Political relaxing manifested itself most visibly in the cultural sphere. On one hand, culture presented a kind of seismograph of the era; on the other hand, it actively contributed to a society-wide shift itself. Literature and fine art stepped beyond the boundaries of communist cultural policy in the second half of the 1950s, when independent groups of artists – Skupina 29. augusta (Group of the 29th of August; translator’s note), Galandovci, Skupina 4 – were formed after 1957, and unbound themselves from the shackles of the political order of socialist realism and returned to the heritage of inter-war Slovak modern art and avant-garde...