National Themes Research Articles

Making a locality: the politics of land and football in North Kerala

ABSTRACT This paper explores how a marginalized community in North Kerala uses football and football fandom in order to create a vibrant space for active citizenry. We examine how the categories of football fan and citizen foster each other and provide alternatives to the imagination of a nation that in its discursive homogeneity fosters divisiveness. At the same time, this paper is also interested in the constitution of the football fan community as resolutely local and in dynamic, and negotiated relationship with state machinery. While literature on sports in India has been overwhelmingly centered on the themes of nation and nationalism, this ethnographic study attempts to critically look at the making of a regional identity, from the margins of a nation, through the region’s popular sport, football. In this paper, we explore the ways in which Nainamvalappu football fans Association, an organization based in the coastal region of Nainamvalappu in Kozhikode, converted an open place into a football ground overnight to resist the setting up of a slaughterhouse in the same place by the city corporation, as a form of active resistance but also place making. We argue that this football fans’ association allows for new understandings of popular sovereignty and democracy through a revitalization of sporting spaces.

National Identity and Migration in an Emerging Gateway Community

This paper examines how conceptions of national and local identity influence reactions to migration in the Shenandoah Valley, a rural location in Southwest Virginia with unique demographic characteristics. While Shenandoah Valley residents have been predominantly non-Hispanic whites of European descent, a recent visible influx of Hispanic laborers, a higher than national average Muslim population, a history of refugee resettlement and the migration of urbanites from Northern Virginia have made the Valley one of the most diverse locations in the state of Virginia today. Using a qualitative methods approach with both apriori and emergent coding, I offer some insights as to how a traditional ethnic and civic framework of national identity and emergent themes of local identity, including family values and traditionalism, influence reactions to the changing demographics in this rural community.

РЕПЕРТУАР БАЛЕТНИХ ТЕАТРІВ УКРАЇНИ ТА СВІТУ: ПОРІВНЯЛЬНИЙ АНАЛІЗ

Purpose of the article is to identify the general and various in the formation of the repertoire of theaters in Ukraine and the world. Methodology. The methodology of the research consists in the application of analysis and synthesis, a comparative method, which enabled us to conduct a scientifically objective study. Scientific novelty. The scientific originality of the work is to identify the basic principles of building a repertoire of theaters in Ukraine and the world, common and distinctive features; the introduction into scientific circulation of information on the collection of theaters in Ukraine and the world. Conclusions. The problem of modern Western in the reproduction of sizeable academic forms is the discrepancy between aesthetic and style features, which leads to a loss of creative content. You can see the presence of the performances of the classical heritage in the repertoire of the leading theaters of the world, but each has its own: in Ukraine - multi-act academic performances by M. Petipa, L. Ivanov, ballets of national themes; in the American Ballet Theater - the works of J. Balanchine, in the Royal Ballet of Great Britain - the ballets of F. Ashton and K. Macmillan. The absence of nationally painted works in the theaters of the world is stated. A significant proportion of ballets was noted with the means of modern choreography, as well as the presence of works by invited choreographers in the repertoire of Western theaters. But some progress has already been made on the way of modernizing the national repertoire, which is to a large extent contributed to the work of Radu Poklitaru with the Kiev modern-ballet. The Western Ballet Theater adheres to the theater for all policy; the domestic one is focused on a limited circle of ballet audiences. The evolution of art is not an absolute replacement of old forms by new ones, in parallel performances of various artistic and style directions of choreography continue toexist.

