Prostor u Čudnovatim zgodama šegrta Hlapića
Notions of Space in The Brave Adventures of Hlapich the Apprentice

Summary/Abstract: Starting from theoretical assumptions of contemporary theoreticians such as Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja, Michel Foucault, Gaston Bachelard, this paper considers the novel Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapića [The Brave Adventures of Hlapich the Apprentice] as a ‘road novel’ and a representative of the ‘space-oriented novel’, taking into account the genre’s specification as implied in the preface by the author. The main protagonist of the novel leaves the safe haven of the only home he has by crossing the doorstep, and it is precisely this space miniature, in which Hlapich’s departure takes place, that is offered to young readers as their point of departure into the story, i.e. their entry point into the narrative space. Finding himself on the road, the little flâneur (from the moment his shoes are stolen, he becomes a problem solver) conquers place with various senses, registering mostly the positive features of the rural landscape and the negative ones of the urban one. Hlapich’s wandering occurs in an unmapped space, topographically emptied, across which sporadic spatial points of reference, like a barn, a bridge or a quarry, are deployed, as well as the particularly important heterotopia of the fair, and the one subordinated to it − the heterotopia of the circus − two places that “are outside of all places” (Foucault), even though it may be possible to locate them in reality.

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