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THE ROLE OF THEATRE AND DRAMA
language only distinguished one Czechoslovak nation and language." Next,
the theatre was established by hiring a semi-professional Czech theatre troupe
whose actors only "Slovakised" their Czech after moving to Slovakia." Their
first season started in March 1920 and ended in June 1920. Last but not least,
the Slovak National Iheatre was based in the newly renamed Bratislava, which
was populated by predominantly German and Hungarian speaking inhabitants
that did not welcome the rise of the Czechoslovak Republic.’ Although the city’s
geographical position bordering two foreign countries was peculiar for a capital
of a region, its location on the Danube was strategic, giving the landlocked
Czechoslovakia an access to the sea. In terms of ideology, Bratislava, if changed
nationally, could become a new centre of Slovakia and could diminish the
influence of Turciansky Sv. Martin, which was a traditional conservative Slovak
cultural centre in the 19* century that could still undermine the ideology
of Prague. In the 1920s, Slovaks became an “emerging cultural identity” in
Bratislava, and Czech state employees (mostly clerks, officials, and teachers)
became a new layer in the town’s population. In the first decade after the rise
of Czechoslovakia, Bratislava witnessed a competition among languages and
cultures; whereas in the 1930s, the situation changed towards a more balanced
and harmonious state of cultural plurality. However, in the 1940s, as a result of
“purges”, the town acquired a forced national homogeneity; and it underwent
massive and violent interventions in urban planning during Communism that
also continued after 1989.
The next section considers theatre from three perspectives: first, as a
means of creating a community that supposedly shares some emotions and
communicates meanings; second, as a building and physical space; and third,
the relation between a dramatic repertoire and a national culture.
In the case of the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava we are in the situation
of a void, or of an “imagined theatre” when we perceive theatre as a place of an
5 Negotiations were held between the Czechoslovak Ministry of Education and National
Enlightenment (MSNO, Ministerstvo ’kolstva a ndrodnej osvety) and a newly established
Cooperative of the Slovak National Theatre. They were accompanied by political tensions
and problems with financing the theatre. The director of the Cooperative of the Slovak
National Theatre was Vavro Srobar (1867-1950), at that time the Plenipotentiary Minister
for the Administration of Slovakia.
This was the Eastern Bohemian Theatre Company led by Bedfich Jerabek.
Before the Aussgleich of 1867, the predominant segments in the population were Germans
and Slovaks; the Hungarian segment rose significantly from the last third of the 19"
century. In 1910, the town had approximately 80,000 inhabitants (out of them about forty
per cent were of German nationality, forty per cent were of Hungarian nationality, and
fifteen per cent were of Slovak nationality). In 1930, the town had approximately 125,000
inhabitants (out of them twenty-five per cent claimed German nationality, fifteen per cent
Hungarian nationality, and almost fifty per cent Slovak/Czechoslovak nationality). After the
disintegration of the monarchy, the town was besieged by Czechoslovak legions supported
by the Italian army; and only the treaty of Versailles in June 1919 decided that the town be
included in the Czechoslovak Republic.
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