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Dobšinský Pavol
(1828—1888)
Tales

Pavol Dobšinský, a Slovak Evangelical priest, a member of the young Slovak national-awakening generation, a translator, a publicist and a folklorist was born on March 16, 1828 in Slavošovce, in what is present-day Slovakia. He attended junior gymnasium classes in the towns of Rožňava in what is now Slovakia and in Miskolc in Hungary. In the years from 1840-1848 he studied at the lycee in Levoča (Slovakia) where he became an eager member of the Jednota (full name in Slovak - Union of Slovak Youth). After the revolution of 1848 he acted as a secretary with Samuel Reuss in Revúca and then he was a chaplain with Ján Chalupka in Brezno. In 1855 he changed this position and was working at the parish in Bystré for three years. In 1858 Pavol Dobšinský worked as a teacher at the lyceum in Banská Štiavnica. Here he edited and published "the magazine for fine arts and literature" SOKOL (1860-1861).

In 1861 he discontinued the publication of this magazine and left his teaching position because of permanent difficulties and obstacles. At last he accepted a parish in Drienčany, succeeding Jonatán Čipka. He lived the rest of his life in this remote village not far from Rimavská Sobota. He died in Drienčany on October 22, 1885.

As a student, the young Pavol Dobšinský began to write poems in the spirit and style of the romantic poetry of Štúr's generation. He spoke several foreign languages and translated works by Mickiewicz, Byron, Shakespeare, Lamartine and others into Slovak. He was active as a literary reviewer and editor, but under the influence of his life's circumstances, he concentrated his efforts on collecting, researching, and editing and publishing folk verbal arts. He began this work in Levoča and continued it after his departure from this town. Samuel Reuss, as one of the first personalities who began to be interested in this folklorist's activities, supported Dobšinský's creative interests.

After Ján Francisci wrecked Dobšinský's effort to continue publishing Slovak tales (in 1845 he published the first volume in Levoča) and after Reuss's unsuccessful attempts to publish a further volume of tales in Budapest, Dobšinský decided, in cooperation with A. H. Škultéty to continue working in this field. In the years from 1858-1861, with great effort and financial sacrifice, they published six exercise books of tales named Slovenské povesti (Slovak Tales). This work contains 64 fairy tales on 570 pages. The editors used their own material and the material of Francisci, Čipka, Ormis, Daxner and others. This collection of fairy tales consisted almost solely of magic fairy tales. In Dobšinský's opinion, these fairy tales had an ancient mythological origin. The published fairy tales were not written in an authentic manner of telling, the authors rewrote them into a standard language and styled them as fairy tales. They created the optimal variant from more known versions.

By publishing folk fairy tales Dobšinský followed not only scientific aims, as, for example, Reuss, who argued that Slovak fairy tales were a proof of ancient origin of Slovaks, but he followed readers' needs as well. Dobšinský wrote in his remarks to the Slovak tales: "Our nation is the one considering reading, who must be fed with milk in order to get used to other nutritive food. I consider the tales to be the milk which will please our Slovaks' tastes well and they will take a fancy to reading at all..." Dobšinský caught a picture of old times' poetic expressions of life and the dreams of common people in the fairy tales.

The Slovak national life and system of schools were developed in a weak manner at that time. This fact may explain the small interest of the public in this work of Dobšinský. That is why Dobšinský's attempts to continue the publication of Slovak tales failed. Dobšinský's intention to publish further volumes of ZORNIČKA and REČŇOVANKY failed as well.

In 1867 the Board of Matica Slovenská decided to publish the Almanac of Slovak national songs, tales, proverbs, sayings, riddles, plays, customs and superstitions. The board asked Dobšinský for cooperation, and in 1871 he was charged with editing this almanac. Dobšinský not only assured the publication of two volumes of this almanac, he contributed to them with his own valuable works.

In 1880 Dobšinský's book Prostonárodné obyčaje, povery a hry slovenské (Simple National Customs, Superstitions and Slovak Plays) was published. This book consists of two parts. The first part is dedicated to the description of the life of the Slovak people. The second part describes various types of folk entertaining plays in the individual seasons of the year. There are many entertaining plays for children and youth in this part.

Pavol Dobšinský concentrated the results of his long-lasting study of Slovak fairy tales in the work Úvahy o slovenských povestiach (Meditations on Slovak Tales, 1871). He was concerned not only with the base and sense of Slovak fairy tales but also with the ideological credo of Štúr's generation at this later time. This generation of Slovak national representatives subscribed to mystics and messianism and emphasized the mythological base of fairy tales.

The pinnacle of Pavol Dobšinský's work is eight volumes of Prostonárodné slovenské povesti (Simple National Slovak Tales). Dobšinský published this work at his own expense from 1880-1883. This work contains ninety folk fairy tales on 768 pages. It is the most complete collection of Slovak fairy tales and one of the basic works of Slovak folklore studies. This collection of fairy tales has more colorful contents: there are not only magic fairy tales, but also animal, legend and humor fairy tales as well.

In this new collection Dobšinský included new fairy tales and then most of the fairy tales collected by Francisci, some fairy tales from Božena Němcová's collection and a few tales that had been published previously by Dobšinský in magazines. He put into all of the tales his creative and unique features. Although he acknowledged the original teller of each tale, he published these tales with essential changes. This publication was determined especially for readers. In the 1880 the Prostonárodné slovenské povesti (Simple National Slovak Tales) were a distinguished national and literary act. Life of village people became a literature theme in the realistic prose of that time. The tales have become a national culture treasure.

Slovakia, 2008, Dragon

Slovakia, 2008.05.29, Bratislava. Flowers