CENZÚRA NA SLOVENSKU V DRUHEJ POLOVICI PÄŤDESIATYCH ROKOV (AKTÉRI A VYBRANÉ DOKUMENTY)

The study focuses on the second half of the 1950s, which is generally seen as a period of political thaw, following the 20th Congress of the CPSU, which had impact on culture, too. However, underneath the phoney „liberalization“ there were still trials going on, which was more or less a continuation of the Stalinist methods of managing culture in the first half of the 1950s. Imposing censorship, i.e. establishing the Head Office of Press Supervision by the government decree of 22 April 1953 can be perceived within this context. The censorship office was established as „non-public“ in order to have a more effective control system, which was supposed to act as a form of „creative leadership“, i.e. not only to ban but also to fulfil the didactic function. The study also analyses the censor commentaries as an autonomous „genre“; reading by a censor often looked like a review composed in the manner of normative ideological instructions. The Office of Press Supervision directed its attention to literary magazines (Kultúrny život, Mladá tvorba) as well as the production of certain poets and writers (the Concretists, Vladimír Mináč, Anton Hykisch, Dominik Tatarka, Milan Rúfus, Ivan Mojík etc.). The power control of culture after February 1948 was not only executed by means of the censorship office but also by other institutional mechanisms (laws, organizations, appointed editors).