The literary work of the Štúrite generation had two developmental focal points. The first was in the 40s, the second in the 60s. In between there was a period of "drought and silence" (Jaroslav Vlček) reeling from the lost revolution, and subsequently Bach's absolutism. A. Bach was Austrian home secretary in 1849 - 1859 and gained absolute power; he used it to totally centralise the state. The constitution of 1849, which guaranteed equality of nationalities, became invalid; periodicals, newspapers and societal activities came under police surveillance; large deposits were required for the publication of newspapers, etc. All of this paralysed both public and cultural life. Newspapers and periodicals were again replaced by almanacs (Nitra, Concordia, Lipa). Slovak periodicals started to appear as late as the beginning of the 60s (Pešťbudínske vedomosti - Budapest News), which was later changed to Národnie noviny (National News)). For a long time after the revolution Slovaks could not decide on a uniform spelling (some used Štúrite phonetic spelling, others Hodža and Hattala's etymological spelling); an agreement was only reached in 1852. In addition Ján Kollár published the governmental Slovenské noviny (Slovak News, through which Vienna wanted to exert its political influence over individual nationalities) in slovakised Czech in Vienna. All official documents for Slovaks were also printed in this language. The situation only returned to normal (pre-revolutionary) in 1860, when absolute centralism stopped. Slovaks took advantage of this and again came forward with their national demands. They formulated them in Memorandum národa slovenského (Memorandum of the Slovak People), which representatives of the nation presented to the Hungarian parliament in Pest in 1861. It again concerned recognition of the Slovak nation, its equality in law with the other nations in Hungary, the right to use the Slovak language in public life and in schools. Inter alia, Slovaks used this argument: "No nation has surpassed our brothers the Magyars in love and jealous adherence to its language and nationality. And did the creator of the world make our hearts and minds according to different rules to the hearts and minds of Magyars? What hurts them hurts us too, what is precious to them is precious to us too, and our most beautiful, most melodious language is precisely that which is dear and priceless to us too, it is the only means of national education to us too, it is the image of our spiritual world to us too, and we feel as well as Magyars that the spirit of freedom and patriotic ardour appearing to us in our language penetrates and nourishes our stomachs in a magical way, while against it the same spirit, the same ardour in a language not our own, coming to us in foreign vestments, not ours, seems foreign to us." The new demand was that on the territories where Slovaks lived an administrative unit called Okolie be established, on which the rights of the Slovak nation would be applied in line with the memorandum's demands. It was a shy attempt at partial autonomy within Hungary, but not even this was ever realised.
           But with Vienna's blessing Slovaks managed to establish a nation-wide cultural society, Matica slovenská (1863), and found three secondary schools (gymnasia) with Slovak as the language of instruction (in Martin, Kláštor pod Znievom and Revúca). These institutions, of which Matica slovenská also fulfilled demanding academic research tasks and set itself numerous cultural.popularisation goals, lasted only a decade. After the Austro-Hungarian Ausgleich (1867) the Hungarian government closed them down one by one. A political movement Nová škola slovenská (New Slovak School) which wanted to turn Hungarian-Slovak antagonism into mutual cooperation and respect also ended without success. This movement tried to push Slovaks more towards Pest and away from Vienna. After the Ausgleich, the Magyars no longer wanted to discuss co-operation between equals. Twenty years after their lost revolution, almost everything that they had tried to attain was granted to them. And not only that: they received a free hand over the whole territory of Hungary, which they used to restrict or suppress the demands of individual nationalities. Within Hungary, in which Slovaks, Romanians, Croatians, Serbs, Ukrainians and others found themselves, the Magyars were in the minority. Magyar politicians decided to change this situation. With the help of adopted laws, of which the harshest were the so-called school laws, general magyarisation started, which continued until the end of the first world war and fall of Austro-Hungary.
