Croatian Writer Research Articles

Relation and Identity: Milan Kundera and Dany Laferrière Redefine the World

In the Western literary system, foreign authors, especially those outside the West, are often expected to serve as native informants, although only to corroborate what the West already knows. Timothy Brennan describes, for example, the reception of Third World texts in the West, noting the work of Fredric Jameson, who makes Third-World literature an important artefact or record, but an artefact without theoretical importance (37). Politically themed Third World texts gain favor with Western critics, but only in keeping with metropolitan tastes and agendas (38). Second-World texts, as well, succeed in the West when they feature the ideological over the philosophical or aesthetic. Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresic, for instance, recounts the story of an editor informing her that because she writes literature, her work is unpublishable and asks if she has anything about the war, since publishing anything else at the time would be [f]rom a moral standpoint (141). On ethical grounds, the West thus obligates non-Western authors to bear witness to conditions in their countries, reserving for itself--whose ideological house is presumably in order--the right to pure literature. Foreign authors who do not wish to have their subject matter and style dictated to them struggle against the West's expectations. Rather than defending the right to an essentialized difference, however, some writers have made effective use of the opposite strategy: inserting themselves into the West. I do not intend by this a catering to Western tastes and norms but instead an expansion of the geographical and cultural boundaries of the West that force a rethinking of Western identity itself. Neither is this redefined Western identity homogeneous and stable. The new identities created by these authors are akin to Edouard Glissant's concept of which depends on difference for its very existence. In what follows, I examine the assertion of Relational identities by two novelists, one the so-called Second World (Milan Kundera) and the other the Third World (Dany Laferriere). Both authors experienced totalitarian conditions in their home countries and decided to emigrate. Kundera ran afoul of the Communist Party in Soviet-occupied former Czechoslovakia and had his books banned 1970 onwards. He moved to France in 1975, had his Czech citizenship revoked in 1979, and became a French citizen in 1981. Since 1991 he has been writing his novels in French, while he began publishing essays originally penned in French even earlier. Whereas Kundera faced censorship and official blackballing, the threat to Laferriere under the reign of the Duvaliers was much graver. A journalist at the time, he had had one close friend murdered, another jailed, and could only expect to be next. Laferriere therefore emigrated to Montreal in 1976, where his first novel was published in 1985. Before settling permanently in Montreal, he also spent some years living in New York and Miami. Based on their personal histories, both Kundera and Laferriere run up against certain expectations for their work as it circulates in the West, expectations against which they actively struggle using similar strategies. Laferriere lays claim to an American identity--the Americas, not the U.S.--while Milan Kundera asserts a European, not merely Eastern European, one. Laferriere's and Kundera's insistence that both their homelands and host lands fall under these identities enables a refiguration of the West's geocultural borders and of the peoples from there. In this article, I first outline some of the concepts basic to Glissant's Poetics of concepts drawn his own position excentric to the West as a writer Martinique. Relation, I argue, serves as a useful frame for thinking of the alternative identities asserted by Kundera and Laferriere. I then describe the theoretical steps that Kundera has taken in his essays to discard what Ugresic terms the baggage of the EEW (Eastern European Writer) (137-39). …

The European Context of Nazor's Children's Stories on the Theme of Crossing Over the Worlds

This article compares the motifs and themes common to Croatian writer Vladimir Nazor (1876–1949) and European writers from Romanticism to the turn of 19th to 20th century (fin de siècle). First, Nazor's stories are analyzed between themselves with regard to the crossing over from one world to another (land into the sea world, human into the animal/forest world, immortal into the human world). Then, each story is compared with the corresponding stories of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and Oscar Wilde. Similarities and differences in the presentation of the particular motifs, characters, and situations are established. The features of modern style in the description of the characters, plant, animal, and mineral world and emphasized Neo-Romantic longing for the contents from the folklore heritage and fairytale antiquity are observed. The concluding thesis of the article is that Nazor was preoccupied with motifs and characters from the fairytales of the famous European writers, but he approached them in his own, individual way, connecting them with the Croatian maritime climate and the heritage of oral literature and mythology of the Croatian nation.

