Slovak studies (e-books)

E-book

Marianna Sedláková - Marián Gladiš (eds.)

The content of the book publication Pavol Jozef Šafárik in Continuity consists of contributions from two events organized by the Department of Slovak Studies, Slavic Philologies, and Communication at the Faculty of Arts of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice during its short existence.

The first event was a scientific seminar held on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the death of P. J. Šafárik, titled Pavol Jozef Šafárik – Scientist and Artist, which took place on January 27–28, 2012, in Košice and Kobeliarovo. The second event was an internal scientific seminar on the occasion of the 220th anniversary of Šafárik’s birth, held on December 15, 2015, under the title In the Quiet Home Circle. Symbolically—beginning with death and ending with birth (thus indicating the living continuity of Šafárik’s research legacy)—we aim to continue the study of Pavol Jozef Šafárik’s scientific work and increasingly involve the youngest generation of researchers (represented by doctoral students of the department in the field of literary studies). This is despite the fact that the literature on the life and work of this scholar and poet, who stood at the birth of Slavic studies, is very rich, and most of his works have already been scientifically analyzed. However, it appears that even seemingly outdated views of Šafárik still deserve scientific attention in the new context of humanities and natural sciences, as can be read in the contributions published in this volume.

Through the continuous publication of the Collected Works of Pavol Jozef Šafárik, both mentioned seminars, and the publication of this volume, the Faculty of Arts of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice has continued the activities of the Prešov Faculty of Arts from the time before its separation from the union of faculties of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice in 1997. The selection and arrangement of contributions in the volume symbolize the "passing of the baton" in research and publishing activities related to Pavol Jozef Šafárik—a scientific personality of global stature, who in 1959 gave his name to our university.

Compiled by the editors.

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E-book

Iveta Bónová - Marián Gladiš (eds.)

About the personality of university professor František Miko, DrSc., much has rightly been written, especially after 1989. Indeed, anyone involved in language and literature, at least within the geographical scope of the West Slavic region, is familiar with his work, particularly his brilliant expressive conception of style.

Our ambition in the introduction of this presented collection is not to substitute a dictionary of linguists, nor to provide a comprehensive view of his life and professional career. Rather, it is to remind ourselves of an exceptional individual—a scientist whose attitude, contributions, and results have influenced and continue to influence not only entire generations of researchers but also scientific thinking as a whole.

In the presented collection, we supplement the characterization contained in the inventively and convincingly formulated title of the obituary The Quiet Revolutionary of Our Science, František Miko, with a set of thematically diverse contributions (from the fields of style, sound, translation studies, phraseology, didactics...) dedicated to this significant figure of Slovak science on the occasion of what would have been his ninety-fifth birthday.

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E-book

Marianna Sedláková a kol. 

The worksheets, based on the direct specific needs of teaching medical students in Košice, respect the real situation of teaching Slovak as a foreign language at UPJŠ.

They also reflect the relatively high number of Slavic students, especially from neighboring countries, who, although just beginning with the Slovak language, are at a higher communicative level compared to students from non-Slavic countries. Therefore, a special part of the worksheets with exercises is dedicated to them, which includes special exercises and dictionaries aimed at eliminating Slovak-Polish or Slovak-Ukrainian interference phenomena. Since some non-Slavic students come from the Czech language environment, we also add a glossary of the most common different expressions in Slovak, Czech, and, for the aforementioned reasons, Polish and Ukrainian. In the part intended for all students, both Slavic and non-Slavic, communicatively focused exercises for practicing grammatical phenomena predominantly at the A1 and A2 communication skill levels (according to the Common European Framework of Reference) prevail, and last but not least, exercises thematically focused on medicine and healthcare.

The texts from the thematic area are, of course, supplemented with realia of the city of Košice. As a functional supplement in the working material, we also publish test samples.

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E-book

Soňa Šnircová

This textbook has been designed as supporting material for the postgraduate course on modern trends in European literature. It focuses on the presentation of five modern literary modes of writing: the realistic mode which was brought to its prominence by the nineteenth-century Realist movement; the stream-of-consciousness and ‘absurdist’ modes which were developed in the context of modernism; and the magical realist and metafictional modes which are associated mainly with postmodernist literary trends. Each mode is represented by a well-known text which demonstrates the formal aspects of each mode and deals with the thematic concerns typical of the literary movement that influenced its production.

The textbook adopts an interdisciplinary approach, placing the chosen literary texts into the historical, philosophical and cultural contexts that shaped their characters, and thereby providing the background knowledge necessary for a deeper understanding of their formal and thematic aspects.

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E-book

Ivica Hajdučeková

The development of this bilingual coursebook evolved as part of project KEGA Nr. 020UPJŠ-4/2013 headed by prof. PhDr. Ján Gbúr, CSc., and emerged from earlier research which had successfully analysed realist and modernist Slovak literature from a gender perspective. Based on initial interpretations which drew from philosophical, sociological and historiographical approaches, we were able to anticipate the issues which could be raised in other texts and thus establish a hypothesis for the subsequent literaryscientific research. Our research has also been influenced by the continually evolving nature of gender studies, and we have therefore decided to adopt a somewhat unusual approach in this coursebook and briefly examine some contemporary texts thereby creating an intentional shift in our timeline. The modern works of Z.Kepplová and U. Kovalyk have raised a number of interesting issues, and a study of the interwar work of M. Urban reveals further interpretations on the basis of gender. After this brief overview, we return to the main focus of the study: gender approaches to Slovak literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The study focuses on the complexity of male-female relationships in the work of both male and female authors of realist and modernist literature at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Works by the founding generation of realism and late realism were analysed, with particular attention being paid to the fiction of M. Kukučín, J. Čajak, J. G. Tajovský, J. Jesenský, E. M. Šoltésová, T. Vansová, Ľ. Podjavorinská and B. S. Timrava. The works of H. Gregorová and Ľ. Groeblová were also studied as prime examples of Slovak literary modernism. 

We hope that this bilingual coursebook will allow realist and modernist Slovak fiction, and the Slovak national literary tradition in general, to receive wider critical renown beyond the borders of Slovakia and also to demonstrate its place in contemporary literary theory.

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