Enlightenment and Classicism in the work of Juraj Rohoň

Abstract

The poet, national revivalist, folk songs collector, and evangelical pastor Juraj Rohoň (1773 – 1831) was active among Slovaks inhabiting the area of today’s Serbian Vojvodina from 1795 until his death. His literary activity can be reflected in several ways: he was a poet in the Classicist style, author of texts aimed at defending and highlighting the contribution of Slovaks to the social and national life in Hungary, and he also made a significant contribution to the collecting of Slovak folk songs for Ján Kollár’s project Národnie spievanky [National songs]. In all of Rohoň’s works one can find echoes of Enlightenment views and 18th century Enlightenment philosophy. The article analyses the relationship between the impulses of Enlightenment ideas and the literary works in which these impulses resonate and points to the overlap of the tendencies in question towards pre-Romanticism, focusing on works that highlight the category of the nation and also on the question of the historical development and presence of Slovaks/Slavs in history.

Keywords

• juraj rohoň
• enlightenment
• classicism
• pre-romanticism
• slovak literature in vojvodina