrcadlo ženského pohlaví z Písem svatých představené/The Spiritual Mirror of the Female Sex presented in the Holy Scriptures, printed probably in Bratislava in 1783. The method of the text analysis is supported by the theoretical assumptions of the Czech literary historian Eduard Petrů, who saw the basis for the interpretation of a literary work in revealing the interpretation core. The goal is to identify the author´s intention encoded in the genesis of Markovič´s collection, and to decode the reader´s interpretation of that time. Markovič wrote the collection in order to stimulate moral attitudes of the whole evangelical community, not only the women´s. He composed it with the intention to support the Bible self-study motivating the readers with the inserted biblical coordinates as well as narratives reduced to several poetic lines. The contribution of the analysis can be seen in classifying the genre of the collection as a collection of epigram-like poems. These findings confirm the influence of ancient and renaissance literature on Slovak literary production written in the local vernacular in the mid-18th century.
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