Southern Slovakia in Literature.
Southern Slovakia in Literature.

(Stereotypes and interethnic contexts)

Summary/Abstract: The main topic of the publication is the position and the mode of presentation of Southern Slovakia in the modern Slovak literature. From the point of view of Slo-vak literature, the most productive regions of the 19th century were the developed Western and Northwestern parts of the old Hungarian Kingdom (1000-1918). Before the beginning of the 20th century, Eastern Slovakia had not been intensievely repre-sented in the mainstream Slovak literature. The wide and intensive integration of the eastern regions into Slovak literature was realised only in the period between the two world wars. The last region to be integrated into the Slovak literature was Southern Slovakia. The process of adaptation in respect of this region was realised after the Second World War by the Slovak authors living there. Peter Andruška (1943), Ladislav Ballek (1941) and Ivan Habaj (1943) are the most important representatives of the postwar generation. The following authors have (directly or indirectly) reflected the problem of Southern Slovakia in Slovak literature after 1989: Peter Pišťanek (1960-2015), Daniela Kapitáňová (1956), Pavol Rankov (1964), Ľuboš Dojčan alias Koloman Kocúr (1964) and Peter Balko (1988). Southern Slovakia, after 1989, with its mixture of ethnic groups, has gained a place in Slovakian literature, but it no longer has the exotic aura it had fifty years ago. It still retains its borderland, multi-ethnic charac-ter, but in the meantime, Slovakian literature itself has become more understanding towards multi-ethnicity. That does not imply that the region’s conflict-ridden nature has changed completely. At the same time, the Slovakian South is also becoming an increasingly magical region, which is an entirely new phenomenon in Slovakian literature.

• Details
• Contents