The Role of Historical Memory in the Novels of Vilém Hejl

Abstract

The writer Vilém Hejl (1934–1989) wrote in the 1960s and 1970s three novels (Zásada sporu, Hodinah věz dopravců a Ex offo) which he published after leaving Czechoslovakia in 1978. In his prose, Hejl repeatedly thematized the role of memory in the formation of history, or sensitively perceived the discrepancy between collective memory and individual memory and the resulting problematic nature of the unified interpretation of history. This was especially at a time when history and memory were to serve as a tool to promote a certain interpretation of the past that would suit the interests of the ruling regime or its opponents.