In 1905 at the time the young Slovak, Ján Lajiak, returned from his studies in Erlangen, Berlin, Leipzig and Paris, Slovakia was going through fundamental changes regarding its culture.
THE NATIONAL REVIVAL MOVEMENT
The large and decisive group of Slovak nationalists, the so-called "national group" in Turiansky Svätý Martin, reflected traces of the Romantic, marked by a shift towards realism. According to their concept, culture essentially merged with intellectual work, or, to be more precise, with literature, poetry and educational activities of a nation-preserving character. Cultural production was understood, theoretically, as the product of the objectifying activity of the Slovak national spirit, the articulation of its specific archetypal creativity. This conception was elaborated by the representative of the Romantic generation, udovít túr, who began from a general definition of art based on the philosophy of the spirit: "Art is the representation of spirit in an object in matter. The materials in which spirit is represented are various, and the manner of materialization varies accordingly."
This was influenced by Herder's praise of Slavonic folk literature and the beauty of the Slavonic languages. A central role of the Slovak language became the defence of the Slovak National Revival, reinforced by the theme of individualization introduced by túr and his followers. The Slovak revivalist thinkers developed the conviction that word and language are the basic form given to material in Slavonic art. Logically, they concluded that the main art representing the Slovak spirit is literature and poetry. These art forms were not understood as narrow genres, but as a whole complex of reflexively creative expressions in which the Slovak national spirit elaborated its creations on the basis of the needs of the objective reality of the life of the Slovak nation.
In the broad spectrum of possibilities offered by túr's definition of art as "the embrace of spirit and objectivity", the spiritual cultural production of the Slovak Romantic generation represented also the high point of the revolutionary national democratic movement before the revolution of 1848-1849. This took various concrete forms: in the celebration of the Slovak national past; in the theoretical working out of arguments for the national distinctiveness of Slovaks and their language within the body of Slavonic nations; in the defence of the Slovak struggle for their national rights as well as civil and social freedom from Hungary; in sensitive poetic fables and in elegizing the Slovak character (Andrej Sládkovi, Ján Botto); in the heroic, tragic and satirical shaping of the individual lot of the Slovak people against the background world drama (Samo Chalupka, Janko Krá); and in emphasizing the ideals of good, beauty and humanity by which the Slovak nation is to obtain the right to enter among the culture-forming nations in Europe, and to move forward in the process of the humanization of mankind (. túr, M.M. Hoda, J.M. Hurban, et al.).
This generation did not explicitly raise the questions of cultural theory. For them, spiritual culture emerged as a problem in the philosophy of art and history; thematically, it served the ideas solicited by the national life of the Slovaks. The general attitude toward the sense of mission of a creative work was imbued with the historical optimism of the members of a nation that was just finding its "ego" and which, with Herder, believed it was finding its place in history through the authenticity of its art and culture. In this historically decisive stage of the Slovak national development (i.e., during its modern revival), an imposing cultural "reality" was formed, namely, Slovak national poetry, literature and a democratic-humanitarian conception of life.
After the failure of the revolution of 1848-1849, in the Austrian monarchy there was no improvement in the freedom of the oppressed nations. The limits of optimism and of trust appeared in the rationality of túr's philosophical-historical postulates regarding the legal succession of the "Slavonic epoch" and "Slavonic spiritual-cultural principles".
After túr, his partisans and followers continued to constitute the main current of thought; their conception of future national development perdured, as well. Their messianic expectation of the deliverance of the Slovak nation by Slavonic Russia worked in an especially conservative manner. The revival of cultural activity at the time of the memorandum of the Slovak nation (1861) and the foundation of Matica Slovenská (1863), were central to the philosophical ideals of the túrian group in the field of adult education and the creation or expansion of literacy. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the situation of Slovaks worsened rapidly in politics, culture and society. The antinational Magyarization efforts and the official denial of the existence of the Slovak nation in Hungary constituted a serious menace to the results already attained by the Slovak national movement. At the same time, there appeared serious social contradictions in the national organism, combined with the development of capitalism which, from a certain point of view, changed the idealized image of the unity of interests in the national community. The disintegrating Hegelianism was no longer strong enough to resolve the whole network of issues which this situation introduced and it became necessary to analyze these by new methods. These contrasted with the overriding task of the túr group to awake the nation and form its consciousness by means of a great and noble philosophy. Literature began again to delineate culture, for it provided a more realistic aesthetic and stylistic form for national life, but its first task was the ideological defence of the national idea. Sv. Hurban Vajanský, who upheld ideas regarding national representation, claimed, "From the whole of public life nearly nothing remained to use except the language and temple of literature. The Slovak idea took refuge there under the aegis of the muse."
