In 1882, Prague university was divided into Czech and German. The restoration of a Czech university meant an increased flow of Slovak students to Prague. The Slovaks the Hungarian government had banned from Hungarian schools for pan-Slavism also studied at Czech schools. In 1882, the Slovak association Detvan was established in Prague, and obviously the majority of its members were Slovak students. Many of them were already active writers (M. Kukučín, J. G. Tajovský) or the association's creative spirit - and Prague in general - encouraged them to write (Ladislav Nádaši Jégé, Vavro Šrobár, Ivan Krasko, Ondrej Kalina, Ján Smetanay, etc.). The literary work of individual members was read and assessed and literary issues discussed, including in a European context, at Detvan's meetings. In these discussions, the traditional orientation on Russian literature and Slav literature as a whole expanded to include western examples. For example E. Zola, whom Vajanský and his generation condemned so harshly, was discussed positively. L. N. Tolstoy after his "reversal" had a big influence on certain members of the association. Two of them, Dušan Makovický, future doctor to L. N. Tolstoy, and Albert Škarvan, also a doctor, became Tolstoy's followers for life; A. Škarvan, who in the spirit of Tolstoy rejected the morality of military service, ended up in prison; he published a testimony to this in the book Zápisky vojenského lekára (Records of a Military Doctor). But social issues gradually started to prevail in Detvan's discussions and other activities. Professor T. G. Masaryk had a great ideological influence on the young Prague students as both a politician and teacher. In discussions with Slovak students he pointed out the shortcomings of Slovak politics, then mainly personified by S. H. Vajanský, setting the political tone through his regular contributions to Národnie noviny. His criticism concerned Slovak politics' detachment from everyday life, general social passivity and messianistic hope in the saviour of Slovakia by tsarist Russia. Masaryk preferred small-scale everyday work among the people, placed emphasis on the economic improvement of the country and recommended relying on one's own strengths. Under Masaryk's influence, the ideological movement hlasism took shape, headed by Vavro Šrobár (1867 - 1950), then a student of medicine, publicist, writer, and an important Slovak politician after 1918. In the monthly Hlas (1898 - 1904), supporters of the movement openly criticised Martin politics and proposed their own alternative for further national and social development. Masaryk's idea of small-scale work and the moral and economic revival of Slovakia was at the centre of their agenda. The hlasists' initiative caused a serious rift between the youngsters and Martin political leaders, mainly Vajanský. The result of this rift between the "fathers" and "children" was a heated public exchange of opinions and it unquestionably also produced Vajanský's novel Kotlín, in which the author ironised and denounced the hlasists' concept not only as mistaken, but directly harmful to the Slovak nation. Vajanský was only right on one point. One product of the hlasist concept was so-called Czechoslovakism, or the idea of a Czechoslovak national and linguistic unit. In their attempt to tear Slovaks away from deadly Hungarian clutches, Šrobár and other supporters of the hlasist movement simply affiliated them with the Czechs. They again proposed what had lived in parts of society in previous centuries, but natural development had discarded as an artificial construction. It was too late to go back there and if it happened forcefully after 1918, it was condemned to fail beforehand. After the dissolution of Hlas, the periodical Prúdy (1909) interpreted the opinions of some of the young generation (including Czechoslovakism). The majority of this idea's supporters entered high level politics after the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic. The new state was meanwhile officially presented as a state of a single Czechoslovak nation.
           As for writers, the hlasists won almost no-one besides J. G. Tajovský over to their side. This was mainly because their concept of literature was too utilitarian and led straight to didacticism. The Tolstoyist Dušan Makovický, for example, who translated and published Tolstoy's works for the masses in Slovakia, was close to their concept. The hlasists' emphasis on the moral side of life (and the life of society) had one foot in Masaryk and the other in Tolstoy. The youngsters' literary opinions, focused around the periodical Prúdy, no longer just flirted with vernacularity and didacticism, because the body also accepted members of the Slovak modern movement. František Votruba (1880 - 1953), who professionally defended the poetry of the young generation - firstly in Zborník slovenskej mládeže (Anthology of Slovak Youth, 1909), then in Prúdy and rejected S. H. Vajanský's work as a matter of principle, was an interpreter of their literary opinions.
