Novel
René, or: A Young Man's Adventures and Experiences
René mládenca príhody a skúsenosti
Jozef Ignác Bajza · 1784
Synopsis
René, son of a Venetian merchant, travels the Mediterranean and North Africa with his mentor, the priest Van Stiphout, to find his sister Fatima, who has been abducted. Shipwrecked, reduced to slavery, threatened with forced conversion, he falls in love with Hadixa, a mufti's daughter, and snatches his sister from a harem. In the second book, he crosses northern Italy, Austria and Upper Hungary, present-day Slovakia, and denounces there superstition, religious formalism, the hypocrisy of convents, alcoholism, poverty and inequality.
Context
The first book was published in Bratislava (Pressburg) in 1784, at the author's expense, after approval from the Vienna censorship. The second, approved in its turn in 1785, was stopped during printing by the vicar general Štefan Nagy, who judged it more scandalous than the first; Archbishop József Batthyány confirmed the decision, and only two incomplete copies survive. The novel, written in a western dialect, had to wait until 2025 for its first translation, into English, by David Short, for Liverpool University Press.
Who it is for
A novel of travel and Enlightenment satire, laden with reflections, which is read today in English.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first novel written in Slovak, and translated for the first time more than two centuries after its publication.