JÁN LAJIAK
Since the end of the nineteenth century, in reaction to rapidly changing cultural patterns and conceptions in European countries, cultural conservatism, along with rejection of new ideas and of the more liberal movements in spiritual life, began to appear in Slovakia.
It was more than evident that a new generation was emerging in the field of cultural ideas and taking a leading social and national role. In 1898, the first issue of Hlas was published, in which appeared the opposition national group's first echo of positivist scientific efforts in Slovak culture. The "Hlas Group", called after the name of the journal, associated themselves theoretically and philosophically with the realism of the Czech professor, T.G. Masaryk, and his idea of the need of a fresh spiritual and cultural revival of the Slovak nation. Hlas members (V. robár, P. Blaho, A. tefánek, N. Hoda, etc.) no longer considered the nation to be a homogeneous cultural and social body, but approached it as a social organism divided by interests and functions. It was an organism which, in functioning as a national entity, needed an adequate knowledge of its different social activities, ranging from small work and contemporary social and political issues to the highest problems of religious life, culture and science. Their criticism of the traditional conservative cultural position, aimed at the "national group", did not mean national indifference. Their teacher, Masaryk, in his struggle with the formal patriotism of the Old Czechs returned in his philosophy to the core of the national revival. Analogically, the Hlas group tried to connect Slovakia with fresh and inspiring ideas and aimed at national revival on the basis of modern ideology.
Ján Lajiak joined this dispute about culture on the side of the Hlas group. In his work, Slovakia and Culture, he identified this dispute as a struggle of "conservatism and modernism". By modernism he meant a demythologization of the nation and the literature about it. By culture he meant the real needs of Slovak life which are not deduced from the phantasies of the spirit but rather are empirically induced by scientific activity. Compared with the Hlas group, who studied these scientific cultural topics rather sporadically and who were influenced by Masaryk, he himself had systematic research interests in this sphere, intricately programmed, following several European trends.
At the time of his studies in Germany and France, there were interesting interdisciplinary confrontations in the field of sociology, historical philosophy and cultural history. These were, especially, the work of several "heirs" of Comte and Spencer, who employed a post-classical anti-Hegelian historical philosophy perfected by modern empirical study of culture and its history. In addition to Spencer, thinkers from whom Lajiak benefitted most in working out his theoretical basis were H. Aine, E. Renan, L. Gumplowicz, T. Linder and K. Lamprecht. Their opinions appear in his work as the inspiration and methodological support for otherwise independent and original study. Slovakia and Culture is the first analysis of the relationship of the Slovak nation and its culture without nationalist pathos. Its intention is to contribute to the confirmation of the specific national, political, cultural and social character by scientific study of their existential manifestations. The objective and systematic character of Lajiak's critical analysis consists in a matter-of-fact analytic language describing inductively and, as if from a "doctor's" distance, the state of affairs of cultural life in Slovakia and its anamnesis. However, this does not result in a neutral relationship to the Slovak nation and its culture. He shows the Slovak nation to be a complex social organism and with new facts wants to provide a tool to reorder its cultural consciousness in order that it be broader, more profound and more realistic. Moreover, he wished to inspire new cultural activities. In his view, their absence rendered Slovak culture inferior on a world plane and the Slovak nation weaker as a political subject.
