SLOVENSKÁ LITERATÚRA
Volume LII. 2005 / No 6
Articles
Tomáš H o r v á t h, The Criminal Genealogy of a Detective Story (Pitaval. Vidocq. Literature
on Crime. Aesthetics and London Murders in Fog) 377
Adela Ž i l k o v á, Modern Novellas by Milo Urban 394
Eva J e n č í k o v á, From Empathy to Disillusion and Inner Disintegration (Vincent Šikula:
S Rozarkou) (Vincent Šikula: With Rozarka) 409
Views
From the Dictionairy of the Slovak Literature Works of the 20th Century (Vladimír B a r b o r
í k, René B í l i k, Michal H a b a j, Dana K r š á k o v á, Pavel M a t e j o v i č, Vladimír P e t
r í k) 419
Sources and Documents
Milan Šútovec. Personal Bibliography (Viola F o r m a n k o v á) 440
Chronicle 445
Review 453
From Scholarly Life 470
The Criminal Genealogy of a Detective Story (Pitaval. Vidocq. Literature on Crime.
Aesthetics and London Murders in Fog)
Tomáš Horváth, The Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava,
Slovakia
In the study we are constructing one branch of genealogical root in the development of
detective genre - narration on criminal cases (Vidocq, De Quincey, Newgate Calendar) and
famous trials (Pitaval). Pitaval is not only a collection of causes célébre
like it is in old literature about crime but the main topic is investigation and conviction of a
criminal and finding him guilty by means of prooves – at this stage legal knowledge takes
effect. By means of Pitaval the connection of criminal topic and rational reflection applied by
investigation of crime and proving guilty begins in literary discourse. In Pitaval’s work
particularly Enlightenment type of rationality connected with the conception of naturalness is
concerned. The means of rational reflection allow come to conclusion about what natural
acting is like. It is with respect to circumstances and this naturalness is a part of a rational
argument. The naturalness and rational argument together produce truth. The voice of truth
speaks first of all through the contradictions in the suspects’ utterances (through their offends
against the rules of reason) and not according to an eyewitness account. Here we read the
initiative of the Enlightenment discredit of prejudice (Gadamer).
This discourse transformation has been a necessary but not a sufficient condition of
establishing the detective genre. Pitaval differentiates from a detective story by its linear
composition although in Pitaval we can sometimes also come across the tendency to linearreversible (detective) composition.
Modern Novellas by Milo Urban
Adela Žilková, The Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava,
Slovakia
Similarly as many Slovak prose writers of the previous generation, in his collection of
novellas Výkriky bez ozveny (Cries without Echo) (1928), Milo Urban drew inspiration from
rural environment. But Urban also introduced a modern universal topic in his novellas. It is
certain distress, narrow-mindedness of village life. The main characters of Urban’s stories, the
village outsiders, experience it most intensively. They are lonely people who estranged their
surroundings. The distress, melancholy that they feel indicates how reserved, shut off village
can be.
The author of the study interpretes two early novellas by Milo Urban – Jašek Kutliak
spod Bučinky (1922) and Rozprávka o Labudovi (The Fairy-tale on Labuda). Due to the way
of narration and ambiguity they present modern proses. The features of a fairy-tale, a ballad
and a myth indicate a more complicated structure of narration. The novella Jašek Kutliak spod
Bučinky is about disintegration of a love relationship – after her wedding with the hunter
Jašek, the young girl Hanka changes completely. The narration oscillates between the
depiction of Hanka‘s wichedness and a story of with modern topic of desillusion from lost
love. In Rozprávka o Labudovi (The Fairy-tale on Labuda) there are two possible ways of
how to read the text. The first one is a story about a foolish peasant, the second is a more
universal story about Labuda that becomes an allegory of human fate. The explanation of the
novella becomes more complicated when its figurative language, metaphors as well as the
topic of isolation are taken into account.
From Empathy to Disillusion and Inner Disintegration (Vincent Šikula: S Rozarkou)
(Vincent Šikula: With Rozarka)
Eva Jenčíková, The Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava,
Slovakia
The way of depiction of the character of an outsider in the prose of Vincent Šikula from the
60s of the 20th century is in the centre of the study. The character of an outsider is not rare in
Slovak literature. It was frequent at least since the period of realism in the works of M.
Kukučín, Timrava or J.G. Tajovský and later on it became common in Slovak literature
between the two wars and in the literature after the Second World War (e.g. in the works by
M. Urban, F. Švantner, D. Tatarka, R. Jašík, S. Rakús, D. Dušek, etc.). The character of an
outsider is a model character that is a syntheses of character features of an epic character,
symptoms of certain period and fatality of a human being supplanted for different reasons to
the outskirts of society (village shephards, drummers, servants, beggars, tramps, old men,
physically and mentally disabled characters). The author of the study shows that outsiders do
not only appear episodically in Šikula’s works but they become the main characters of his
short story, novella or novel. In the prose S Rozarkou (With Rozarka) (1966) Rozarka (an
eighteen year old girl with intellectual disability with childlike intellect is promoted to
a bearer of an epical event. The author places Rozarka and the narrator Ondrej who is in the
position of his sisters substitute mother to the centre of his narration. The study gives an
analyses of the language with the elements of poetisation and rhytm of the text and
characterizes the way of narration “on various things” that is the main composition principle
in this novella. The author of the study also pays attention to the depiction of the empathetic
relationship between brother and sister as well as to the topic of incest in the background of
the story that has not been reflected by the critics of Šikula’s work.