Introduction to Carlos Mérida's “The True Meaning of the Work of Saturnino Herrán”

Abstract The introductory essay places “The True Meaning of the Work of Saturnino Herrán: The False Critics” (1920), a piece of early criticism written by the Guatemalan artist Carlos Mérida during the first year he lived in Mexico City, within the contexts of the cosmopolitan milieu of post-Revolutionary Mexico and the artist's own trajectory. It suggests that the text both demonstrates intellectuals’ interest in questions of form and national art and Mérida's desire to provide a critical framework for his own paintings of indigenous Guatemalan and Mexican women. In “The True Meaning of the Work of Saturnino Herrán: The False Critics,” Mérida lashed out at Mexican critics for praising Herrán as the best and most Mexican painter of the time, arguing, instead that the realism and sentimentalism of Herrán's paintings dishonored national themes by presenting them as picturesque stereotypes. Published in the widely-read magazine El Universal Ilustrado, the text attacks Herrán's paintings and the critics who praise them while also arguing that the predominance of the artist is symptomatic of the predominant problem of the literary nature of Mexican artists’ engagement with autochthonous art and culture.

The True Meaning of the Work of Saturnino Herrán: The False Critics

Abstract The introductory essay places “The True Meaning of the Work of Saturnino Herrán: The False Critics” (1920), a piece of early criticism written by the Guatemalan artist Carlos Mérida during the first year he lived in Mexico City, within the contexts of the cosmopolitan milieu of post-Revolutionary Mexico and the artist's own trajectory. It suggests that the text both demonstrates intellectuals’ interest in questions of form and national art and Mérida's desire to provide a critical framework for his own paintings of indigenous Guatemalan and Mexican women. In “The True Meaning of the Work of Saturnino Herrán: The False Critics,” Mérida lashed out at Mexican critics for praising Herrán as the best and most Mexican painter of the time, arguing, instead that the realism and sentimentalism of Herrán's paintings dishonored national themes by presenting them as picturesque stereotypes. Published in the widely-read magazine El Universal Ilustrado, the text attacks Herrán's paintings and the critics who praise them while also arguing that the predominance of the artist is symptomatic of the predominant problem of the literary nature of Mexican artists’ engagement with autochthonous art and culture.

Slovene-Friulian-Italian Literary Connections at the Beginning of the 20th Century: The Case of Alojz Gradnik and Select Friulian and Italian authors

Based on the case of Alojz Gradnik (1882–1967), this article deals with previously unresearched Slovene-Friulian-Italian literary connections that occurred during the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the first years after WWI along the border of today’s Slovenia (Goriška Brda) and Italy (the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia: the Provinces of Gorizia, Udine and Trieste). The article highlights the parallels in motifs, themes, ideas and form, as well as the connections between Alojz Gradnik and select Friulian and Italian authors from this region. These links are the consequence of living in a joint cultural space and Gradnik’s Friulian family ties, especially with his cousin Maria Samer. The research uncovers certain differences in motifs, themes and ideas stemming from different national identities. Gradnik’s poetry is closest to Friulian lyrical poetry in their descriptions and experiences of a rural setting, predominantly the deep bond felt between the farming people and native land coupled with their terrible social strife. Gradnik and his contemporary Friulian authors also coincide in works with a nationalist theme – on the threshold of WWI both Slovene and Friulian authors infused their work with their personal vision for the future of their own community. They shared a negative literary depiction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the wish to secure a better economic future, to protect and solidify their cultural heritage. Gradnik’s poetry and that of the contemporary Italian (irredentist) authors share a similar literary technique that depicted the national identities of today’s border between Italy and Slovenia; they were ideologically opposed however: while the Italians depicted the Italian view of the region, Gradnik highlights the presence of a Slavic element within the region.