           The appearance of the hlasists (and prudists) signalled a change in the perception of the national issue in Slovakia. The young generation did not lose its national awareness, because the external conditions threatening the nation's existence still endured, but it refused to document it constantly in literature. The new feeling was therefore reflected in literature through a weakening of national-ideological elements, but also resignation about large ideological or creative concepts. For the young author, the main thing was no longer the nation or society, but the concrete person in definite circumstances, the individual, with all the attributes of the subjective experience of his own existence. In prose, the work of Timrava or J. G. Tajovský had broken away from the idealism of the founding generation of realists (Vajanský) and matured into true realism. In poetry, the young authors renounced the high pathos borne by the national and religious idea (Hviezdoslav) and focused on the expression of subjective emotions and internalisation. Real life, rather than a priori idealistic concepts, became a source of inspiration for prose. In Slovak prose there was also a unique attempt to expand the horizon of Timrava's and Tajovský's non-illusive realism to naturalism (young Ladislav Nádaši Jégé), but it did not continue in this direction (Nádaši partially until after 1918). In poetry, however, symbolism prevailed (Slovak modern), marked by the specifics of the Slovak environment.

Ivan Krasko

           The poet Ivan Krasko (1876 - 1958; real name Ing. Ján Botto) is undoubtedly a central figure of the Slovak modern movement. He went to secondary school in Sibiu and Brasov (Romania), where he learned about the poetry of M. Eminescu, which he also translated. He studied chemical engineering in Prague (he was an active member of Detvan) and worked at chemical plants in Bohemia. He published his first poem in Slovenské pohľady in the second half of the 90s under the nom de plume Janko Cigáň. Vajanský and his generation found the young poet too pessimistic and subjective. But ultimately Vajanský became the "godfather" of Krasko's first collection and recommended it to the Slovak reader in an attached introduction despite the fact that it contains "sad, partially desperate tones... until my old heart aches"; even the nom de plume Ivan Krasko came straight from Vajanský. Krasko published little. He is the author of two thin collections Nox et solitudo(Night and Solitude, 1909) and Verše (Verses, 1912). However, they represented a complete turn in the development of Slovak poetry and inspired poets for decades. I. Krasko admired P. O. Hviezdoslav's poetry and his beginnings show this, but his poetic sources were from elsewhere. In Bohemia, he learnt about the poetry of the symbolist generation (O. Březina, K. Hlaváček, A. Sova, P. Bezruč, etc.) and also read French symbolists in Czech translation. He creatively absorbed all of these stimuli, so his poetry is not "receptive", but very authentic. And its character? It is full of melancholic moods and nostalgia, unfulfilled expectations, guilt, loneliness, and the desire for real love and friendship. But it is not just about impressions. It is an expression of deep experience of the world and his personality coming to terms with his problems. Krasko's poems (and this also concerns other poets) is based on the unsolvable conflict between the ideal and reality, and their sadness erupts from this "until the heart aches". The word "late" is often repeated in them, which tragicises the poet's spiritual mood, gives it fatefulness, predestination. On the formal side, Krasko's poetry is characterised by extreme entrapment, often concealment, things are left unsaid, indefinite expressions (sometime, somewhere, etc.) are used. The images of night, twilight, mist, moonlight, rain, symbolising the internal situation of the subject, give rise to a strange, poetically unusual atmosphere, interpreting a feeling of resolution (even resignation) and at the same time incompletion, unnerving imperfection, amplifying feelings of desire which can not be realised. But not even I. Krasko avoided the theme which worried the generation before him, the theme of the national situation, national fate. In his second collection Verše, qualms, but also defiance and incitement to activity, resound in such poems as Otcova roľa (Father's Field), Baníci (Miners), etc. From this point of view, in the stirring poem Jehovah, the poet, as an old testament prophet, execrates his own nation, which does not want to overcome its lethargy and does not see that "evening is coming" and rings an alarm bell from the tower. I. Krasko is also the author of several noteworthy texts, which show similar signs to his poetry.
