Scholarly record

HOMELESSNESS AS A TOPIC IN SLOVAK CHILDRENВ’S LITERATURE

Al. Brestovicova, Z.a Stanislavova

Abstract

At the beginning of the study the concept of homelessness, which has officially appeared in post-socialist countries only in the last thirty years, is briefly characterized. The authors state that this pathological social phenomenon is only slowly entering Slovak children’s literature. The core of the study is an analysis of fictional and factual modifications of this topic. The combination of fiction and factuality is present in two books by Slovak writers Zuzana Csontosova and Nina Benova (A Stray Button, 2014; Sarah and the Miraculous Table, 2018). Our interpretation reveals the artistic and journalistic procedures by which the authors visualize the causes of homelessness, the way homeless people live, their social status, their feelings and needs. Interpretative attention is also paid to the short story by V. Hanuliak A Puppy (2016), which portrays homelessness through artistic means as a perceived stigma of the child. Interpretation of texts is focused on poetic aspects of literary elaboration of the topic, the addition is a sociological-psychological aspect. The study concludes that the purpose of the analysed texts is to disseminate awareness in relation to homeless people and stimulate the prosocial perception of this phenomenon, willingness and ability to help these people. In this sense, the short story and the first part of publications by Z. Csontosova and N. Benova work with “silent” instructiveness, i.e. instructions and information are expressed via fictitious story. The second part of these book publications is always based on “loud” (direct) instruction: the world of homelessness is made visible to children through interviews with authentic homeless people or through questions, tasks and information directly addressed to the child reader.

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