On the forms of space in the travelogues of Jozef Miloslav Hurban and Terézia Vansová Cover Image

K podobám priestoru v cestopisoch Jozefa Miloslava Hurbana a Terézie Vansovej
On the forms of space in the travelogues of Jozef Miloslav Hurban and Terézia Vansová

Author(s): Mariana Koliová
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Ústav slovenskej literatúry SAV
Keywords: genre of the travelogue; national revivalist travelogue; ideological travelogue; women’s travelogue; Jozef Miloslav Hurban; Terézia Vansová; category of space; figure of the traveller; physicality

Summary/Abstract: The article compares the travelogues of Jozef Miloslav Hurban (1817 – 1888) with those written by Terézia Vansová (1857 – 1942). The author treats the texts as examples of (1) the romantic national revivalist travelogue with an ideological (national) focus (Hurban’s travelogues Cesta Slováka k bratrům slavenským na Moravě a v Čechách [The journey of a Slovak to his Slavic brothers in Moravia and Bohemia 1839] 1939, 1841; Prechádzka po považskom svete [A walk in the world of Považie] 1844) and (2) its later, programmatically much sober and down to earth variation associated with the woman’s viewpoint and entertainment function (Vansová’s prose Mrs Georgiadesová on the road. A cheerful travelogue to Prague to an ethnographic exhibition [Pani Georgiadesová na cestách. Veselý cestopis do Prahy na národopisnú výstavu] 1896 – 1897). The core of the analysis is the representation of space and the nature of movement in space. While in the Romantic travelogues, there is a tendency to highlight the immaterial spiritual principle of space and to “tone down” the physicality of the traveller himself, in Vansová’s work, the body of the characters (their hunger, thirst, and fatigue) comes programmatically to the fore and clashes with the “higher” (mostly national revivalist) motives and ideals, without, however, denying them. It is a practice that is typologically very close to the strategies of post-Romantic authors who sought to break away from the poetics of the Romantics and their epigones.

  • Issue Year: 70/2023
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 376-393
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Slovak
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