Dana Hučková

The problems of modernism in Slovak literature
In the literary output of Slovak Modernist authors the period aesthetic universalities of the
artistic Modernism, roughly dated 1890–1914, were connected with peculiarities of regional,
national literature, traditionally defined by, as well as perceived through the national concept.
As a result of national aspect predominance in the previous perception of literature, the Slovak
cultural environment may have experienced restructuring of values of the period topics, it happened
however, with a the unmistakable granting autonomy to the aesthetic function of literature
and individual creative gesture. Slovak Modernism evinces identifiable thematic resonances
and contextual proximities with the contemporary European ideological currents and trends.
The follwing authors: Ivan Krasko, Janko Jesenský, Ivan Gall, František Votruba, Ľudmila
Groeblová, Vladimír Roy, Vladimír Hurban-Svetozárov, Vladimír Hurban-Vladimírov, Martin
Rázus, Samo Cambel-Kosorkin, Juraj Slávik-Neresnický abandoned the social-ideological
take on literature and started to emphasize the moment of intimacy and sensitivity of production,
which was perceived as an individual self-expression, an escape from solitude, the act of
confession, and the outcome of a mood and artistic rendition of a unique moment. The starting
point was the feeling of sensual deprivation, failure, disappointment, loss, intellectual distress,
and crisis. The perception of crises became manifest in vacillation between activity and inertia,
harmony and chaos. Revived Romantic poetics with impressionist overtones began to appear
sporadically around 1900 and after 1905 (the year Janko Jesenský’s book of poetry, Verše
/Verses/ was published), it became widespread, with the culmination of its popularity between
1908–1912. At that point, the revived Romanticism and Impressionism took a noticeably Symbolistic
turn. The motifs of decadent stylization became relatively rare. The inclination of late
Symbolism towards the grotesque (grotesque-carnival) in the Slovak context is marked by the
repeated ironic twist characterizing literarytexts and by seeing life as a farce, carnival or fancy
dress ball.