Niko Bartulovic on the eve of World War II: the ideological views of the Croatian intelectual

The article reviews the ideological attitudes of the Croatian writer and engaged intellectual Niko Bartulovic, in the second half of the 20 century. Bartulovic was democratically committed, a prominent opponent of extremist forces and movements of the time in politics, fascism, communism, clericalism, enthusiastic supporter of the Yugoslav idea and Yugoslavia, based on the principle of national unity. Yugoslav champion real, he accepted the existence of Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian identity along with a feeling of belonging to a single nation, while the total integration of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes left for the future. In order to prevent separatist tendencies which threatened the internal stability of Yugoslavia, stood up to calm the tension in the Serbian-Croatian relations and consensual resolution of the Croatian question in a way that will not jeopardize the existence of a common state of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Titoistische Ketzerei: Die Bogomilen als Antizipation des „dritten Weges“ Jugoslawiens

Abstract Only a few years after Yugoslavia was excluded from the Cominform, Tito and his ideologists adopted the term “third way” as a keyword to designate the Yugoslav politics between East and West. Originally, the term had been coined by the Soviets to denigrate what they perceived as an impossible compromise between Capitalism and Communism. Soon, Yugoslav politicians turned it into a positive slogan. In 1950, the Croatian writer Miroslav Krlezha organised a monumental exhibition of Yugoslav medieval art in the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. He presented the medieval Bosnian sect of the Bogomils with its special form of “socialism” as anticipation and a historical legitimation of Yugoslav sovereignty. Other theoreticians such as the Serbian writer Oto Bihalji-Merin compared Tito and his partisans to rebellious Bogomils. The essay retraces the development of that myth, touching also on cinema and later phases of political propaganda.

Meaning

FICTION Meaning Davor Slomnig Davor Slamnig isa Croatian writer,musician, and composer. "Smisao" was first published inKrumpirovarodbina(Thepotato family) in2005 and appears here for the firsttime inEnglish. Formore on Croatia's colorful SF scene, read Aleksandar Ziljak's survey in thismonth's issue ofWLT online. Seek meaning, or else reproduce?these were the only two options on the distant planet of Torte. The dominant life form was represented by intelligent cephalomorphic Torteons, and for millennia the Torteonic practi cal social philosophy had carried out two ancient directives: (1) An adult Torteon was expected to con tribute (asmuch as possible) to the general civi lizational understanding of themeaning of life. Every original individual insight was entered into The Book. (2) Reproduction was the task of thosewho were not capable of cognition?be itthat theyhad never even tried,or that the springs of the spirit had dried up in them.Upon embarking on repro duction, the individual spent all his energy on the cultivation and education of the offspring. Thus he lost forever, both practically and formally, the right toparticipate in the collective cognitive process. A child did not reach independence for at least the firstthirty years. For the firstseven years ithad the form of a beaked larva that couldn't move at all,whose gaping opening expected pre digested food nine times a day. It spent thenext seven years in the tadpole stage, only to form a cocoon at fifteen. Then there followed two years of relative relaxation for the parents (the cocoon merely had to be moved from time to time so it wouldn't mildew). But in the seventeenth year a giddy butterfly-like creature emerged from the cocoon and, to its parents' horror, fluttered off through theworld at great speed, exposing itself to unnecessary dangers (but still coming home several times a week to raid the parental nutrimat). With singed wings, sometime after twenty-five,it would begin serious schooling and the quest for its own cognitive vocation, and then sometime after thirty itwould finally stabilize into a socially responsible unit. Young Emul, too,passed through all of this. Gradually grasping the state of things,he began to feel ashamed of his own parents who, by the very act of giving birth to him, had renounced cognition. For he was at liberty to sail the seas of existence, to discover themystery, while his parents had condemned themselves to a kind of debilitating servitude. Emul, gifted as he was, made it through all the schools with ease and excellence. After he had satisfied even thehighest educational criteria,he began towrite a dissertation with theworking title Circular Autocognition: Consciousness as the Consciousness of Consciousness. At first the ideas announced themselves in a clear but short-lived flash; theprocess of exact formulation demanded a great deal more time. Emul realized that intro spection, with his own consciousness as the sole experimental subject, would be only one of the many tools he would need touse. But how could he observe someone else's consciousness? As his first experimental subjects, he took some electroluminescent dodecapods from the depths of theocean. Proceeding from thehypoth esis that the flickering illuminative phenom ena within those translucent organisms reflected their conscious processes, he placed a mirror in their aquarium. Theoretically, the dodecapods would, as they looked at themselves in the mirror, May-June 2010 i61 SCIENCE FICTION Davor Slamnig (b. 1956, Zagreb) spent some time in the U.S. inhis youth, getting hooked on folk songs and SF. He had a go at different musical instruments, ranging from ukulele to saxophone, before finally settling on the guitar. His firststories were published inCroatia in the 1980s, followed by four books (three story collections and a novel). Currently, he iswriting mostly inC++. Sibelan Forrester has published translations from Croatian, Russian, and Serbian, including Irena Vrkljan's Svila, Skare and a bilingual edition of Elena Ignatova's B03?WHblft KOJIOKOJI/The Diving Bell. In her day job, she isProfessor of Russian Language and Literature at Swarthmore College. perceive their own psyche. Thus theywould be trapped in a perceptual-expressive positive feed back loop, culminating in theend in some kind of psychic singularity. And indeed, the dodecapods would float over to...