EVOLUTION AND CULTURE
The axiomatic starting point, which provides the foundation for Lajiak's scientific effort, contains two essential moments: an explanation and strong support for the principle of evaluation and a clarification of the notion of "culture". "My firm foundation is evolutionism", he claims at the beginning. He uses this principle most frequently in the sense of Spencer's socially determined concept of development. This is important for the notion of culture, which he considers not to be a stable phenomenon, not even in a relatively constant entity such as a nation. It is not possible to formulate an absolutely isomorphic definition or define its fixed signs. As for its genesis in general, Lajiak asserts that it appears as the result of natural developmental needs of the human race at a stage when people have lost their primary link to nature and replaced their limited instinctive utilitarian life circle by communities integrated by conscious social, political and cultural organization.
Hence, the more complicated the structure of the social organization, the more differentiated the life needs which appeared. As can be proved by ethnographic research on nations at the lowest stage of development, as well as on those with advanced cultures that have not constituted a state, cultural needs count as basic needs. Following German culture specialists (Lindner and Lamprecht), Lajiak considers these to be the most dynamic elements for social development. However, these needs cannot become the driving force of society until they reach the level of idea, i.e., until they are formulated ideologically. It follows that there is a greater variety of ideas where everyday social activity is livelier, that is, in spheres of individual and collective interest and where, by harmonizing needs and ideas, a lively system of culture is constituted.
By the notion of culture Lajiak intends to make, following Lamprecht's views, a synthesis and a hierarchy of all aspects of the national social life and to defend the inner developmental unity of its groups of vested interests, classes and historical existence. "Culture is the content of human life and creating it is the task of an individual as well as of the whole nation." "All our striving, struggles and sufferings are nothing but a cultural struggle." Lajiak did not strictly divide civilization and culture, nor spiritual and material culture, seeing them as almost always complementary in the global cultural system of certain nations. What he emphasized is the qualitative difference in the ability of individual nations to create culture, which he thought could be proven by scientific, empirical and sociological methods.
By referring to a single evolutionary law, Lajiak identifies culture as
an historically developing system in which, on the basis of impulses from
the sphere of social needs, is initiated the creative cultivating activity or
"cultural energy" of a given social group, nation, or particular individuals.
According to the importance of the ideas with which they correspond, he
lists the manifestations that can be included in the notion "culture". This
was quite new in Slovakia. He is not satisfied with the analysis of traditional
cultural spheres--literature, religion, history. Rather he starts with the ideas
which prevail in Slovakia, shows how they are important for Slovakia, and
considers whether, on their basis, Slovak culture can be considered a
specific phenomenon of the human spirit. He attempts to explain why there
is such invariability of ideas, who creates them, and what impact they have
upon the everyday conduct of the national masses, their leaders and their
circumstances--civil, family, ethical, sexual and philosophical. In a word, he
studies the field of cultural ideas through the prism of all the criteria
articulated in the contemporary sociological and psychological European
research.
CRITIQUE OF CONSERVATISM
When analyzing individual aspects of Slovak cultural life, his evolutionary point of view appears in his criticism of ideological conservatism, especially the narrow nationalistic and clerical type which he calls Slovak orthodoxy. In this respect, he argues that both these directions distract attention from focal, social and civic issues, as well as those of a philosophical and emancipating nature, namely, democratism and socialism that point inevitably to a new type of culture. The Slovak nation can assert itself in future struggles on the sole condition that it enter its history with more self-confidence and aspire to the task of becoming a serious factor in the history of the nations. State and political independence is, in his opinion, a powerful factor of cultural development, but it is not an inevitable condition. In considering what gives nations the strength to develop their individuality he considers not only their inner spiritual dynamism, but the new ideas they learn and the general development into which these are incorporated.
