Faraway from Košice. The cultural life of Bratislava in the 1930s

17.11, Thursday, 18.00 THE RAVENS HALL
Faraway from Košice. The cultural life of Bratislava in the 1930s 

The lecture is a part of the series “Art in Slovakia in the interwar period,” an event related with “Košice Modernism” exhibition 

In the 1930s, Bratislava lived a double cultural life. On the one hand, it was a city of innovative artistic solutions, on the other, an important centre of traditionally understood “Slovakness.” The lecture will address selected centres of artistic life of Bratislava and characterise local art circles, focusing on the visual arts and literature. It will also address the approach of Slovak students from Prague, who treated what was happening within the circles in Bratislava with open detachment. Finally, it will define the place of Bratislava on the cultural map of Slovakia, which was significantly different from the position of Košice in interwar Czechoslovakia.

Magdalena Bystrzak (1986) – graduate of doctoral studies at the Department of Central European Studies at Charles University in Prague, a graduate of Slavonic Studies at the Jagiellonian University (full programme of Slovak Studies and partial programme of Czech Studies, specialization: literary studies). She published her texts and translations in Polish, Slovak, and Czech magazines (including Slovenská literatúra, Pravda, Plav, Romboid, Rita Baum, Herito, OS – Forum občianskej spoločnosti). Together with Tomasz Grabiński she translated a selection of essays by Rudolf Chmel titled Kompleks słowacki (2014, MCK). She lives in Bratislava.