Prominent Croatian writer Matija Divković and his verse "Sudac gnjevan" (on the 445th anniversary of this birth)

This paper explores a spiritual verse, Sudac gnjevan, by the prominent Slavic enlightener Matija Divković, which had been written on the motif of a famous Latin hymn, Dies Irae (Day of Wrath). Despite the evident similarity of the subject and texture, there are marked differences between the verses. As a whole, the Latin verseconveys a Biblical story, omitting emotional aspects. The presence of generalizations and complex metaphors orientates the text for a well-educated audience. In the Slavic verse, a semantic accent falls onto man’s emotional experience. High emotionality is created by a great number of personal requests and direct speeches, which arestressed by rhetorical figures more applicable to a wide audience.

Dead Fathers Society

Dead Fathers Society JosipNovakovich At age eleven, Croatian writer Josip Novakovich lost his father. In this essay, he explores the effect of his father's early death on his life, faith, and writing, and a camaraderie he has found among others who lost their fathers at a young age. Themath is simple: men marry older and die younger than women. That means that many children born toolder parents grow up with a dead father lurking in thebackground. My fatherdied when Iwas eleven, which had a huge impact on me, so one of the firstthings Iwant to findout when Imeet people iswhether they lost their fathers.I think there is camaraderie among thepeople who lose their fathers early. I experienced that as soon asmy fatherdied; Imade friendswith a boywho seemed to hate me before. The day aftermy fatherdied, Mladen and I stood kicking stones in my backyard, and he said, "Now we are the same." "What do you mean?" "My fatherdied when Iwas three.You will see what it's like not to have a father." He seemed gleeful to have a friend in the same predicament, and while I can't say I rejoice to find out someone had losthis fatherearly on, I do feel immediate camaraderie on that account. Itake this camaraderie into thewriting world, where I notice which writers lost their fathers in theiryouth.My friendBill Cobb losthis at the age of four.The first novel Billwrote opens with an image of a father's ear pickled in a jar, for remembrance?a beautiful and macabre image. I think thatdescribes the sensibility ofmany of us, male or female, in this nonexclusive club, the Dead Fathers Society. Another friend,Madelon Sprengnether, describes inher book Crying at the Movies themoment that sent her adrift into her youth and adulthood: she saw her fatherdrown in theMississippi. He slipped off a sandy islet, while saving his son, and an undertow pulled him in; toMadelon's horror, he didn't resurface. When I visited her, she was listening toMahler, some of the most tragic-sounding passages. "You sure know how to spread cheer, don't you?" I asked her. She laughed. "I like grief. I find itbeautiful." Okay, that is slightly twisted, but then, I agreed with her, those jolts in minor keys, theydid some thing electrifying for my brain, too.Of course, it would be toomuch to claim that the otherswho haven't lost their fathers early don't know such pleasures of grief. At a certain level,when I get togetherwith friends who have lost their fathers, I have a sen sation of being in a group of kids who can play without supervision. The supervisor, the builder of the superego, has vanished. Sure, he lingered on in a ghostly and sometimes intimidatingway. It's possible that inmoments of fear, I clung to the superego, as though it could give me the security of being with a father, theprotector. To this my faith inGod was easily grafted, and sure, inmoments of danger, I prayed toGod, but in moments of pleasure I shunned God. My father died in such away thathe only strengthenedmy fearandmy faith.The fearofGod is thebeginning ofwisdom, the biblical saying goes, and seeing my fatherdie filledme with dread and with a desire to transcend it. In 1968,February 6,midnight, bothmy broth er and I finishedour shrieks ofhorror upon seeing blood coming out of Father's nose afterhis heart attack, and upon feeling no pulse in his hand and neck; yes, after our franticprayer toGod to i8 i World Literature Today 3 My father diedwhen I was eleven,which had a huge impact on me, so one of the first things I want to find outwhen I meet people is whether they losttheirfathers. save him, we paused, almost surprised that we were alive ourselves. "And what now?" I asked. He stared at me with incomprehension that life would go on. For a few seconds we were both calm, strangely relieved. A horror could happen, and you could go on. Soon we relapsed into wail ing and prayers, and when I tried to go tobed, I shivered. My relatives and family friendswho came topay homage tomy father's corpse, which...

