Aleksandra Hudymač

The article discusses an extensive travel journal, entitled A Walk Through Patagonia, by the renowned Slovak writer Martin Kukučín (1860–1928). Recognised as a prominent representative of realism in Slovak literature, Kukučín experienced challenges associated with emigration throughout his life. His travel accounts, encompassing various destinations such as Dalmatia, Montenegro, France, and Patagonia, constitute an integral part of his creative output. In comparison with Kukučín’s other travel narratives, this particular diary documenting his journey to Patagonia stands out through its meticulousness and a distinct dual perspective of an author and a traveller. In his writings, Kukučín portrays himself simultaneously as a wanderer and expresses a longing for a sense of belonging in the world. This dual nature of the writer is reflected in the landscapes depicted, in which the imagery of Patagonia becomes intertwined with the underlying portrayal of Kukučín’s native region of Orava.

The article presents the contents of Bohuš Nosák-Nezabudov’s travel journal, From Unknown Land to Ľ. The author describes his impressions of the trip to Zakarpattia Ruthenia. The double perspective in seeing this land and its inhabitants (the idyllic space collides here with the space of degraded idyll) corresponds to the duality of the traveling subject himself, who is torn between adopting an attitude of a sensitive observer who shapes the legend of Russia as a forgotten and unknown land, or an emissary who came there with a certain ideological approach and awakening enthusiasm.

The article is devoted to the first part of the Balkan travel journal entitled Travel Features, written by the Slovak prose writer Martin Kukučín 1898. The text deals with the image of Montenegro in the context of the tension between its stereotypical and real image. Montenegro is studied here in the context of the cognitive triangle: landscape – femininity – masculinity. Kukučín looks at the most fundamental stereotypes and self-stereotypes about Montenegro, such as the myth of heroism, amputated femininity or the harshness and inaccessibility of the Montenegrin landscape. In his tale, on the basis of a palimpsest, elements intricate and problematizing the unambiguous image of Montenegro are woven.