As has been mentioned, Lajiak sees ideas as "thoughts of the recognized needs of an individual, or a collective mass rooted in certain social conditions". Therefore they are relative and must meet the development and the requirements of new social practice. Cultural ideas both reflect this evolutionary movement and anticipate it. When living conditions fossilize and the social milieu moves in the circles of old needs, culture stagnates and becomes traditional. Studying Slovak cultural ideas, Lajiak reached the disappointing conclusion that in Slovakia since the time of J. Kollár the central position has been held mainly by certain unchanging specific ideas which absorbed all cultural activities, i.e., the idea of Slavism or the Slavonic world, the idea of the nation or Slovakia as a specific and particular unit, and the idea of the language or the struggle for the Slovak language. Lajiak considers this priority to be ideologically justifiable considering the time of their origin and, in part, the constantly persevering threat to which the nation and the language were exposed. However, none of these ideas--not even the defence of the nation and the language--can be a sufficient goal for the meaning of life and the culture of a nation. Such a goal can be seen only in the creation of culture in a specifically human sense. "Not language, but culture, should be the slogan of the struggle of the Slovak nation for its existence." Language is an element, a serious part of culture, but on its own it cannot defend itself, for even a Hungarian governmental newspaper could be carrying out an anti-Slovak campaign in perfect Slovak. Only culture can prevent the disappearance of the nation and language; only culture can shape the facts that characterize a nation in its complexity and give it a characteristic value, individuality and civil political status.
Lajiak reproaches the conservative leaders of the nation for a "false" concept of culture, its reduction to individual elements and to specific features that narrow the field of cultural activity and isolate Slovakia from the flow of fresh ideological movements. Especially on the basis of difficult material conditions and the unfavorable political situation in Slovakia, they conclude to a one-way causal nexus on what to do and how to proceed in matters of national salvation, without admitting other possibilities. They operate with the proverbial poverty of the nation, but they have not developed "scientific expertise" regarding its actual state-of-affairs.
Drawing upon Gumplowicz and Spencer in analyzing sociologically the existential and cultural morphology of Slovakia, he is rather ambivalent as to the fainthearted cliche regarding its insignificance and poverty which echoes until today. He does not deny that the most obvious, significant negative sources of the majority of its deformations, life frustrations and cultural backwardness are its economic and social conditions or, to put it simply, Slovak poverty. He shows this through examples of the way of life and methods of work of Slovak peasants and workers: their minimal labour productivity, the phenomena of "alcoholism and emigration, the capability of quick national assimilation" of the Slovak population, the prevalence of instinct and impulse and the lack of stable rational conduct and behavior, the moral weakness and lower values, the consciousness formulated mainly by the conservative theological attitudes of the Slovak people, the typology of the Slovak intelligentsia as sincere, hardworking patriots, honeyed nationalists, figures twisting according to advantage, etc.
On the other hand, as a theoretician involved in the study of Spencer's theory that ability to control the social world is connected with the subjective quality of acting individuals, he puts the weight of responsibility on the subjective factor. He claims that the capability of a nation to create culture is causally dependent, not only on objectively determining circumstances, but also on the inner mental strength or "moral energy" that irresistibly drives an individual, as well as the mass of the nation, to implementing cultural ideals. In individual cases, it is possible that unfavorable conditions and obstacles can be the cause of "forced" cultural activity, observed not only with talented individuals but also in the cultural upsurge of the mass of the nation.
Naturally, a small nation whose cultural energy and inner moral strength is not sufficiently developed, as in the case of the Slovak nation, can hardly find within itself such a creative source without catching up and assimilating the ideas that make a nation active, self-assertive and self-confident. As an evolutionist, this seems to Lajiak to be possible only by Slovakia opening its gates to modern cultural and scientific streams of thought and accepting them. In this point, we come across the above mentioned allusion that, although Slovaks lacked the state independence which is a powerful factor of cultural development, that is not an indispensable condition.
In modern life, which moves forward so quickly, Slovaks must avoid wasting precious time; this is a conditio sine qua non of cultural development. In Lajiak's opinion the persistence of traditional weeping over the Slovak misery, searching for its causes in external factors or foreign enemies, criminally enhances the Slovak deficits. The truth is that we cannot even analyze this misery in its naked truth, but only in half-truths dressed in the beauty of folk embroidery and folk songs, i.e., by idealizing it. This "idealization" of the nation's misery is the greatest danger, because it contributes to its conservation.
CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
With a socially evolutionary and differentiating analytical methodology, Lajiak's view acquired another significant feature: the ability to see the national organism in individualized and pluralized configurative relationships. Thus, in his work the needs and their corresponding ideas are studied, not only in their different stages of development, but also in view of their different degrees of social and cultural significance, generality and profundity (i.e., on the axes of conservatism versus progress, basic versus partial features, truthfulness versus fantasizing). What then are the positive and negative criteria, if it is true that they are socially conditioned and, therefore, qualified by their surroundings? On this issue, Lajiak draws upon all the theoretical resources of the evolutionist idea of the temporal coincidence of cultural ideas with the most central needs of a social organism or given group. What or who guarantees that it is a correctly recognized need or a developmental goal? In Lajiak's view it is clearly science--positive, empirical, inductive science.
Within this problem, the author developed yet another topic often discussed in contemporary sociology and philosophy of history: the relationship between the individual and the collective in the creation of culture and knowledge. Lajiak rejects Gumplowicz's extremely collectivist opinion that, on the basis of his interests, an individual associates himself with a certain group, collective or mass and no longer thinks for himself, but rather lets this be done for him by the "social community he belongs to, the social element he originates from, or the social atmosphere he breathes." In Lajiak's opinion, the mass cannot be the author of ideas; this is always done by individuals, subjects capable of, and prepared for, the objective tasks of perception and understanding. Nevertheless, ideas themselves are abstractions of a collective, social experience, because individual psychological development is anchored in the needs of a wide, collective environment and, as such, has cognitive aims convergent with its group, nation or mass.
Thus, the relationships of individual versus mass are often composed of many contradictory layers. For example, the masses often determine the acceptance or refusal of ideas. They are indifferent to many ideas which evidently are in harmony with their general needs (such as in Slovakia the idea of evolution, a free political system, democracy, parliamentarianism, social emancipation). They do not feel the need for them because their consciousness is inert to new ideas. On the other hand, they easily accept others (e.g., religious sectarianism, nihilism, passivism, light-heartedness, and Oblomov-like attitudes) because they are convergent with the structure of ideas fixed in their consciousness.
Very interesting and related to the most painful spot in Slovak life and culture is Lajiak's criticism of clericalism, i.e., the orthodoxism which he considers the enemy of all free thought. This applies to both Catholic and Protestant orthodoxy, both to individuals and the masses, because we are dealing here with a single common source that Lajiak considers to be the greatest ideological enemy of Slovakia. From the philosophical point of view, he identifies it as a theistic, theological and historical opinion.
According to this theory everything in the world should serve God's glory. Everything that can be related to this idea is historically justifiable; that which cannot be brought into harmony with it, is not. This standpoint must not be too assertive, because then man becomes a mere figment. The contemporary, objective historian does not trust this view, and it has no significance for the historical development of science.
Lajiak asserts, with a large amount of pessimism, that this view, which has been shaping the Slovak consciousness for centuries, "has entered their blood and their way of thinking." In his opinion, it is the source of the ideological passivity, fatalism, and insufficient individual and human self-awakening of the Slovak people, including its "lack of a sense of political action." In his opinion, Slovaks, as individuals, do not think freely because they are not led to think independently, to take up an active political struggle or scientific argumentation. Moreover, science often is presented as something quite alien and dangerous to the Slovak spirit, formed mainly by the orthodox theological view of the world. According to positivist and evolutionist Ján Lajiak--who was also a Protestant theologian and liberal--one brought up in this way is not fully developed; he can be manipulated, held by prejudices, and deprived of the happiness and difficulties of the natural struggle for his own life, whose creator he is.
