Každodennosť v novele M. Š. Ferienčíka Bratia
Everyday Life in Mikuláš Štefan Ferienčík’s Novella Bratia [Brothers]

Summary/Abstract: The article is concerned with literary representations of everyday life in the novella by the Slovak author Mikuláš Štefan Ferienčík (1825 – 1881) Bratia ([Brothers] 1863). The novella critically addresses Romantic idealism which was at that time – in the 1860s – already perceived as outdated and lacking function and presents the reader with a new type of nationally conscious individual: a family-oriented middle class man, successful in his career and respected by the society. The protagonist of the novella does not understand his national identity as an abstract spiritual value, but makes it a part of everyday situations (during meals, events, in shaping family relationships). By doing so, he also helps build national awareness in other characters in the novella. M. Š. Ferienčík not only offers his readers a practical example of how to combine personal happiness with the imperative of building the national society, but also a new solution to the key problem of Slovak Romanticism – “the embracement of the spirit and matter”. The article draws on the category of everyday life as conceptualised by the American literary scholar Rita Felski. In her view, everyday life is a sphere of human activities characterised by the domestic space, cyclical time and the modality of habit.

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