Library of the Slovak University

Eugen Mateička / Slovakia / 1943 / Czech Premiere / 7 min.

synopsis

A portrait of the (current day) University Library in Bratislava as both a historical stand and a generator of Slovak scholarship.

A state-forming portrait of the library of Comenius University, which was founded in 1919, but under the Slovak state it was also ‘Slovakised’ in name. The camera follows the historic interior of the library and its rare copies, the cataloguing work of the librarians, and its immediate effect in the social science study room. The priority is obviously the Slovak books (books bound to Slovakia). However, a certain novelty is represented here by a female university student, depicted in the company of “scientific adolescents who will one day represent the cultural elite of the nation”.

biography

Eugen Mateíčka (1914–1996)

When the production department of Nástup was established in 1941, the former radio operator, Mateíčka, was one of its first acquisitions. He made less than a dozen films at Nástup. Although after the war he worked briefly as a film correspondent (head of the Film Chronicle), and as a documentary filmmaker on agricultural subjects, he was later weaned off of film, and rededicated himself to editorial work.