Oldal 477 [477]
DAGMAR KROCANOVÁ
linguist and was meant to bring Slovak closer to Czech, it was eventually
refused.” The rise of the professional theatre after 1918 also facilitated using
the varieties of the language in a new form, such as stage speech.”
The 1920s in Slovak literature are sometimes referred to as the time of
“opening windows to Europe” and catching up with modern literary trends.
This development compensated for a reserved attitude to Modernism among
ideologues of the 19" century Slovak culture, such as S. H. Vajansky (1847¬
1916). Slovak culture was supposed to refuse Western European decadence
and lack of values. The appeal of Modernism at the turn of the century was a
threat for the Slovak nation, since Slovak literature was expected to advocate
national interests. An initial post-1918 enthusiasm which replaced the rural
setting and Realism by urban and exotic themes and formal experiments,
influenced by Modernism and the avant-garde, gradually faded in the 1930s.
Village themes and a praise of the simple life in the countryside led to the
rise of the Lyrical Prose School (also referred to as “Naturism.”) In poetry,
along with revived Symbolism, avant-garde movements such as Poetism and
Surrealism dominated. In dramatic literature, after a decade of eclecticism
in themes and movements that produced drama of mediocre quality, the
1930s witnessed rising quality. Realist plays set among villagers and petit
bourgeoisie were still frequent and popular, and so were plays with historical
themes and protagonists. From 1935 until roughly 1948, there were two major
trends in drama: the drama of ideas and of the model situation, and lyrical
drama. Whereas the former trend was close to Existentialism in themes and
approaches, the latter one offered the chance to apply poetic avant-garde
techniques (especially Poetism and Surrealism) to drama.
Among representatives of the Realist tradition in Slovak drama of the
interwar period, we can mention the playwright and medical doctor Ivan
Stodola (1888-1977) whose works (especially social plays and comedies as well
as historical plays) belonged to the core of the repertoire. Vladimir Hurban
Vladimirov (1884—1950) was a gifted playwright and Protestant minister who
combined Realist tendencies with belated Naturalism and Symbolism, as well
as with Expressionism, but his plays were not staged in the Slovak National
Theatre, partially due to the fact that he lived outside Czechoslovakia, in the
Slovak enclave in Vojvodina in Yugoslavia. The drama of ideas and of model
The main editor, a Czech linguist and a professor at Comenius University Vaclav Vazny
(1892-1966), adhered to the concept of one nation and language; the proposal was criticized
especially by the Slovak Matica (a Slovak cultural institution founded in 1863; its activities
were prohibited in 1875 and renewed in 1919).
A similar process was noticeable in terminology and in translations.
Vajansky, a Slovak writer and the editor of a newspaper Ndrodnie noviny, advocated idealistic
and conservative values, as well as tsarist Russia.
This movement can be considered a version of regionalism that developed in the interwar
period in some European literatures.
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