Slovenska Literatura (Jun 2001)
Poetic works of inner exile
Abstract
The article deals with the works of two poets: Janko Silan (1914 – 1984) and Ján Smrek (1898 – 1982). These works written after the February 1948 and it was a kind of protest against the communist totality. Because of this reason it could be published only after 1989. There are relatively few poems to bedealt with from the work of Silan (part of them also connects with the occupation in 1968); Ján Smrek constantly critically coped with the communist regime during the whole decade and there are over thousand dissident poems devoted to it. Janko Silan was a Catholic priest (as a poet belonged to the circle of so called Catholic Modernism) and that was a reason why he dominantly reacted against the persecution of Church, imprisoning priests, liquidation of the monastic orders and so on. Except of the unequivocal denouncing of the facts, he articulated hope that the Catholic Church survives the torture of the historical situation and finally it will be strengthened. Ján Smrek responded the beginning of the totality regime from the position of democrat. He was convinced that socialism would mean liquidation of the civic rights and impossibility of free expression in creative works. He radically denounced political trials from the beginning of 50th which were folloved by in imprisoning and executions. On the other hand he ironically commented the of those authors who were able to serve to the regime ”for the mess of pottage”. Silan’s and Smrek’s ”poems of inner exile” proves that not all authors accepted the new political orientation spontaneously and positively as it has been usually talking about.
