Dana Hučková
Functions and forms of pseudonyms in Slovak literature at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries
The pseudonyms of Slovak authors writing at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries were influenced not only by aesthetic criteria but also by the specific historical and developmental nature of national life and national culture. In addition to artistic motivation, primarily associated with the individualization of the authorial gesture, this was formed to a considerable extent by the political, ideological, national and other social problems of the era (Magyarization pressure, creation of the national identity, women's emancipation, secularization and the like). Usage of false names as a cover for fear of political persecution was predominant from as early as the 1850s, being directly associated with the political conditions at the time and the ever increasing Magyarization pressure exerted by the Hungarian state authorities, although psychological complexes, the nature and intention of the work, the family aspect and other elements also played their part. Perception of pseudonyms as the expression of an artistic approach was bolstered in the work of authors classified as Slovak Modernist, whose ambition it was to find themselves a corresponding means of expression for viewing subjective but basically universal human problems through the prism of heightened sensibility and a cultivated mood. One of the phenomena involved in this intraliterary regroupment of values was the associated liberation from the straightjacket of the image of the poet as a national bard and the presentation of oneself in all intimity as a member of civil society. Concealment of authors' identity by means of a pseudonym was part of the modernist mystification cult: artistic work for the modernists was such an intimate affair that use of a pseudonym actually came to be the rule.
pseudonyms – Slovak literature – 19th century
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