Book launch: Jozef Ignác Bajza, René, or: A Young Man’s Adventures and Experiences (LUP 2025)

26/06/2025, 5:00 pm

The Embassy of the Slovak Republic in London is hosting the launch of the book

Jozef Ignác Bajza, René, or: A Young Man’s Adventures and Experiences

An edition with commentary of the first Slovak novel

Edited by Dobrota Pucherová and Erika Brtáňová

Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, April 2025

26 JUNE 2025

PLEASE RSVP TO: EMB.LONDON@MZV.SKBY

This first translation into another language of the first Slovak novel (1784-85) – the first in a minor language published within the Habsburg Monarchy – sheds new light on the variations of the Enlightenment Bildungsroman and suggests directions towards a more inclusive history of the European novel.

The book opens a window onto the process of self-definition of the smaller nations in eighteenth-century Habsburg Monarchy that were triply disadvantaged by their small languages, economic underdevelopment and cultural domination by other nations. It Identifies the sources of intellectual energy that would lead to movements of cultural and political nationalism in this region later in the nineteenth century.

The editors:

Dobrota Pucherová is Senior Researcher at the Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, and Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Vienna. Her research spans African and Central European literatures, especially from the perspectives of feminism, postcolonialism, postcommunism, transculturalism and world literature.

Erika Brtáňová is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Slovak Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, and Associate Professor in the Department of Education at Comenius University in Bratislava. Her research focuses on early modern Slovak literature, especially theological and religious-didactic genres.

DATE: 26 JUNE 2025 – THURSDAY

PLEASE RSVP TO: EMB.LONDON@MZV.SKBY

BY 23 JUNE 2025