Interliterary Relations in the Reception and Translation of Pavel Vilikovsky’s Prose

Abstract

Two main research strains have been noted in the reception of Pavel Vilikovsky’s work. The first one is centred around the thematic-stylistic and narratological aspects of postmodernism. The second strain, which appeared in the mid-1990s, focuses on the function of language deconstruction, widely observed both in the structure and the semantics of Pavel Vilikovky’s works and observed especially in their reception in a foreign literary context. The reception of intertextuality in the Slovak literary context has contributed to viewing Vilikovsky’s prose as a special type of an “autobiographical memory“ (Peter Zajec). The translations of Vilikovsky’s works into various foreign languages play an important role in developing new intertextual relations. The Serbian translations of the intertext in the novella Koň na poschodí, slepec vo Vrábľoch, the novel Posledný kôň Pompejí and the collections of short stories entitled Krutý strojvodca and Čarovný papagáj a iné gýče reveal new metatextual processes in translation and illustrate how the new intertextuality redraws the boundaries of the metatextuality of translation. The intertexts in the Serbian translations of Vilikovsky’s works have contributed to establishing a new metatextual connection between the Slovak and Serbian literatures, clearly exemplified by the lines from three Serbian poems about a Slovak smith, which appear in the translation of the novel Posledný kôň Pompejí.
The winding roads of intertextuality, their bends and turns and their intersections hint at the ontological character of intertextuality, which is also supported by the Serbian translations of Pavel Vilikovsky’s prose. The functionality and creativity of intertextuality is to a large extent confirmed by the recipient (reader or translator) who, as an active participant in communication, succeeds not only in identifying and experiencing the potential of open artistic and literary games, but also in transferring his knowledge into new contexts.