Alla ricerca del popolo perduto. Un tentativo di (de)costruzione del mito della Sacerdotessa della luna

Abstract

In this paper will be analyzed a close relationship between Priestess of the Moon , a novel by Croatian writer Milena Benini (1966-2020), and the Platonic myth of Atlantis, in light of the power exercised by archaic civilization. This work, as well as the author’s entire production, belongs to the genre that in Slavic cultures is called fantastika , an all-encompassing formula for fantasy, science fiction and horror, although in this regard Benini prefers the label of “speculative fiction”. Benini wrote the first draft of this novel in the early 1990s, in English, and started publishing it on her blog. She published the English version in 2013 and the Croatian ( Svecenica mjeseca ) in 2014. The story, that takes place in an indefinite time and clearly draws on the classical age, is the first act of a trilogy dedicated to a strong-willed woman, the young priestess Kalaide Reolis Kharaonda, endowed with superhuman powers that allow her to communicate with the goddess Matrielen. Kalaide comes into contact with Enaor, whose figure reflects various sources of inspiration: the Illyrian world, the civilization of ancient Greece, the Slavic tradition. Benini is aware of the timelessness of the myth and avoids giving the story and the characters a precise chronological position; she laid the foundations for a wide range of possibilities, prefiguring an open and epic narration, with the evolutionary profile suggested in the foreground by time and space.