Daleka blizina usmeni i zavičajni motivi u "Malim glagoljašima" Daniela Načinovića

Daniel Načinović (1952) istaknuti je, plodan i svestran, hrvatski književnik srednje generacije iz Istre. Od svojih književnih početaka piše i za djecu. I površna bi analiza njegova dječjega djela, uz modernost, ukazala na još tri dominantne osobitosti: zavičajnost, usmenu baštinu i svojevrsnu prigodnost ili, bolje, prigodnu inspirativnost. Za propitivanje i analizu usmenih i zavičajnih motiva najpogodnijima se čine ove tri "ilustrirane knjige": "Burrra", "Kravata Velog Jože ili vilinska svadba u pulskoj Areni" i "Mali glagoljaši". "Mali glagoljaši" priča su o dvoje zagrebačke djece, sestri i bratu Karmeli i Dubravku, koji za ljetnog raspusta dolaze u Roč (u Istri) u "Malu glagoljašku akademiju" učiti glagoljicu. Priča se sastoji od proznoga teksta u koji je umetnuto sedam pjesama naslovljenih glavnim brojevima od 1 do 7. Prozni je tekst pisan standardom, a pjesme čakavskim dijalektom. Djeca iz Zagreba u Istru i natrag putuju "Zvonimirtransom", to jest lete na konju s kraljem Zvonimirom, a u Roču dočekuje ih poznati glagoljaš žakan Juri. Prozni i pjesnički tekst obiluju usmenim i autorovim zavičajnim motivima. Kralj Zvonimir malim Zagrepčanima tumači Istru i njezinu ljepotu bogatstvom graditeljske, glazbene i usmene tradicije. Čakavski dijalekt stiha u "Malim glagoljašima" odavanje je počasti glagoljašima, "začinjavcima" hrvatske pismenosti i književnosti. Autor je naglasio likovnu ljepotu glagoljičkog pisma i "mudrost" glagoljice. Čitajući nazive slova glagoljičke azbuke, dobivamo i poruku: "Ja (koji) slova poznajem velim (da) dobro je živjeti". Učeći glagoljička slova djeca se uče potrebi za znanjem, vedrinom i životnim optimizmom. I ne samo to: iz pjesama se dade iščitati da je učenje glagoljice ravno stvaranju ili otkrivanju svijeta. Kralj Zvonimir i žakan Juri povijesne su ličnosti, ali će ih djeca doživjeti kao likove iz legende i predaje, posebno kralja Zvonimira. "Mali glagoljaši" fantastična je dječja priča. Dvojnost predaje (i povijesti) i sadašnjosti prividna je. Prošlost određuje našu duhovnost, našu pripadnost i naš identitet. S kraljem Zvonimirom i žakanom Jurjem djeca se ne mogu identificirati, jer oni nisu mitskoga podrijetla, ali s glagoljašima i Kraljem mogu razgovarati kao s nekim "iz daleke, daleke blizine".

Performing national identity: the case of Pavao Ritter Vitezovic´ (1652–1713)

The historiographical writings of the Croatian writer Pavao Ritter Vitezovic´ (1652–1713) have been included in the canon of ‘the basic works of Croatian national politics’ by the traditional ‘national’ historiography. This fact gives rise to the question which symbolic models, ideological concepts and narrative constructions of his discourse seemed to be ‘state-making’ and ‘nation-making’ within this interpretative framework. I shall try to show how Vitezovic´'s performative historiographical discourse produces such an effect, and to demonstrate how this discourse creates and makes legitimate the symbolic construction of national identity, creating a virtual, utopian artefact – a ‘revived Croatia’. However, even though the mechanisms, strategies and devices accounting for its internal cohesion and persuasiveness can be identified in the dominant semantic layer of Vitezovic´'s performative discourse, it at the same time lends itself to an analysis exposing its ‘buried grammar’ of internal contradictions, mostly contextually determined, which destabilise and disintegrate it. As this of necessity renders the ‘national’ readings reductive, I propose instead that the canonical texts be treated as polyphonic cultural artefacts bearing imprints of various discursive and contextual re-inscriptions.

Miroslav Krleža: A Croatian Writer Against War

When he died in 1981 at the age of eighty-six, the Croatian writer Miroslav Krlez= a was already recognized as Yugoslavia’s greatest twentiethcentury author and a national figure of towering stature. He excelled at poetry, fiction, drama, memoirs, essays, cultural criticism, literary theory, and political polemics, and wrote prolifically and innovatively in all these forms and genres. His collected works run to more than twenty-seven volumes. The literature about him in Serbo-Croatian is vast. (For a study of Krlez=a in English, see Ralph Bogert, “Miroslav Krlez=a (1893–1981)” in European Writers: The Twentieth Century, ed. George Stade, Vol. 11 (N.Y.: Scribner’s, 1990), 1807–34.)