Slovenska Literatura (Nov 2023)
The figure of Amerikán – “Americaner” in two short stories from the early 20th century Vojvodina Slovak literature
Abstract
The emigration of Slovaks to overseas countries had a mass character at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. This phenomenon led to the emergence of a cultural-anthropological and subsequently literary topos of the Amerikán – “Americaner” (a person who returned from emigration to America to their homeland). Vojvodina Slovak writers in the early 20th century – the realistic prose writer Ján Čajak (1863 – 1944) and the prose writer and modernist playwright Vladimír Hurban Vladimírov (VHV, 1884 – 1950) among others – also addressed this topic. They perceived modernization processes differently, as evidenced by their choice of the genre. J. Čajak, in his moralistic short story Vysťahovalec ([The emigrant], 1904), emphasises tradition, religion, stability, and the order of the old world; he sees emigration as a destructive element. VHV incorporated the same social theme into the genre matrix of melodrama in the short story Dievča zo slepej uličky ([The girl from the blind alley], 1913). He critically captures the conservatism of the domestic environment and the mentality of Vojvodina Slovaks. Through the gradation of situations of emotional uncertainty, he introduces modernist poetic techniques into the traditional rural realistic short story. The thematological article primarily follows the relationship of both texts to the modernist discourse of the period.
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