FROM CULTURAL REPRESENTATION TO DEMOCRATIC DISCUSSION (AND BACK): GERMAN-LANGUAGE LITERATURE IN SLOVAK LITERARY JOURNALS

The article is mapping the translations and critical reflections on German, Austrian and Swiss literature in the Slovak literary journals Slovenske pohl'ady, Revue svetovej literatury and Mlada tvorba in the literary field in Slovakia of the 1960's. Speaking about these publications, we can see a competition of two models of perception of foreign literature: on the one hand, the model of cultural representation, and on the other hand, the model of democratic literary discussion. Especially at the end of the 1960's the second model prevailed. In the 1960's we also can record the entry of a new generation of Slovak Germanists on the literary stage (translators, editors, critics). Nevertheless, this generation is gradually decimated after 1968. Despite the disfavor of the following decades, the accumulated cultural capital brought fruits in the form of book translations of modern German, Austrian and Swiss authors in the late 1980's and 1990's. The journal culture of the 1960's also contributed to the making of historical links between classical literary modernity, the avant-garde and the literary present.