           The poet whose work shows the most signs of symbolism is Vladimír Roy (1885 - 1936). He had a broad view of world poetry (he translated English, French, German and Hungarian poets) and this fact marked his work with a certain "resonance". Unlike Ivan Krasko, he published a lot. His poems consisted of intimate, loving and natural lyricism. His talent spilled over a wide area, replacing Krasko-style depth to a great extent. Collections of his poems did not appear until 1918 (Rosou a tŕním - Rose and Thorn, 1921; Keď miznú hmly - When the Mist Clears, 1921), although he entered Slovak poetry in 1907. He collected his post- independence poems into another two anthologies, Peruťou sudba máva (Fate Beats its Wings, 1927) and Cez závoj (Through the Veil, 1927). Despite the stated resonance, V. Roy is not an epigone of European or domestic symbolism. The characteristic signs of this movement: sadness, nostalgia, split personality ("as if it had two souls"), passivity, desire for action, etc., all of this had an origin not only in the atmosphere of the period, but also in the internal workings of the poet himself. Insignificant stimuli influenced Roy and provoked him to create. The majority of his poems are light impressions which interest through musicality ("bala sem - bala tam, kolembá vlna vlnu") and the use of various elements of symbolist poetry. But the contemporary almost never reads Roy's poetry.

Janko Jesenský

           Janko Jesenský (1874 - 1945) overcame the canon of Hviezdoslavite poetry in another way; he was a solicitor by profession, later a war prisoner in Russia and Czechoslovak legionary, and after returning home became a high administrative official (regional mayor, vice president of a regional office). His popular Verše (1905) are quite songlike, ironic (and self ironic), and mainly on love themes. It was a new tone and the poet's relationship to love and especially women seemed frivolous or even cynical to the period's taste (Terézia Vansová refused to publish his poems in the women's periodical Dennica). The author's irony concealed discontent with the conventional opinions on love invoked in the period's literature, but also the internal insecurity and fragility of the poet, for whom sincere emotions for a woman constantly undermined the intellect through scepticism. Verše II (1923) and the lyric-epic work Náš hrdina (Our Hero), a subjectively developed allusion to Eugen Onegin, have a similar nature. Jesenský was also responsive to social issues. His anthology Zo zajatia (From Captivity, 1919) recorded his experiences in Russia in the form of a poetic diary (he returned to them later in his book of memoirs Cestou k slobode (On the Way to Freedom, 1936), in the collection Po búrkach (After Storms, 1932) his critical relationship towards Slovak society intensified. He comments ironically on the various slip-ups of the political regime of the Slovak state which rose from the ruins of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1939 in the collections Čierne dni (Dark Days) and Na zlobu dňa I., II. (approximately: Apropos of the Days' Evil 1945). He took the majority of his stimuli from the daily press, so the poems had a publicist nature.
           Janko Jesenský is also an important prose writer. His novellas from the beginning of the century (1901 - 1907) are close to the prose of Slovak modern authors with their introversion and self-flogging analyses of individual heroes' emotional relationships. In later prose he reverted more to the Kukučín development stage. Malomestské rozprávky (Smalltown Stories, 1913), Zo starých časov (From the Old Times, 1935) and Novely (Novellas, 1941) caricature various ways of life and manners of the Slovak petit bourgeois. Anecdotes are alternated with slapstick in individual stories, often verging on tragedy. The lengthy novel Demokrati (Democrats I, 1934; II, 1938) can be regarded as the culmination of Jesenský's prose. It is a sarcastic study of political conditions in Slovakia in the interwar period. Here, the author used his experience as a high official and "shone a light" on the whole political system in the democratic state; a system in which political bosses' corruption, abuse of voters and dictatorial methods reigned. Jesenský translated a lot of Russian poetry (A. S. Pushkin, J. Lermontov, A. Blok, S. Yesenin, etc.)