Nonetheless, in his sociological studies, Lajiak did not come to the conclusion that the Slovak nation is culturally inferior as regards its wealth of personality, talents, gifts, bright minds, inventiveness, and its natural tendency to art, beauty and hard work. He sees in these potential values a rich source of cultural energy. In this respect, it is necessary to break the invariability of the system of ideas, the inertness to new ways of thinking, in other words, to give a scientific reason for the needs and ideas that are found in weak traces in the nation. The Slovak people, even when thought of as a mass, are not an amorphous body, a quantity without quality. As a quantitative factor the mass has some significance as a background for the genuine development of the nation. In the qualitative sense, Lajiak suggests that the mass be considered as a summary of "various elements and psychological individualities" capable of integration and of being merged into various groups according to interests and social roles. This produces undiscovered talents and so-called "strong individuals" who emerge generally from the masses thanks to their qualitative plasticity.
POSITIVISM AND PROGRESS
Lajiak's work, Slovakia and Culture, is, undoubtedly, an outspoken ideological manifestation of Slovakia for the beginning of the twentieth century. It grew out of the converging trends of the first phase of European positivism and the consequences of evolutionary theory for sociology, cultural philosophy and the humanities in general. He wanted to use the impulses provided by these trends in Slovakia, as . túr once used Hegelianism to encourage a lively national democratism and spiritual awakening of the Slovak nation. However, where túr's heritage was taken up mainly by literature, Lajiak showed the weakness of Slovak literary writing and publication in failing to uplift the spirit and in narrowing itself to attempts mere at fiction. In and through the field of literature other layers of spiritual efforts and discoveries, such as philosophy and science, were not evolved. Such activities require a "total involvement in the process of discovering the laws, phenomena and universals which require a systematic and highly controlled approach."
Enthusiasm for the great success of the natural sciences led Lajiak to the conviction that social science will follow suit. "Science is learning about the essence of matter; this is significant not only for natural sciences, but also for the humanities". Science, like philosophy, is the climax of cultural development; it is the highest ethical and sacred duty of man, and a prerequisite for the improvement of his social and moral life. As a positivist and evolutionist, he sees the increasing poetic value of science in the process of making it more exact, in abandoning metaphysics for ever more verifiable evidence and experiments. (Thus, for example, Wolff's psychology, working with metaphysical notions, has a lower cognitive value than the modern psychology of Wundt, etc.)
In the positivist spirit, Lajiak defines the method of philosophy as "a discipline generalizing and unifying the knowledge of individual branches of science. Therefore, in scientific evolution, philosophy takes the highest rank, and the degree of respect for philosophical issues within a national community is decisive."
Lajiak's pessimism has its origins in the fact that he could not foresee in the near future scientific philosophical development in Slovakia. His opinion was justified by his own destiny in the national community and the sociological parcours that confirmed the great constancy of the ideological state-of-affairs in Slovakia. However, there were other phenomena: the highly appreciated women writers: T. Vansová, E.M. oltésová, L. Podjavorinská, Timrava, H. Gregorová, H. Turcerová, M. Horváthová; the signs of modern political, social and economic vision in the Hlas and Prúd movements; the gradual transformations in the social situation in Slovakia; these he interpreted in an Heraclitean manner as indicating that Slovaks will cease to forever enter the same river. In the end, evolution lends great significance to chance, which brings qualitatively new stages of development.
SUMMARY
1. The issue of cultural development and the theoretical concepts reflecting the general characteristics of culture and its importance in national life have not been studied in a sophisticated manner in Slovakia. The reason for this situation is connected, in Lajiak's opinion, on the one hand, with the historic and political destiny of the Slovaks as a non-independent nation and, on the other hand, with the invariability of the cultural and spiritual ideas fixed in its life forms.
2. The introduction mentioned túr's concept of national revival as an example of gradual cultural fossilization caused by unchanging ideas that became a hindrance to the appearance of new cultural horizons. The highly dynamic factor of the Slovak national life before the 1848 Revolution (although theoretically a romantic, speculative concept) had turned into a conservative, stubborn, self-sufficient system in the course of changing social and spiritual needs.
