Janko Kráľ ako postava dramatického textu Karol Horák: Apokalypsa podľa Janka (Kráľa) alebo Divný Janko
Janko Kráľ as a character in a dramatic text Karol Horák: Apokalypsa podľa Janka (Kráľa) alebo Divný Janko [Apocalypse according to Johnny (Kráľ), or Strange Johnny]

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses the dramatic text by Karol Horák (b. 1943) Apokalypsa podľa Janka (Kráľa) alebo Divný Janko ([Apocalypse according to Johnny (Kráľ), or Strange Johnny], 1994). Its plot is based on the life of the key poet of Slovak Romanticism, Janko Kráľ (1822 – 1876). The play juxtaposes the traumatic experiences from the poet’s personal history (from his childhood to the old age) with the history of the young Slovak nation in wider social and political Central European relations and accentuates J. Kráľ’s individual existential drama. The analysis outlined in the article discusses the variable and dynamic relations between historical facts and dramatic fiction on which the construal of historical figures and events in the play was based. Horák’s text also introduces a change in the paradigm with respect to the conceptualisation of stabilised and stereotyped events and historical personalities. The innovation brought about by the postmodern handling of historical figures can be observed on the permanent questioning of historical documents in confrontation with the literary (or artistic) interpretation of events. The structure of the drama takes into consideration the prism of individual and national frustration and fate. The dramatic text is built on the intersections of the biological and metaphysical, real and fictitious, and verbalised (written) and sensed (mystic). Philosophical journeys into the labyrinths of individual and collective subconscious are equally an important layer of Horák’s work.

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