On the Bratislava poems of Jozef Mihalkovič

The paper examines the poetry of Jozef Mihalkovič (b. 1935) published in the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on the representation of the city and the housing estate. It builds on previous literary scholarship on the author’s poetics, in particular on the findings of Fedor Matejov, Valér Mikula, Andrea Bokníková, and Stanislav Šmatlák. The basis of the analysis is an inventory of Bratislava and settlement topographical motifs in the poems of J. Mihalkovič from the collections Albá (Albas, 1972), Kam sa náhlite (Where do you rush to, 1974), Približné položenie (Approximate positioning, 1978), and Príležitostné básne (Occasional poems, 1988). loser attention is paid to the topos of the housing estate and its components, with a focus on natural symbolism – particularly vegetative and plant motifs – as well as motifs of transport and walking. The housing estate’s exteriors (pavements) and interior (apartment) function in this poetry as mediums for expressing various states and attitudes of the lyrical subject within familial, social, and civilizational contexts. Conceptually significant is the identification of the new housing estate environment with the building site as an emblem of provisionality – interpreted partly as a problematic condition, partly as a promise of positive change – while, on a higher thematic and compositional level, an idealizing perspective prevails.