3. The core of the present study is an analysis of J. Lajiak's work in the spirit of the modern evolutionary social and philosophic concepts and methods of Spencer, Taine, Renan, Gumplowicz, Lindner and Lamprecht. This taught that a new upsurge of national life depends upon the acceptance of fresh cultural ideas corresponding to the needs of the developing national organism as a socially differentiated and pluralist civil unity. The Slovak nation, like any other nation in the world, cannot move forward as long as it is trapped in the circle of its specific invariable ideas concerning nation and language. Progress can be achieved only by creating culture in a specifically human sense.
Lajiak investigates individual forms of Slovak life and draws out the essential ideas from the everyday life of the masses, as well as from the highest religious, artistic, philosophical and scientific dimensions. His criticism of Slovak conservatism was unacceptable in official circles and restricted his appearance in public.
The Institute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences,
Bratislava
1. Ján Lajiak, born July 25, 1875 in Pribylina, died October 28, 1918 in Vyná Boca; a significant Slovak scholar, orientalist-philologist and historian; translator from the Greek and Hebrew languages; by profession a Protestant parson. He obtained his doctorate of philosophy in Leigpzig in 1902, for the work "Terminations of the Plural and Dual in Semitic Names". Its significance is emphasized in one of the most known works on comparative Semitic linguistics, Brockelmann's Vergleichende Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen. Comp. S.S. Osuský in: J. Lajiak, Slovensko a Kultúra (Slovakia and Culture), (Myjava, 1921), pp. 12-13. Similarly French critics appraised Lajiak's Paris dissertation, Ezekiel, His Time and Learning, as an original work dealing with the theme against the background of the socio-historical and ideological cultural developmental situation of ancient Israel. He obtained a doctorate in theology for this work, which was published in Paris in 1905.
In Slovakia, Lajiak's evolutionary critical method of cultural phenomena was not received with understanding. He died nearly forgotten, leaving an excellent library and manuscripts from which Slovensko a Kultúra was published after his death.
2. udovít túr, O národných piesniach a povestiach slovanských plemien (Folk Songs and Tales of Slavonic Origin) published in Czech (Prague, 1853), p.7.
3. Andrej Sládkovi, Ján Botto, Samo Chalupka, Janko Krá were the most significant Slovak Romantic poets of the túr era and founders of Slovak poetry in the mother tongue (modified in 1843). Each accomplished in a different way túr's ideal of the Slovak poet.
4. Triad of the most significant personalities-thinkers in the era of the formation of national ideology, political program and conception of culture and art between 1838-1889. For túr, see other texts and notes, J.M. Hurban (1817-1838), moving spirit of the struggle for the literary Slovak language and organizer of Slovak insurrections in 1848-1849; in his young years he was a follower more of Fichte than of Hegel, with a stress on the active will in the Slovak movement; later a militant patriot-nationalist, Slavophil and defender of the Slovaks against Magyarization. M. Miloslav Hoda (1811-1870), thinker-messianist with an inclination to Schelling's religious accentuation of the resolution of life and national problems; author of the apocalyptic poems with a symbolic hue: "Matora" and "Vieroslavin".
5. Svetozár Hurban Vajanský, Collected Works, I, Introduction (Turiansky Svätý Martin, 1907). The quotation shows how half a century later, túr's conception of Slovak culture (language, literature) was repeated in a quite different situation by Vajanský.
6. Hlas, a monthly for literature, politics and social questions published by the new realist movement in opposition to the old "national school", 1898-1905. Its first editor was Pavel Blaho in Skalica, later Vavro robár in Ruomberok. Both manifest the common characteristics of the Hlasists.
7. Ján Lajiak, Slovensko a kultúre (Bratislava, 1957), pp. 28, 47-48.
8. Ibid., p. 19.
9. Ibid., pp. 12, 29.
10. Ibid., p. 26.
11. Ibid., pp. 21, 29.
12. Ibid., p. 30.
13. Ibid., p. 34.
14. Ibid., p. 33.
15. Ibid., p. 35.
16. Ibid., p. 159.
17. Ibid., pp. 71, 79.
18. Ibid., p., 25.
19. Ibid., p. 25.
20. Ibid., p. 160.
21. Ibid., p. 166.