A PLAYING HISTORY, A PLAYED HISTORY, A PLAY OF HISTORY IN POSTMODERN CZECH PROSE

Abstract

This text concerns the phenomenon of Czech readers losing their interest for the traditional historical novel after 1989 – a genre which was among the most prioritized and representative ones in the periods hitherto. In that aspect, it has been all but replaced by de-historicizing, pseudo-historicizing or quasihistoricizing variations, even by "historical fantasy", written in the spirit of postmodern poetics. One of these particular variations is scrutinized in the text – novels, whose axis is alternative history makeup. The novel "Gargling with Tar" (Klokatdehet, 2005) by famous postmodern Czech author Jáchym Topol has been selected as an example.