           In the matica period Slovak cultural life gathered speed. Literature grew in quantity, but there was no notable improvement in quality (if we do not count the contribution of the original Štúrite generation). Romanticism died out and this meant that everything that had been expressed before was repeated on a lower level. Authors became epigones of great Štúrite ideals. Publicism, didacticism and shallow popularity entered works of literature. Instead of artistic value, authors concentrated on using a variety of genres; they all wrote and published poems, articles, stories, humoresques, historical novels, and so on. On the whole - and this can been seen as positive - they historicised less; there was a turn away from historical themes and an inclination towards the present. However, there were exceptions. Member of the Štúrite generation Jonáš Záborský (1812 - 1876), more a classicist than romantic in poetry, wrote a whole series of dramas from Russian, Serbian and Slovak-Hungarian history. His best work includes the religious epos Vstúpenie Krista do Raja (Christ's Entry into Paradise, 1863), where he attempted his own concept of history and confronted it with the present. However, he received the greatest acclaim for his satires and parodies (Faustiáda, 1864) or realistic and critical stories set in the present (Dva dni v Chujave - Two days in Chujava, 1873). J. Záborský was an eternal discontent, had conflicts with Ľ. Štúr and other contemporaries and stubbornly enforced his conservative opinions on literature and society. Originally an evangelical pastor, he converted to Catholicism and later became a priest.
           Ľudovít Kubáni (1830 - 1869) achieved greater success in the historical genre with the novel Valghata (1872), set in the times of Jan Jiskra of Brandýs and Hunyady, in which he dipped into the topical Slovak-Czech-Magyar issue in the spirit of Nová škola slovenská, i.e. harmonious cohabitation and co-operation between Slovaks and Magyars. Viliam Pauliny-Tóth (1826 - 1877) painted a different picture in the historical novel Trenčiansky Matúš (Matúš of Trenčín, 1868), where he upheld the Štúrite concept of the Slovak nation's equal status in Hungary and resolving the issue through state law. But not even this work halted the lasting trend of literature towards the present. A good example of this is Viliam Pauliny-Tóth himself, the most productive writer of the matica years, a poet, prose writer, dramatist, publicist, and journalist who cultivated every genre and wrote numerous articles (often whole series) on the most varied themes.

Ján Palárik

           Slovak drama also developed in the matica period. Ján Palárik (1822 - 1870), co-founder of Nová škola slovenská and propagator of co-operation between Slovaks and Magyars, achieved the greatest success with his comedies. They were also based on the principle of co-operation and drawing together of opposing factors: Inkognito (Incognito, 1858), where even denationalised representatives of Slovak society go through positive development; Drotár (The Tinker, 1860), which is again about a representative of the people (tinker) and businessman becoming closer on the basis of patriotism. A similar conciliation of antagonistic parties also takes place in Palárik's third comedy Zmierenie alebo Dobrodružstvo pri obžinkoch (Conciliation or Adventure at the Harvest Festival, 1862). Palárik bases all his plays on the belief that a nation is a socially differentiated whole and individual sections must harmonise with each other. His view of society and the future is optimistic. In all of his plays, the author was inspired by foreign drama (Hungarian, French and Polish), although this was usual then, especially in the comedy genre.
           The trend towards the present also relates to the approach of literary language to everyday speech and distance from pathos and literary syntax to more natural linguistic expression. The romantic fable, based on passion and complicated plots, is also on the retreat. In literature, particularly prose, the factual publicist genre (travelogue, reportage, trait, articles) starts to be rife, and we arrive at humorist literature. The work of Gustáv Zechenter-Laskomerský (1824 - 1908) is typical from this point of view. He is an author of humoresques published in the first humorist periodical Černokňažník (1861), travel literature (he went to Constantinople and Rome as well as travelling around Slovakia), and the novella Lipovianska maša (Lipová Smith, 1874), in which realistic descriptions "fight" with romantic fable. His Vlastný životopis (Autobiography; it appeared in instalments between 1911 and 1915) is regarded as Laskomerský's most valuable work. It is not merely a biography and the genealogy of his family, but mainly describes social and cultural life in Slovakia from the 30s to the 80s. The author talks about individual events, facts and people with understanding, humour and accuracy, so the work does not just have a documentary value, but mediates artistic quality through its perceptive narrator.
           It was through these "side" roads that realism arrived in Slovak literature and was fully developed over the subsequent decades. It arrived without a manifesto but gradually became deeply rooted in the whole cultural sphere.