Slovenska Literatura (May 2017)
Cracks in the Czech-Slovak mutuality in the late 19th century on example of Terézia Vansová travelogue
Abstract
The form of Czech-Slovak mutuality had during the 19th century monolithic character. On the example of travelogue literature in the 19th and the 20th centuries, among other things we can see the difficult historical situation in Slovakia was located then. Terézia Vansová in her travelogue Pani Georgiadesová na cestác/Ms Georgiadesová’s traveling) subtitled Veselý cestopis do Prahy na národopisnú výstavu (1896 – 1897)/Happy travelogue to Prague on an ethnographic exhibition (1896 – 1897)) captures this transformation, along with the transformation of literary and socio-historical code. From the typological point of view in this travelogue an obvious yaw from hitherto in travelogue genre. Selection of a fictional narrator instead of the author’s point of view and a female optics story appears in the development of Slovak literature as new one. The author, through a fictional narrator Johanna Georgiadesová thematises mutual (Czech-Slovak and Slovak-Czech) ignorance of culturally and historically closest land. Journey to the Czechoslavic Ethnographic Exhibition held in 1895, occupies a central place in the travelogue and meant for Vansová despite thematisation cracks also strengthening of national self-confidence.
