OCR
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 (18471916). 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. * 476 +