Rok 1989 w literaturze słowackiej – problematyczna cezura
The Year 1989 in Slovak Literature − a Problematic Breakthrough Moment

Summary/Abstract: Unarguably the breakthrough nature of the revolutions of 1989 had their impact on the shape of the political system of the former Soviet bloc countries, including Slovakia. From the point of view of literature this breakthrough moment is not that obvious as from the 1990s there have been debates on various detailed aspects and contexts referring to this period of transformation. The author of this article discusses factors such as pluralism of literary institutions, development of publishing market, the impact of market mechanisms on literary life, and reintegration of literary circulation that establish a condition of Slovak literature the country has never been in before. What changes after 1989 is the perception of the writer’s role and thus a new dominant model of an unconstrained writer is being shaped. As to the fields of poetics and text structure, what is most difficult to identify is the unequivocally original solutions as immediately after 1989 no new movement or literary trend comes into being. Yet, the author makes a point that the very fact that the literary texts function in a completely new system of dependencies allows for regarding the year 1989 as a literary breakthrough. This approach, however, implies that the autonomous, formalistic and structuralist model of understanding the history of literature has to be abandoned.

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