The article was made as a lecture and presented in the end of November 2002 in the Slavic Institute of Vienna University. The aim of the paper was to introduce problem of Slovak prose after 1945 to foreign Slovak Studies and Slavic Studies scholars and students. That is why the paper was composed in the character of both narrative and essay. Slovak prose of the second half of the 20th c. is characterised through several epic models. They should be understood as epic places in the world. In the history of literature determination of place in the world is represented by topos. Topos helps to frame reconstruction from the aspect of the history of literature. It is not only sought but also found. The author particularly means a topos of a steel castle as a setting of world historical fight, then topos of a home of abandonment. In both of them literature is imprinted on the skin of a reader a letter by letter. There is also a topos of construction site with living estates protecting from emptiness and coolness of the world. There is a topos of sarcophagus, in which in the sense of Poe's 'early funeral' we live dead life even before our own death. In spite of differences there is possible to find common determinates among those epic places. The connection comes through perseverant seeking of such places in the world where a person would be protected from emptiness and coolness being able to live full life of human being. The last mentioned topos is gradually disappearing from the Slovak prose of the 90ths as it proves a prose Infection written by V. Balla. Epic character infects through his existence not only his temporal home but any place in the world. He cannot stand staying in one place and finally his last way out is an escape, running from him himself.
Based on an analysis of the so-called topoi (loci communes) in the Latin milieu (meaning 'pagans sitting on the ground while eating') and Byzantine milieu (meaning 'drinking from the skull-goblet of a defeated enemy'), not all topoi should be regarded a mere literary constant, as the literary scholarship declares with regard to Curtius' definition. It is necessary to distinguish between really constant characteristics of the topos, i.e. a mere literary function ('literary topos') and reality, where the topos firstly records true historical reality and secondly, when this reality is used in a different historical context in order to outline a different, new historical reality, thus being the current time testimony - in both cases, the topos is a historical resource (i.e. 'historical topos').
The subject of this article is breaking the principles of language politeness (correctness) in the tabloid press. The forms of address — type "you" and "he, she" referring first of all to public persons have been analysed by the authors. In conclusion, the hypothesis is that human disrespecting is a contemporary topos in the tabloid press.
(Slovak title: Tematicke diferencie v koncepte referencneho (moderneho) a autoreferencneho (postmoderneho) narativu alebo ako si porozumiet s literaturou). This study is a contribution to the research of chosen Slovak proses written in the second half of 20th century from the viewpoint of the thematic-topological research and structural-semantic interpretation. It is based on the characteristics of sujet-fabula as well as text narrative qualities. The interpretation framework is established by means of a journey chronotope and the topical circumstances of an epic narrative derived from it, which occur on three levels of the thematic structure of an epic narration. The author defines them as the synopsis, the scenery and the digression and within each she differentiates various narrative modalities: from ostensively mimetic to self-referentially discursive. The research focuses on the verifying referential and self-referential elements of narration in connection with the research of epic prose as a thematic-topological event related to travelling and changes during the journey. From the methodological viewpoint, the study takes a thematic approach to the literary material, because it regards the material as adequately communicative and able to convey our experience with a literary text as an object of interpretation in diachronic cultural-historical context. In order to obtain material to study, texts of R. Sloboda, V. Sikula a P. Vilikovsky were used, all the writers being of the author's regular interest.
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