LITERARY REALISM IN THE SHAPING OF SLOVAK CULTURE

Authors

  • Milan Kendra Institute of Slovak and Media Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Prešov, Ul. 17. novembra 1, 080 01 Prešov, Slovakia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2021.2.455.468

Keywords:

Literary realism, Representation, Referentiality, Realist fictional world, Social systems, Autopoietic system, National revival, Ideal realism

Abstract

Aim. The aim of the study is to clarify the internal complexity of the Slovak literary realist discourse and its diverse relations to the heterogeneous artistic, cultural and ideological discourses of the last third of the 19th century. Attention is focused on the appropriation and adaptation of stimuli from other social systems, as well as on the specific literary operations that modify literary realism as an artistic discourse constructing an intelligible world in a cultural sense.

Methods. As a theoretical concept, realism is defined as a type of representation or representation technique associated with a set of textual conventions, complex referential and self-referential figures. As a literary-historical discourse and event situated in a particular moment of history, realism is governed by period-specific principles (operating in the mechanism of culture) of selection, evaluating and connecting the phenomena of reality. Only with this dichotomy the multiplicity of paradoxes, syncretism and heterogeneous character of Slovak literary realism can be captured. The theory of social systems (N. Luhmann) allows for a more complex view of realist literature as an autopoietic system in the context of modern society as a system of communications differentiated into a network of separate social subsystems interrelated by the medium of language. Finally, the theory of fictional worlds proposes selective and formative operations that explicate the construction of realist fictional world and the stratification of its functions (B. Fořt).

Results. Among the configurational relations of Slovak literary realism, the concept of ideal realism is highlighted as a model of literary aesthetics that flexibly interacted with the discourse of national revival to provide an adequate expression of contemporary Slovak cultural and national interests. Two literary-aesthetic modifications of ideal realism (creative and voluntarist, originated by Svetozár Hurban Vajanský, and deterministic, represented in the prose works of Martin Kukučín) are analysed in detail in order to show the inner complexity of the literary-realist discourse and to manifest its semantic multidimensionality in the 1880s.

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Author Biography

  • Milan Kendra, Institute of Slovak and Media Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Prešov, Ul. 17. novembra 1, 080 01 Prešov, Slovakia

    Milan Kendra (PhDr., PhD.) has been employed as a full time assistant professor at the Institute of Slovak and Media Studies of Faculty of ArtsUniversity of Prešov since 2008. From 2014 to 2020 he was the head of the Department of Slovak Literature and Literary Studies and a member of the Advisory and Editorial Board. He was a scientific collaborator of several VEGA scientific grant project (Comenius University Bratislava, University of Prešov). Currently he is a reviewer outside of the editorial board of Language and Culture Journal (peer-reviewed online academic journal). For his scientific publishing activities, he received the 2019 Faculty of Arts Award and the 2018 Rector’s Award. His research and publications focus on realism and the fin de siècle period in Slovak literature, poetics and axiology of Slovak fiction after 1989, with a focus on communicative, semiotic and stylistic aspects of literary texts. He has published reviews and studies in scholarly journals and collections of papers. He is the author of two monographs on Slovak literary realism – Kontúry slovenskej prózy obdobia realizmu (2013) and Korelácie témy a jazyka v slovenskom literárnom realizme (2017). He was a contributor and co-editor of the 2/2018 issue of World Literature Studies, a scholarly journal published quarterly by Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, on the topic of Poetological Aspects of Literary Fiction by Philosophers.

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Published

2021-09-25

How to Cite

Kendra, M. . (2021). LITERARY REALISM IN THE SHAPING OF SLOVAK CULTURE. Journal of Education Culture and Society, 12(2), 455-468. https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2021.2.455.468