Studia Slavica
Volume/Issue:
Volume 69: Issue 1
Poets as children. On works of the Slovak Trnava group and the Bulgarian ‘Poets of the city’
Author:
Irena Dimova-Gencheva Assen Zlatarov University, Department of Bulgarian Language and Literature, Burgas, Bulgaria

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Pages:
105–113
Online Publication Date:
08 Nov 2024
Publication Date:
06 Feb 2025
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/060.2024.00146
Keywords:
childhood; sensual concreteness; objective world; everydayness; Trnava group; “poets of the city”; Ľubomír Feldek; Valeri Petrov
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The aim of the proposed paper is to examine how the poetic text world embodies the idea of a return to the “naïve” perception of the world. The objects of the analysis are two groups of authors – representatives of 20th century Slovak and Bulgarian literature –, which are known in the history of their national literatures as Trnava group and “poets of the city.” The first poetic formation is made up of Ján Ondruš, Ján Stacho, Jozef Mihalkovič, and Ľubomír Feldek, known also as Concretists, the second one consists of Alexander Vutimski, Alexander Gerov, Ivan Peychev, and Valeri Petrov. While the Slovak authors manifested themselves as a poetic group by publishing three manifestos, one of which called We Will Talk about Children’s Literature, the Bulgarian authors were defined as poets of the city post factum by the Bulgarian critics.

The selection of these poetry formations is based on typological affinities between the two specific literary phenomena and the similarities in their national political and social contexts during their genesis. Three basic topics can be found in the works of the representatives of both Trnava group and poets of the city – objective imagery, the motif of childhood, and the image of the city. In the present paper, we focus mainly on the use of objective imagery in the process of returning to childhood, which some of the poets’ texts depict. We also look at one of the main themes in their works, which both literary groups inherit from their antecedents in their literatures – everydayness. In this light, the poets of the city are related to the poetry of the Bulgarian writer Atanas Dalchev, while the Slovak authors follow the path chosen by the Czech poetry group Květen and their concept of “poetry of every day.”

Through a close reading of selected works of the Slovak Trnava group and the Bulgarian “poets of the city”, we look at the process of engaging the senses in poetry. The main texts chosen for the analysis are

A Play for Your Blue Eyes written by Ľubomír Feldek and Tom Thumb by Valeri Petrov. Their poems are based on a return to childhood and sensual concreteness. We examine how the writers stylize the perceived world in opposition to the “ready-made” ideas the socialist realism offers. Both groups of authors choose a new aesthetic formula that roots in portraying the objective world. The topic is represented in light of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s reflection on the literary use of language.

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Cover Studia Slavica
Studia Slavica
Print ISSN:
0039-3363
Online ISSN:
1588-290X

Senior editors

Editor-in-Chief: Róbert KISS SZEMÁN (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, HU)

Editorial Board

  • Krisztina MENYHÁRT (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, HU)
  • Péter PÁTROVICS (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, HU)
  • Kata JURACSEK (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, HU)

Secretary of the Board

  • Sarolta TÓTHPÁL ((Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, HU)

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  • Dalibor DOBIÁŠ (Czech Academy of Sciences, CZ)
  • Joanna GOSZCZIYŃSKA (University of Warsaw, PL)
  • Mária GYÖNGYÖSI (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, HU)
  • László JÁSZAY (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, HU)
  • Marko JESENŠEK (University of Maribor, SLO)
  • Mihály KOCSIS (University of Szeged, HU)
  • Katalin KROÓ (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, HU)
  • Stefan Michael NEWERKLA (University of Vienna, A)
  • Ivana TARANENKOVÁ (Slovak Academy of Sciences, SK)
  • Dalibor TUREČEK (University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, CZ)
  • Slobodanka Millicent VLADIV-GLOVER (Monash University, Clayton Campus, AUS)
  • Kazimierz WOLNY-ZMORZYŃSKI (University of Silesia in Katowice, PL)
  • András ZOLTÁN (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, HU)

 

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Institute of Slavonic and Baltic Philology
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Studia Slavica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
Language Slavic languages
English
French
German
Size B5
Year of
Foundation		 1955
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Issues
per Year		 2
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
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Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
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ISSN 0039-3363 (Print)
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