MYTH AS A CODE OF NATIONAL ASPECT (of Jozef Gregor Tajovsky: 'Nas Jezisko')

The short story 'Nas Jezisko' (Our Baby Jesus) belongs to the Tajovsky's thematic cycle focused on ethnology and collecting of folk artefacts. The short story 'Nas Jezisko' (1918) was written by Tajovsky as a legionary at the end of WWI . It is a lyrical reminiscence, accompanying us through times and periods, when a narrator as a child experiences amazing impressions from the Christmas Holy Mass, he thinks back on an odour of frankincense, songs of shepherds, joy of all who participate in the birth of Jesus. After many years new ceremonial orders come to the church, people do not understand a (Hungarian) language, even the baby Jesus is different, having boots on. Author connects a magic of folk ceremonies with a Slovak word, which represents semantics of representative sign. Through a myth about nativity of Christ Tajovsky illustrates how much destructively Hungarisation damaged our national substance.