Janko Kráľ in the 20th-century commemorative practice

Abstract

In the culture of remembrance concerning the authors of Slovak Romantic literature, the poet Janko Kráľ (1822 – 1876) holds a distinctive position. Even though his oeuvre was not published in book form during his life and his last resting place remains unknown, since the 1920, his name and literary heritage have been gradually gaining a stable position in the Slovak literature as an independent topos. Mechanisms of the creation of literary representations of Janko Kráľ in which the character of references also depended on the choice of the genre can be defined as a process in several stages: rescuing the poet from oblivion (Vladimír Roy – poem dedicated to the centenary of the poet’s death, 1922) interpretation (Štefan Krčméry – speech at the unveiling of the memorial plaque on the house in which J. Kráľ was born, 1924), updating (Laco Novomeský – review of the volume Ňeznáme básňe Janka Kráľa [Janko Kráľ’s unknown poems], 1938), ideological narratives (speeches at the transfer of the remains of the poet to the national cemetery in Martin, 1940) – inspiration (Milan Rúfus, interpretive essay, 1976). These examples of remembrance practice connected with J. Kráľ outline the processes of familiarisation and canonisation. The transformations are reactions to the period social contexts, but also reflect the dynamics of cultural memory.

Keywords

• cultural memory
• literary memory
• culture of remembrance
• remembering
• reminiscing
• literary representations
• janko kráľ