The first novel written in Slovak has now been translated into English
The book René mládenca príhody a skúsenosti (René, or: A Young Man’s Adventures and Experiences) by Jozef Ignác Bajza is considered to be the first novel written in the Slovak language. An English translation by David Short has now been published, edited by Dobrota Pucherová from the Institute of World Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV) and Erika Brtáňová from the Faculty of Education of Comenius University Bratislava (CU). Anikó Dušíková from CU's Faculty of Arts co-authored the academic study placing the work within the context of the European Enlightenment.
The English edition, titled René, or: A Young Man’s Adventures and Experiences, has been published by Liverpool University Press as part of the Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series. The publication was initiated by English studies specialist Dobrota Pucherová from the Institute of World Literature of SAV. “This novel is unique in that it is not only the first novel written in the Slovak language, and also the first novel written in a small language of the Habsburg Monarchy, and the first Enlightenment novel in our region,” she explains. She approached Bohemist David Short, an experienced translator from Czech, to undertake the translation, as the language Bajza used between 1783 and 1785 shares many similarities with Czech. The original is difficult for contemporary readers to understand. “Bajza created his own idiolect. As an Enlightenment thinker, he aimed to convey verified knowledge about the world to readers. For him, language was a tool for education, and the national language was a more effective medium than the Latin used previously,” explains an expert on older Slovak literature, Associate Professor Erika Brtáňová from the Department of Slovak Language, Literature and Didactics, of CU's Faculty of Education.
René, or: A Young Man’s Adventures and Experiences is a Bildungsroman, a novel genre that follows the spiritual, psychological and social development of the protagonist during adolescence or a journey through the world. At the time of writing René, Jozef Ignác Bajza was a young chaplain who was well-versed in ancient authors as well as contemporary German and French texts, which he drew on in his novel. “The significance of Bajza’s text does not lie in the originality of its subject matter, but rather in how he was able to combine diverse elements,” says Assoc. Prof. Anikó Dušíková from the Department of Hungarian Language and Literature at the Faculty of Arts of CU. She authored a study for the English edition that places the novel in the context of its time and of the literary environment of Central Europe. A similar work on the theme of world travel appeared in Hungarian at the time: Tarimenes’ Journey by György Bessenyei. “Enlightenment authors aimed to bring the wider world closer to the reader and to write in the language their audience understood best. It was a very modern decision for the period,” says Dušíková.
Only the first volume was published during Bajza’s lifetime, as the second was blocked by ecclesiastical censorship. Although the novel is now primarily associated with mandatory reading for the secondary school final exams, it lives on in a theatrical adaptation by Milan Lasica and Július Satinský. Their play Our Friend René (Náš priateľ René), written in 1980, was also banned by communist censors shortly before its premiere and could only be performed after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Today, it is successfully staged at the Štúdio L+S Theatre by actors Lukáš Latinák and Juraj Kemka.
Barbora Tancerová