Martin Rázus

           Only some of Martin Rázus (1888 - 1937) work is linked with Slovak modern: that which he published on entering literature and certain "poems in prose" from 1911. He later developed in a quite different direction. In his firsts he uses various symbols and images to address issues of world opinion and wants to discover the meaning of life. He was going through an ideological crisis as a theology student at the time and this work attests to this. Emphasis is placed on the moral side of life, and this is why Rázus' prose is described as "ethical creation". In later years Rázus' national-social engagement rapidly increased, provoked by the first world war - Z tichých i búrnych chvíľ (From Quiet and Stormy Moments, 1917); To je vojna! (That's War!), 1919), the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic (Hoj, zem drahá - Hail, Dear Land, 1919), and particularly the problematic co-existence of the Czechs and Slovaks (Kameň na medzi - Milestone), 1925; Šípy duše - Arrows of the Soul, 1929; Cestou - Journey, 1935). Rázus - a protestant pastor, became a politician in the 20s, a leading figure in the Slovak National Party, through which he asserted the idea of autonomy for Slovakia. The sphere of Rázus' political activities also found expression in his poetry and prose. Shortly after Rázus' death a longer poem, Stretnutie (Encounter, 1937), was published, in which the author reviews his life and expresses doubt about having taken the road of preserving the nation, wondering if it would have been better to follow in his father's working-class footsteps. Rázus' disappointment with politics was understandable, because he did not manage to assert any of his political plans.
           In 1929, M. Rázus released the lengthy four volume novel Svety (Worlds). The life of a village and villagers unfold here and it contains everything that defined him after 1918: political and social struggle, the battle of political parties for the voter, folk sayings, religion, the relationship between the Czechs and Slovaks, etc. The novel's fictional hero, Beňo, returns to his village and tries to improve it by introducing rational elements into management. The motif of drawing the intelligentsia into social and national affairs is also repeated in Rázus' other novels (Júlia, 1930; Odkaz mŕtvych - Message from the Dead, 1936). He reverted to history in both of them. In the first, the citizens of the free town of Brezno fight for their rights against the lord at the castle at Slovenská Ľupča Gašpar Tribel - and win their dispute. The second novel concerns a painful chapter of Slovak history . the counter-reformation. The fundamental idea is mutual co-operation between representatives of both churches, because national unity and a free future cannot be achieved without it. Strength, vitality, determination, the will to fight, to protect oneself, impressed Rázus. If he did not find these traits in his contemporaries, he returned to the past (as in the novella Bombura) or his own childhood (Maroško, Maroško študuje - M. Studies). Almost all of Rázus' work has ideological educational character.
           Slovak modern poetry was also cultivated by other authors: Ivan Gall (real name Ján Halla), Andrej Klas (real name FrantišekVotruba), Števo Kosorkin (real name Samo Cambel). The wave of symbolism also affected the younger Neresnický (real name Juraj Slávik) and Štefan Krčméry (1892 - 1955), later an important organiser of Slovak post-independence cultural life, editor, critic, aesthetician and literary historian.
           He collected his poems, inspired by Slovak modern and European romanticism and published in periodicals since 1911, into the anthology Herbarium (1929). The verses are full of sadness, symbols of darkness and light, fatefulness, internal conflict and desperation. From these situations, Krčméry struggled towards activity (the collection Keď sa sloboda rodila - When Freedom was Born, 1920) and the mythicising of the national past (Piesne a balady - Songs and Ballads, 1930).