Novel
Reštavrácia
Not translated into English
Ján Kalinčiak · 1860
Synopsis
An election of county officials, the “restoration”, provides the setting for an ironic portrait of the Slovak lesser nobility at the hour of its decomposition. The narrative is based on the electoral campaigns of 1845 and 1846 in the county of Turiec, and its characters are built on real people; it even shows peasants hired for the occasion preventing groups of gentlemen from voting.
Context
The narrative appeared in 1860 and remains its author's most widely read and most successful prose work; he had begun in the Romantic vein and was regarded as a sharp critic. Long held to be a transitional work, with realist elements, it is placed by recent research on the side of Romanticism. A study published in 2022 in Slovenská literatúra traces its historical models, and Andrej Mráz, in his monograph of 1936, was already trying to clear the author of the charge of Hungarist ideology.
Who it is for
A satirical and humorous narrative, which can be read without knowing anything about the old county elections.
Prizes and reception
His best-known book, in which the Store norske leksikon sees the announcement of realism in Slovak letters.