Ann Yearsley’s “Brutus” and the Evangelical Epic Poem

Ann Yearsley’s “Brutus” and the Evangelical Epic Poem Matthew Leporati (bio) William hayley’s call in his essay on epic poetry (1782) for british poets to “ascend Parnassus’ highest mound” and “In triumph there the Epic Trumpet sound” was met by an unprecedented resurgence of the genre.1 More epic poems were written in Britain between 1790 and 1820 than at any other time in history.2 Traditionally dealing with questions of nation and empire, the epic genre served as a vital form that Romantic-era poets revived to examine their nation and its place in the world after the French Revolution. Many of these poems have passed largely into obscurity, but studying under-read epics can help to reveal how this poetic form offered unique tools for writers not only to engage developing national, imperial, and religious ideologies, but to construct and position their public identity within explorations of broader national and global contexts. This article examines one such under-read epic: laboring-class poet Ann Yearsley’s “Brutus, a Fragment,” from her final collection The Rural Lyre (1796). This national epic concerns the founding of Britain by the Trojan Brutus, and one of its central figures is the British goddess Liberty (likely inspired in part by Liberty’s appearance in Hayley’s Essay). Situating this poem in the epic revival as well as the evangelical revival of the late eighteenth century, I argue that Yearsley deploys the resources of the epic genre to affirm broadly several imperial assumptions. However, subtle strategies in her epic allow her to subvert imperialist discourse from within and challenge common hierarchical views of colonialism, race, and conversion. The Rural Lyre as a whole is curiously invested in classical literature. After Yearsley’s opposition to “rule” and “precedent” in her Poems, on Various Subjects (1787), readers might well have expected her to extend the idea that “poetry might after all come direct from minds unfettered by classical [End Page 265] education,” as Mary Waldron suggests.3 Had Yearsley underlined her “untutored” status in The Rural Lyre, it might have furnished an implicit attack on her former patron Hannah More: since Yearsley had presented herself in her first collection as a grateful “convert” of More—a “savage” whose “unciviliz’d” mind had been illuminated by her patron—she might have emphasized her lack of formal education in The Rural Lyre to demonstrate that she no longer had any need for More’s influence.4 Yet The Rural Lyre is indebted to the classics, as if to foreground Yearsley’s possession of the kind of cultural knowledge that was often assumed to be beyond the laboring class. In addition to opening with an abbreviated epic, the volume features another poem that reflects Yearsley’s reading of Platonic philosophy (“Remonstrance in the Platonic Shade Flourishing on an Height”), along with several pastoral poems inspired by Virgil’s Georgics. The classical influence on this collection may be explained by the political pressures of the age. During the “war hysteria” of the late eighteenth century, Waldron suggests, a woman stepping out of the “private and domestic” sphere might be seen as “subversive.”5 It may thus have been imperative for Yearsley to cleave to conservative literary forms (along with patriotic themes). Also considering the political climate, Moira Ferguson notes a patriotic turn in Yearsley’s work after 1793, observing that it coincides both with Britain’s declaration of war against France and with Yearsley’s opening of a successful circulating library in Bristol, providing her a steady source of income.6 The relative conservatism or radicalism of Yearsley’s politics, as well as her construction of her own class identity, has long been a source of contention among critics. Where some, such as Ferguson and Donna Landry, see Yearsley primarily as championing the working class, others such as Waldron suggest that Yearsley identified “chiefly with the bourgeois rather than the proletarian.”7 Interpretations of Yearsley’s class identity often [End Page 266] guide the ways that critics read her politics. Those who position her with the proletarian tend to emphasize a subtle radicalism expressed in her work. Others, such as Julie Cairnie, who see Yearsley as...

Travelling into Alienation and Neurology with a Painter: Georges Moreau (1848-1901).

Georges Moreau (1848-1901) was a painter and the son of the famous psychiatrist Jacques-Joseph Moreau de Tours. Early in his career, his paintings aspired toward figurative perfection, exalting patriotic and historical themes. His prolific production includes numerous paintings for which he drew inspiration from psychology and certain mental pathologies. At the age of 45 years he suffered right hemiplegia which forced him to set aside large-scale subjects and focus instead on intimist, almost pointillistic works, which brought him closer to the Impressionists, as his portrait of Paul Cézanne shows. Possibly his most well-known painting, Les fascinés de la Charité, service du Dr. Luys, is analysed here by comparison with La Leçon clinique à La Salpêtrière by André Brouillet, which depicts Jean-Martin Charcot and his students.

