Seite 474 [474]
OCR
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. * 473 +
