It was traditionally accepted (already in Poetics by Aristotle) that historiographic representations of historical events were more objective than literary ones that belonged to the realm of fiction. In the last 30 years with the breaking of the Rankeian faith in the attainable scientific objectivity of historiography it became clear that these two disciplines are not as apart as we might have thought. However, it is not merely the question whether or not we can attain a certain degree of objectivity in both historiography and literature, which is at the core of this book, but rather, what are the means and consequences of contemporary interactions of historiography and art. To be able to open a debate on this issue, the editors gathered scientists from different professional and cultural background (historians, comparative literature scientists and musicologists from different parts of Europe). The result deconstructs not only a belief that historiography can and should be more objective than literature, it also shows that literary history at its very beginning in the 19th Century was crucially influenced by a popular concept of the so called organicism. Furthermore, it shows in several case studies the social consequences of particular representations of history and at the end even doubts that we can speak of historical genres in all forms of art (e.g. in the opera). Gasper Troha and Vanesa Matajc teach in the Department of Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at University of Ljubljana. Gregor Pompe teaches in the Department of Musicology at University of Ljubljana.
About the Author: Gasper Troha teaches at the Department for Comparative Literature and Literary Theory, Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. His main research interests include sociology of literature and contemporary European and Slovenian drama. Among his recently published articles are: Podoba drubenega sistema v slovenski dramatiki: 1943-1990 (2005), Problemi poeticne drame (2005), Dramatizacije na slovenskih odrih 1992-2006 (2006). Vanesa Matajc teaches at the Department for Comparative Literature and Literary History, Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. She is also a member of editorial board of the journal Literatura and a member of the Slovene Writers' Association. Her recent publications include: Razpeto v dvoumje. Idejna podlaga Koviceve proze (2001), Simbol v Jenkovi liriki (2001), Osvetljave. Kritiski pogledi na slovenski roman v devetdesetih (2000), Eksistencializem v romanopisju Vitomila Zupana (1998). Gregor Pompe works as an assistant professor at the Department for Musicology, Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. In 2006 he obtained his Ph.D. on the problems of postmodernism and semantics of music. His scientific fields include contemporary music, opera and semantics of music. He is active also as a journalist and composer. His main scientific contributions are bilingual study Pisna podoba glasbe na Slovenskem/Music in Slovenia through the aspect of notation (together with Jurij Snoj) and articles Boulez's rational serial organization and Cage's chance?equality of diversity, A Few Attempts at Understanding Postmodernism as a Musical Style, Contemporary Slovene Compositional Practice and Musicology.