Two Years of “Making America Great Again”

The utility of “current history” often proves limited in the long run. In the meantime, immediate reports, like Bob Woodward's 2018 book, Fear: Trump in the White House, can be insightful. Despite Woodward's Watergate-tested “deep background” style of reporting, he contextualizes many of the currents running through the populist turn in the United States in the 2010 national midterm elections, which legitimized the key conservative nationalist themes woven into Donald J. Trump's unyielding assault on both the Democratic and Republican parties for failing to protect American jobs, to stop illegal immigration, and to win the war against radical Islamic terrorism…

Research on Theme Park’s Space Design Based on Cognitive Map Theory: Take Taiji Lake Kung Fu City Theme Park of Wudang Mountains in Hubei as an Example

Under the background of the rise of the national theme park, the design connotation of the theme park, the scientific planning of landscape design and the design of the surrounding environment make the theme park more suitable for the aesthetics of tourists, enhance the satisfaction of tourists, and then improve the theme park. Overall quality. Taking Taiji Lake Kung Fu city theme park of Wudang Mountains in Hubei Province as an example, combined with the important influence of cognitive map theory on park planning, this paper analyzes the design of the Taiji Lake Kungfu City theme park through the five elements of the cognitive map city image, and the Kung Fu City theme park. The construction proposes targeted recommendations and effective design.

The Sung Home: Narrative, Morality, and the Kurdish Nation

The Sung Home: Narrative, Morality, and the Kurdish Nation

NARRATIVES OF DECLINE IN THE DUTCH NATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENT, 1931–1945

AbstractGeneric fascism scholarship, which has turned strongly towards cultural political history in recent years, has focused heavily on themes of rebirth in fascist culture, but rebirth's counterpart of decline remains under-researched. After emphasizing the existence of several distinct and even mutually exclusive ideological strands in the NSB, this article shows how ideological difference was marked by narratives of decline. But they were equally used to generate a coherent political message about the contemporary state of the Netherlands. Central to their functionality as a unifying tool was party newspaper Volk en Vaderland, which served to promote a patriotic, news-focused, and peculiarly Dutch narrative of decline that overarched ideological difference. Yet more than just tying ends together, one narrative in particular served as a crucial ideological constant in the Movement, namely the Leider Anton Mussert's narrative of decline since the early modern Golden Age of the Dutch Republic, which tied traditional liberal patriotic themes into fascist discourse. Where other historians have emphasized Mussert's lack of moral and ideological leadership, the article impresses how narratives of decline functioned as moral support, and rallied NSB loyalists throughout the German occupation of the Netherlands, until Mussert's own death.

NARRATIVES OF DECLINE IN THE DUTCH NATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENT, 1931–1945

Generic fascism scholarship, which has turned strongly towards cultural political history in recent years, has focused heavily on themes of rebirth in fascist culture, but rebirth's counterpart of decline remains under-researched. After emphasizing the existence of several distinct and even mutually exclusive ideological strands in the NSB, this article shows how ideological difference was marked by narratives of decline. But they were equally used to generate a coherent political message about the contemporary state of the Netherlands. Central to their functionality as a unifying tool was party newspaper Volk en Vaderland, which served to promote a patriotic, news-focused, and peculiarly Dutch narrative of decline that overarched ideological difference. Yet more than just tying ends together, one narrative in particular served as a crucial ideological constant in the Movement, namely the Leider Anton Mussert's narrative of decline since the early modern Golden Age of the Dutch Republic, which tied traditional liberal patriotic themes into fascist discourse. Where other historians have emphasized Mussert's lack of moral and ideological leadership, the article impresses how narratives of decline functioned as moral support, and rallied NSB loyalists throughout the German occupation of the Netherlands, until Mussert's own death.

