Translation into English by Andrew Ušjak.
It was needed to wait almost two hundreds years after Slovaks came to the territory of nowadays Vojvodina, for the first authentic poets to appear among them in the middle of twentieth century. It was certainly related, as always, with the accidental emergence of the genuine poetic talent, but a certain part of it was also definitely the collective consciousness of different national context within the borders of newly created state (the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), to which suddenly came this national group after the year 1918 without any move from its place. If it is also accidentally added that in the beginning of the 20-eth century Ján Čajak possessed no epic, but indeed poetic talent, the beginnings of our poetry we could place a half of century back. It is not, however, entirely sure, that such presumable poetic work (Čajak’s) could be designated as a genuine one (as for example Bohuš‘s later), mainly with regards to the fact that the enclave conscience of Vojvodina’s Slovaks at that time wasn’t so developed as after the first world war. It is also evident, that almost everything, which was in the form of verses written in Slovak language in this area within the borders of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, didn’t at all have attributes of the Vojvodina’s Slovak poetry in the sense how we understand it today…
V. A. Hronec
(Prevod sa slovačkog na engleski: Andrija Ušjak.)