Historické traumy a "exemplifikačná pamäť" v najnovšej slovenskej próze

The author of this paper interprets two texts from contemporary Slovak literature - Silvester Lavrík’s novel Nedeľné šachy s Tisom (Sunday Chess with Tiso) and Marek Vadas’ prose Šesť cudzincov (Six Strangers) in the context of Tzvetan Todorov’s concept of exemplary memory. This concept assumes the possibility of using historical knowledge, especially about the tragic and traumatic aspects of history to counteract, based on similar mechanisms, the negative phenomena of the present, whose manifestations are nationalistic tendencies, discrimination against specific social groups, and stigmatisation practices. Lavrík’s novel is thematically linked to the period of the clerofascist Slovak state and the Holocaust, while Vadas’s prose recalls the anti-Roma pogrom of 1928, which has been excluded from Slovak collective memory. Although the authors refer to history, they raise a number of questions that are relevant from a contemporary perspective: about the ideological mechanisms that construct the figure of ‘the Others’ and allow violence against them, about the position of bystanders, and about individual responsibility.