Translating from

francúzsky jazyk

Birth date

14. 03. 1913  [en] Drienové

Death date

10. 05. 1989  [en] Bratislava

Fields of interest

próza, esej, scenáristika, publicistika, preklad

Briefly about author

Tatarka`s first books are collections of novellas expressing and reflecting his personal experiences during the late 1930`s and early 1940`s. The Miraculous Virgin is a surreal vision of love which is also a sound protest against Fascism. His novel The Clerical Republic is full of satirical stings and his next novel based on personal experiences in the armed resistance, The First and Second Strike, definitely speaks against Fascism. These books were an expression of the author`s intent to become active in post-war life and his acceptance of socialist realism. However, two novellas from Conversations without End represent a new kind of reflective prose in which facts from the past are confronted with the new political and social reality and human love is seen as the only possible way out.
Wicker Armchairs is a book in which the idea of mutual understanding between nations prevails. It is a complex and sophisticated statement reflecting the world of modern civilization, expressing the author`s critical attitude to social and interpersonal relationships in a totalitarian regime and to the world where man becomes a mere slave serving bureaucratic machinery. The most critical of Tatarka`s works is The Demon of Conformism using satirical parable to fight the red-tape practice so typical of the communist regime. This book became a symbol of the democratization process and had great influence on the new wave in Slovak literature.

Briefly about production

prose:
In the Anxiety of Searching (V úzkosti hľadania, 1942), The Miraculous Virgin (Panna zázračnica, 1944), People and Deeds (Ľudia a skutky, 1947), The Clerical Republic (Farská republika, 1948), The First and Second Strike (Prvý a druhý úder, 1950), The Wedding Cake (Radostník, 1954), The Years of Companionship (Družné letá, 1954), Man on the Road (Človek na cestách, 1957, travelogue), Conversations without End (Rozhovory bez konca, 1959), Our Brigade (Naša brigáda, 1962), The Demon of Conformism (Démon súhlasu, 1963), Wicker Armchairs (Prútené kreslá, 1963), In No-Time (V nečase, 1978), Alone Against the Night (Sám proti noci, 1984), Scribbles (Písačky, 1984 ), Letters to Eternity (Listy do večnosti, 1989), Recordings (Navrávačky, 1988, 2001)

essays:
Against the Demons (Proti démonom, 1968), Conversations on Culture and Discourse (Hovory o kultúre a obcovaní, 1995, published posthumously)

film scripts:
The Dam (Priehrada), The Miraculous Virgin (Panna zázračnica)

TRANSLATIONS BY THE AUTHOR
Tatarka translated novels by French writers Vercors, A. de Musset, and G. de Maupassant.

WORKS TRANSLATED
Tatarka`s works, including those published in samizdats in the Seventies and Eighties, have been translated into many languages and widely published abroad in literary magazines and anthologies.
The Miraculous Virgin (1964 Czech)
The Clerical Republic (1949 Czech, 1951 Hungarian, 1960 German, 1961 Ukrainian, 1966 Russian)
The Years of Companionship (1963 Ukrainian)
Conversations Without End (1959 Czech)
Wicker Armchairs (1963 Czech, 1965 German, Polish, 1969 Hungarian, Serbo-Croat, 1993 French)
Demon of Conformism(1964 Czech, 1969 Hungarian, 1986 French)
Alone Against the Night (1984 Czech in Munich, 1995 German)

Biography for author

Born 14 March 1913 in Drienové. Studied French and Slovak at Charles University in Prague and at Sorbonne in Paris. Then he taught at gymnasia in Žlina and Martin. In 1944 Tatarka took part in the Slovak National Uprising. Shortly after the war he worked for newspapers Národná obroda and Pravda, for the Tatran publishing house and for Slovak Film in Bratislava as a scriptwriter. He became a professional writer in 1964. Tatarka protested against the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 for which he was persecuted by the communist regime, banned from public life and not allowed to publish anymore. From 1970 he worked as a forest labourer. Later he lived as a permanently disabled pensioner, mostly in Prague. He was one of the signatories of Charter 77. Tatarka died 10 May 1989 in Bratislava.

about author

Tatarka`s basic feelings are loneliness and anxiety face-to-face with himself, God and the world as a whole. Man is uprooted, he is no longer part of the community or the nation and therefore has no way of neutralizing his occasional feelings of loneliness and anxiety and these feelings are not personal anymore. They have become existential, somehow given to man, not just provoked by unfavourable circumstances.

When comparing The Demon of Conformism with other Czech and Slovak "visionary works" written later, I have a feeling, and I am not sure whether it is the right feeling, that the ethos of this book, its journalistic straightforwardness and transparency, its almost romantically hard impact, all this somehow makes it closer to the tradition of Polish literature rather than the peaceful or even jovial Czech literary tradition.

Tatarka was a lonely runner because he never looked back on what he once had worked out and never made corrections. In the beginning he rejected religiosity only to return to it in a different form. However, he was the one who named the demon of agreement and never surrendered to it.

He was a symbol and the leading force of Slovak dissent during the 1970`s and 1980`s, a moral example of anticommunist defiance and intellectual stubbornness. The truth is, however, that Tatarka assumed this attitude only after going through several contradictory phases of his own development, even to the point of enthusiastically serving the power which in the end he helped to fight. But his was
a journey typical for many Slovak intellectuals.

Author about himself

It seems to me, that my books are not echoes of surrealism or existentialism. All the -isms we have witnessed during our life have enchanted my soul by formal inventions, graceful and provocative stinging. Paul Valéry represented absolute poetry for me. The avantgarde helped me to get through tragic life experiences, it was a kind of mental hygiene for me with its formal inventiveness, playfulness and the struggle for clear expression without sentimentality.

Sample

THE DEMON OF CONFORMISM (extracts)