Obraz Balkánu v cestopisoch vojvodinských Slovákov v dvadsiatych rokoch 20. storočia
The image of the Balkans in travel books of Slovaks in Vojvodina in 1920s

Summary/Abstract: The intensive folk life of Slovaks in Vojvodina after 1918, when they became a part of a new country – the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and later on Yugoslavia – was also reflected in the development of publishing, which opened a special place to a twofold genre- travel books. The author of such literature of different qualities about the Balkans was mainly the intellectual with a cosmopolitan orientation, Andrej Labáth (1886 – 1934) in magazine Národná jednota (National Unity) and in almanac Národný kalendár (National Calendar). In his works, he placed focus on geographic, historical and economic characteristics of unique locations in the Balkans, that is, within the borders of the former Kingdom, and captured stereotypical images of that time through their cultural and geographic aspects. His texts about travels do have primarily features of publications, but from the perspective of selected imagological method, they are model-texts about the form (not only) of stereotypes of the time. Positive and negative stereotypes in his travel books are the products of specific historical and social circumstances. He visited regions such as Slovenia, Dalmatia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and he illustrated the idea of Slavic peoples adapting to e.g. Adriatic Sea area. He also used the ideological function of travel books in the spirit of national geography and national emblematic which derived from identifying with history of brotherly, Serbian people, as it is shown in the travels around Kosovo and Macedonia. At the same time, analyzed images show both the other and different, as well as self-presentation and self-identification. As such they present a considerable stereotypical cultural antagonism of the West and East (presenting the contrast between: Kosovo, Macedonia-Slovenia, Kosovo – Vojvodina/Backa). The images (geographical, historical, ethnic, confessional, economic) of such a heterogeneous country of South Slavs located in the Balkan Peninsula in line with a concrete presentation of their new homeland, are among Slovaks in Vojvodina becoming tools of strengthening their national consciousness, but in contact with the other and foreign they also strengthen their self-images as a hard-working ethnicity.

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