In contemporary Slovene and Slovak short prose, the role played by history is reflected in different ways: through the realisation of historical memory - that is, as the perception and representation of the past - and also by asking to what extent an individual is determined by time and space. In his short stories Rómeo z epochy socialistického realizmu (A Socialist-Realist Romeo, 1989) and Všetko, čo viem o stredoeurópanstve (Everything I Know about Central Europeanism, 1989) Pavel Vilikovsky depicts certain received and renewed representations of the past in small, intimate stories which can be read with empathy, whereas an ironic dimension dwells in some themes addressing national or cultural identities. Jančar's novellas Augsburg (1994) and Joyceov učenec (Joyce's Pupil, 1998) portray the powerlessness of the individual in the maelstrom of history; that is, our inability to comprehend the world solely through rational thought, and the absence of only one signification, one all-encompassing world view.
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