Nobody’s Land by Desanaka Maksimovic in the Light of the Intertextuality Theory

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the collection Nobody’s Land by Desanka Maksimovich. The objective of the study is to consider the features of the poetic world of this collection’s author in the context of oral poetry and prose, as well as in the framework of Serbian ethnomythology. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the chronotope and transitional rites, illustrated by individual poems. The poems of the collection appear to readers as a multilayered structure, which due to a layer of oral tradition, leads researchers to the depths of Slavic mythology. It is concluded that the author carefully selects those elements from the folklore corps, which are then included in poetic works. A poetess does not create her poems on their interpretation but integrates them into a new context, developing them, changing and expanding the systems of meanings already established in the traditions. As a result, folklore elements (motifs, symbols, heroes, compositional techniques) gain new connotations but their conceptual core remains. Accordingly, these poems can be considered as a new interpretation of the folklore fund. Desanka Maksimovich becomes a poet reinterpreting and saving the domestic literary and mythological heritage from oblivion. Her attention is focused on those components of folklore and mythological creativity, the meaning of which is firmly preserved in the national as well as in the international corps. Desanka Maksimovich’s poems were created in such a way as to allow the researcher to get to the bottom of their folklore and mythological basis, and this indicates a well-thought-out author’s concept. Keywords: poetry, folklore and mythological heritage, chronotope, transitional rites, transposition