Oldal 476 [476]
THE ROLE OF THEATRE AND DRAMA
by Vienna architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer, who also
designed theatres in numerous other places of the monarchy, among them
Budapest, Prague, Zagreb, and Sofia. Several institutions that represented
the authority of the Czechoslovak Republic in Bratislava (for example, the
Police Headquarters, the Slovak National Museum but also the Czechoslovak
National Bank, Tatra Bank, the Central Slovak Credit Bank, and others) had
new buildings constructed, but some other institutions (besides the Slovak
National Theatre, for example, the government) used already-existing Austro¬
Hungarian imperial (informally referred to as “Kakanien”) structures.’ In the
1920s, the building of the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava was shared
by German, Hungarian and Czecho(Slovak) theatre groups: an agreement on
the division of the season was reached after negotiations with the Municipal
Council". Multilingualism in the theatre reflected the situation seen and
heard in the streets of the town.
The next aspect in the relation between the national theatre and the
national identity perceives theatre as a materialization of intentions present
in dramatic texts belonging to national literatures. Drama, based on a text
written in a national language, can imply “national spirit” more directly
(even though any national literature also belongs to the general contexts of
literature as such); theatre, combining extra-linguistic means (such as body,
gesture, facial expression, along with a set of visual and acoustic means) with
linguistic ones might be more cross-cultural and universal.”
Speaking of the language, the interwar period meant a new stage in the
development of Slovak: whereas the awakening between 1780 and 1850 brought
codifications of standard Slovak, a new code of Slovak was discussed in the
early 1930s. However, since the original proposal was prepared by a Czech
“Kakanien” (also k.u.k.) refers to “kaiserlich und königlich” (imperial and royal), that is, to
the Austrian (Austro-Hungarian) Empire/Habsburg Monarchy.
For more details, see Lajcha, Ladislav (ed.): Dokumenty SND, Vol. 1, Zapas o zmysel a podobu
1929-1938, Bratislava, Divadelny üstav, 2000.
Even though music and dance genres are not discussed in this paper, it is also relevant to
mention that the first Slovak opera, named the Krutnava (the Whirlpool), only originated
in the 1940s. It was thought of by the commissar of the Slovak National Theatre during
the Slovak Republic in 1940. Its composer, Eugen Suchon (1908-1993), who, along with
Stefan Hoza (1906-1982), also wrote the libretto based ona short story by the Slovak fiction
writer Milo Urban (1904-1982), began to write it in 1941; it was premiered in December
1949 but some Christian motifs were already unacceptable for the Communist regime in
Czechoslovakia; thus a new version was prepared in the early 1950s.
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