Page 438 [438]
AGAINST PROGRESS: UTOPIA, IDYLL, NOSTALGIA AND MELANCHOLY
finding a new home (Kukud¢in). It is the melancholic and nostalgic elements
that question identity, the relationship between the individual and the
collective, the fragmented and the whole, the will, creativity and passivity,
from perspectives that bring these authors, located as they are on the
boundary of two eras, closer to the mood and trends of cultural and artistic
modernity. Moreover, it is just as indicative that by amplifying this mode
of melancholy and nostalgia and by moving further towards scepticism and
disillusionment, key turn-of-the-century Slovak authors (Bozena Slancikova¬
Timrava, Jozef Gregor Tajovsky, Janko Jesensky, and Ivan Krasko) came to
reassess the concept of Slovak literature and culture forged by the National
Revival, and to embrace modernity.
We can thus say that throughout the nineteenth century, until its very end,
the narrative of Slovak literature and culture was not just one of national and
cultural emancipation but also represented a — possibly quite protracted —
transition to the modern.
Translated by Julia Sherwood
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CALINESCU, Matei: Five Faces of Modernity. Modernism, Avant-Garde,
Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism, Durham, Duke University Press, 1987.
F. FÖLDÉNYI, László: Melankélia, Kalligram, Pozsony, 2003.
GIFFORD, Terry: Pastoral, London and New York, Routledge, 1999.
HABERMAS, Jiirgen: Modernity — An Incomplete Project of Modernity, trans¬
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Macura, Vladimir: Znameni zrodu, Praha, H&H, 1995.
ZIZEK, Slavoj: Event, London, Penguin Random House UK, 2014.
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