Retrospektívne pohľady slovenskej literatúry na normalizačné obdobie
Retrospective Views of Slovak Literature on the Normalization Period

Author(s): Radoslav Passia
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Slovak Literature
Published by: Софийски университет »Св. Климент Охридски«
Keywords: contemporary Slovak literature; normalization period in Czechoslovakia; grey zone; literary images of normalization; retrospective constructs
Summary/Abstract: The present study is the first to address the retrospective views of Slovak literature on the so called “normalization period” in Czechoslovakia. The invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968 and the subsequent occupation marked the start of the period of the so-called normalization; in a broader sense, normalization lasted from the spring of 1969 until the Velvet Revolution in November 1989. The goal of normalization was to reassert the power of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and regain control over a society influenced by Alexander Dubček’s reformist ideas of “a socialism with a human face.” The article identifies the common elements in the ways contemporary Slovak literature depicts Czechoslovak normalization. In today’s post-socialist period, this topic attracts mainly authors pertaining to the older and middle generations. In their various ways, their texts deal with personal life experience, often in the form of memoirs or autobiographic writing. They clearly distinguish between the private space, which is internally free, and the public space, which is controlled by the state power. Prevailing in contemporary literary reflection is a critical perception of the socialist state regime. The authors highlight moral failures, but also the ambivalence of values at the time. The protagonists are not heroes or active opponents of the communist regime – their disapproval is either latent, or they completely ignore the situation. The preferred perspective in these works is on the grey zone – a vaguely defined social and cultural space located between the official ideology and the alternative opinions held by the dissident and anti-communist opposition.

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