Through slowness to nature: Fedor Matejov and ecosensitive reading

The article analyses the interpretative strategies of the literary scholar Fedor Matejov focusing on their affinities with ecocriticism. Although he did not explicitly draw on ecocritical approaches, in his interpretations of poetry – especially in his interpretations of the work of Ivan Laučík – he paid close attention to the ecological layer of the text. The key lies in his method of slow, reflective reading (lektúra), which enables him to uncover nature not only as a theme, but also as a fundamental structural principle of poetics – shaping aspects such as genre, composition, the lyrical subject, and even the ethical dimension of the text itself. The study traces the way Matejov applies analytical tools, among them the optics of ecophilosophy, to reconstruct layers of meaning, showing that his approach shares many features with the concept of “ecosensitive reading.” Following the European framework of ecocriticism (Jarosław Woźniak, Wojciech Małecki), one can understand Matejov’s interpretive strategies of as part of a broader ecocritical discourse. His readings represent a significant contribution to contemporary ecocritical thinking about literature in the Central European space.