Imagining Slovene Literary History.

Abstract

This article applies Hayden White's theory of tropes as presented Metahistory: the historiological imagination in nineteenth-century Europe (1973) to select major works of Slovene literary history in order to elucidate their ideological stance. White's theory is an obvious if underutilized tool for clarifying the ideological implications of historical writing, which have received increased scrutiny in this decade. Based upon the arrangement of materials in the example of Zgodovina slovenskega slovstva (1968-1970) by Jože Pogačnik and Franc Zadravec, the article proposes that the work has a conservative outlook (i.e. telological view favoring the status quo) that is seemingly shared with other prominent histories of Slovene literature.