Character transformations and spatial contrasts in the novel Víťazný pád [The triumphant fall] by Peter Jilemnický

Abstract

The novel Víťazný pád ([The victorious fall] 1929) is the last work in the first phase of the oeuvre of the Slovak writer of Czech origins, Peter Jilemnický (1901 – 1949). Literary historiography has most often discussed the novel in the context of Slovak interwar fiction primarily in relation to expressionism and the lyricisation of prose. The paper focuses on the transformation of the main character as the determining element in the development of the plot and on spatial contrasts in the novel. It identifies the plane of the material world, through which the author reflects the social tragedy of life in the Slovak region of Kysuce, and the plane of the imaginative world, represented especially by the main character Maťo Horoň. With regards to the imaginative world, the article proposes the hypothesis that the novel’s poetics has ties with the aesthetics of Czech poetism. The novel was written between 1925 and 1926, a period that witnessed an ongoing debate about the suitability of the poetic programme as blueprint for art and literature for the new society. The article views the novel as a transitional work in the development of the author’s poetics.

Keywords

• peter jilemnický
• víťazný pád [the victorious fall]
• expressionism
• czech poetism
• literary character
• literary space