Mácha and Prešeren play similar roles of national poets and "cultural saints" in Czech and Slovene cultures, while their poems May and Baptism at the Savica are described as "national poems". They were published in the time of national revivals, when the nations as we know them today were only beginning to form. Literature in the national languages played an important role in this process and despite the similar status the poems hold in their respective cultures today, they triggered very different reactions of the revivalist public. In my diploma thesis, I establish that despite the seemingly similar destinies of Mácha and Prešeren's poetry, receptions of May and Baptism at the Savica differ fundamentally. This is mainly due to the historically-nationalist topic of Baptism, which met the requirements of the national revival poetics, while Mácha, with his subjectivism and drawing inspiration from the apolitical romantic literature of the western authors, rejected the role of a "national poet". Because of this, his poem was strongly rejected by the revivalist critics. However, with the change of the attitude towards literature, May eventually found its place in the Czech literary canon.
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