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

This volume marks the first translation into another language of the first Slovak novel, René, or: A Young Man’s Adventures and Experiences, published in 1783-1785. Written at a time when the Slovaks lived under the double domination of the Hungarian Kingdom and the Habsburg Monarchy, the story, and accompanying commentary, shed light on the variations of the Enlightenment Bildungsroman in minor European Languages.

René and his companion are curious anthropologists studying the cultures of various societies. Their interrogation of social custom, class system, religious practice and ecclesiastical authority reflects Bajza’s belief in the power of critical examination to better the world. Their journeys from Venice to the Middle East, Austria and Upper Hungary measure the distance between ‘civilization’ and ‘barbarity’ and allow the author to deliver stinging criticism of his own society.

The novel’s familiar landscape, echoing Voltaire, Montesquieu, Wieland or Johnson, place it among the classics of the Age of Enlightenment. At the same time, the book documents the particular challenges faced by the Central European Enlightenment intellectuals, opening a window into the process of self-definition of the smaller European nations. The introduction and concluding studies explore the specificities of Catholic Enlightenment in the work of Bajza (c.1754–1836) and his Hungarian contemporary György Bessenyei (1747–1811), as seen in their preoccupation with ideal governance, religion, vernacular languages and education, as well as the themes of travel, orientalism, scientific knowledge, the rational subject and individual freedom.

Translated by David Short, a prize-winning translator from Czech and Slovak with a career of over 50 years. From 1973 to 2011 he taught at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University of London. His translations include works by such writers as Bohumil Hrabal, Karel Čapek and Vítězslav Nezval, as well as academic works in the fields of art, literature, linguistics and semantics.