Authors

Discussion

This paper is a literary-Memory Studies comparison of two works of contemporary Central European literature, not previously studied in conjunction: Martin M. Šimečka’s Príhody Tuláka po Slovensku and Olga Tokarczuk’s Bieguni. Through an analysis of the postmodern features of both works, this paper uncovers the unique Central European memory process and discourses within the texts, as well as the impact of these on shifting collective and individual level identities. By focusing on only two primary texts, this paper has the theoretical space to engage with the continental philosophical tradition, and weave together multiple theorists, thus allowing for greater super-structures to emerge. The key findings are that both texts employ petite histoire to fragment grand narratives and expose the socialist/post‑socialist state as a simulacrum, whilst their temporal dissolution suspends linear time to render the past eternally relevant. In terms of both space and time it is thus revealed that the memory of socialism and its aftermath within these texts is fragmented, contradictory, and discontinuous, and that literary postmodernism is uniquely positioned to show these fragments and the connections between them. The tentative radical final proposal is that these texts do more than describe a post-socialist reality, and instead, by helping to articulate their audience’s nomos or worldview, they contribute actively to the re-creation / re-interpretation of Central and Eastern European cultural memory.