TRAUMA AND MEMORY OF AUGUST 1968 IN THE CONTEMPORARY SLOVAK NOVEL Cover Image

Trauma a pamäť augusta 1968 v súčasnom slovenskom románe
TRAUMA AND MEMORY OF AUGUST 1968 IN THE CONTEMPORARY SLOVAK NOVEL

Author(s): Dobrota Pucherová
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Ústav svetovej literatúry, Slovenská akadémia vied
Keywords: Contemporary SLovak Novel. Trauma Narratives. Trauma Theory and Literature; Postmodern Historiography; Historiographic Metafiction; Slovak 20th Century History; Literature and Ideology

Summary/Abstract: This study utilizes the analytical tools of the theory of trauma narrative and postmodern historiography in an interpretation of contemporary Slovak novels thematizing the collective trauma of August 1968 (Rankov, Krištúfek, Grendel, Klimáček, Baláž). The issues under exploration are the dilemmas of historical fiction about socialism in the contemporary context, in which the traumatic events of August 1968 became probably the most remediated narrative, a “site of memory” of (Czecho)Slovak identity. The study analyses literary approaches and ideological assumptions of these texts, in which tension arises between history and fiction and at the same time between therapeutic, ideological and artistic reconstructions of history.

  • Issue Year: VI/2014
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 64-77
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Slovak