Von der Klage Ungarns bis zur Klage von Slavia im Werk von Ján Kollár
From Hungary's lawsuit to Slavia's complaining in the work of Ján Kollár

Summary/Abstract: The study deals with one of the central motifs of Ján Kollár’s work ‘Slávy dcera’, namely with the history of the figure of Complaining Slavia. Kollár derives the motif from an address given in 1527 by the Humanist Latin poet Caspar Ursinus Velius, and from Velius’s epistle entitled ‘Querela Austriae’. The motif entered Hungary’s Latin-language literature and subsequently its Hungarian-language literature also, becoming an important topos in Late Humanist and Baroque writing. A didactic poem by Ján Kollár in Latin proves that its author was familiar with the Querela Hungariae (Complaining Hungary) topos since his days at secondary school. At the same time, Kollár reinterpreted the topos according to the ideological requirements of the national movements of the early 19th century, changing Complaining Hungary into Complaining Slavia. Kollár refashioned the topos from the poetic point of view also, in accordance with the rules of Classicism and Romanticism.

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