Authors

Zuzana Kubusová¹;  ¹ Università di Bologna, Italy

Discussion

Paper Avant-garde on the Periphery: Depiction of the Slovak Rural Milieu in Early Work of Peter Jilemnický presents the early work of Slovak writer of Czech origin Peter Jilemnický, member of left-inclined literary group DAV prominent in the interwar period of 20th century in Slovak literature, in terms of cultural center-periphery relationship. The work of DAV group members (particularly connected to the Czech artistic group Devětsil) is associated predominantly with urban topoi, often in cultural centers and, therefore, life of the urban proletariat. Even Peter Jilemnický reflected on life in the city in his first collection of short stories, Červená 7 (Red 7), including Kinematografické poviedky (Cinematographic stories), written in 1924-1926. Short stories got published in left-wing newspapers with aim to approach members of the working class in cities and expectation to entertain. Jilemnickýʹs pursuit of prose innovation at that time can be observed by his inclination to adopt various progressive literary techniques, largerly attributed to the Czech avant-garde movement Poetism.

Later on, influenced by his own experience living in the poor Slovak rural region of Kysuce in 1925-1929, where he found himself excluded both on artistic and personal levels, Peter Jilemnický shifted his literary approach and thematical interest. In his first novel, Víťazný pád (Victorious Fall, 1929), the writer pursues a critical reflection on the torment of social struggle in neglected and abandoned periphery. The life of the urban proletariat reflected in his short novels is replaced by the picture of the dreadfulness of rural living conditions. Víťazný pád revises a depiction of the Slovak countryside in the second decade of the 20th century, utilising a contemporary artistic perspective. As being said, working on the novel Víťazný pád, Peter Jilemnický had already been familiar with avant-garde and experimental techniques, which he mastered in previous works. It does not come as a surprise that the novel Víťazný pád sees a residual presence of avant-garde and various experimental elements. 

The paper examines avant-garde aesthetics applied to depict rural milieu and focuses on the reasoning behind P. Jilemnickýʹs choice of such methods. Moreover, it demonstrates a question of decentralisation in the regional modernist model in the interwar period in Slovak literature. Paper also points out aspects of centre-periphery dynamics, the relationship between rurality and urbanity and, last but not least, rural and urban metaphors.