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THE ROLE OF THEATRE AND DRAMA IN BUILDING
THE SLOVAK NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE INTERWAR
PERIOD
—o> —
DAGMAR KROCANOVÄ
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the role of drama and the Slovak National Theatre
in shaping Slovak identity in the first half of the 20” century. It describes
the institutional background of the modern Slovak theatre: the rise of the
professional theatre in 1920, the tension between Slovak and other cultures
including the co-existence of Czech and Slovak theatre groups in the 1920s,
the gradual evolution and modernisation of theatre, as well as the role of
theatre during WW2. It mentions major trends in Slovak dramatic literature
and analyzes the repertoire of the Slovak National Theatre, focusing on the
interplay between the “national” and “international”, as well as between
Modernist and avant-garde tendencies on one side, and Realist tradition on
the other side. The goal of the paper is to show that the Slovak National Theatre
in Bratislava asserted the culture of an emerging nation in a nationally
heterogeneous region, and that the original competence among respective
cultures in the early 1920s was replaced by their coexistence in the 1930s, but
eventually replaced by the dominance of Slovak culture after 1939.
Keywords: Slovak drama, the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava, interwar
period in Slovak culture, national culture
Slovak theatre culture went through considerable changes between 1920 and
1945. When seen from the Slovak perspective, two aspects must be taken
into consideration: one related to the culture of an emerging nation, and the
other one related to the culture of a particular town and region, namely, of
today’s Slovak capital, Bratislava, also known as Pressburg and Pozsony (in
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