Introduction

Introduction

‘22 Push-Ups for a Cause’: Depicting the Moral Self via Social Media Campaign #Mission22

In 2016, the online cause #Mission22 went viral on social media. Established to raise awareness about high suicide rates among US military veterans, the campaign involves users posting a video of themselves doing 22 push-ups for 22 days, and on some platforms, to donate and recruit others to do the same. Based on a ‘big data’ analysis of Twitter data (over 225,883 unique tweets) during the height of the campaign, this article uses #Mission22 as a site in which to analyse how people depict, self-represent and self-tell as moral subjects using social media campaigns. In addition to spotlighting how such movements are mobilised to portray moral selves in particular ways, the analysis focuses on how a specific online cause like #Mission22 becomes popularly supported from a plethora of possible causes and how this selection and support is shaped by online networks. We speculate that part of the reason why Mission22 went ‘viral’ in the highly competitive attention economies of social media environments was related to visual depictions of affective bodily, fitness and moral practices.

The usability, usefulness and use of a national collaborative IT platform for the purpose of continuity of care.

In 2015, the Ministry of Health (MOH) Singapore embarked on an initiative to create a national IT collaborative platform whereby entry of and access to patient information are limited to those who have been identified as part of the patient’s Care Team, which may comprise of doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals such as social workers and therapists. This was initially used to address one of the six regional health systems (RHS) priority areas in Singapore of managing frequent readmissions which has subsequently expanded to address other national programme themes such as transition care and care-coordination. The core principle behind this IT platform is to enable information sharing between members of the care team for the purpose of continuity of care. In the current state, once patient care is handed over to community partners, there is no avenue for care coordinators in the tertiary hospital to follow up on the progress of their patients apart from direct communication via phone call or email correspondence. In addition, there are certain instances whereby community partners face difficulty in care of patients due to lack of information being flowed down to them. This IT platform aims to bridge this gap between members of the tertiary centre with community partners as well as GPs to allow for information sharing and update between both parties. Through this platform, a personalised care plan can be formulated for each patient which may comprise problems, intervention, assessment and goals. This is on top of the ability to assign care team member for the care of the patient to increase practice efficiency. There is oversight of patient into other programmes across different healthcare clusters in the nation. This is beneficial in terms of preventing duplication of care plans or tasks and accurate and timely information flow to all members of the care team. This poster aims to articulate the usability, usefulness and use of a national collaborative IT platform to formulate an individualised care plan for each patient comprising of multi-disciplinary care team members assigned with specific task to allow for continuity of care as well as efficient care delivery to improve patient health outcome.

РЕПЕРТУАР БАЛЕТНОГО ТЕАТРУ УКРАЇНИ КІНЦЯ ХХ – ПОЧАТКУ ХХІ СТОЛІТТЯ:ТИПОЛОГІЯ ТА ПРОБЛЕМИ

Мета дослідження – систематизувати репертуар балетного театру України кін. ХХ – поч. ХХІ ст. та виявити основні мистецькі проблеми його формування. Методи дослідження поєднують аналіз репертуарної політики балетних театрів та типологізацію у процесі упорядкування балетних вистав з репертуару за групами. Наукова новизна статті полягає у запропонованій типології творів з репертуару балетного театру сучасної України та виявленні проблем його формування. Висновки. Досить умовно репертуар балетних театрів України кін. ХХ – поч. ХХІ ст. можна розділити за групами: редакції балетів класичної спадщини в традиційній естетиці; інтерпретації балетів «Російських сезонів»; відновлення балетів радянського періоду, зокрема, балетів національної тематики; оригінальні постановки в традиційній естетиці засобами класичного та неокласичного танцю; балетні експерименти в естетиці модерну та постмодерну. Нині відчутні певні зрушення на шляху осучаснення вітчизняного балетного театру, що сприяє не лише інтеграції у світову хореографію, а й підвищує мистецький рівень вітчизняного балетного театру. Гострими залишаються проблеми: збагачення репертуару балетами, створеними засобами сучасної хореографії, також творами національної тематики; співпраця балетного театру із сучасними українськими композиторами; інтенсивний графік творчої роботи, коли одночасно необхідно підтримувати діючий репертуар та створювати нові вистави.

German Prisoners of War in Japan During the First World War: Letters from the Colonial Frontline

In 1914, approximately 4500–4800 German men were transported to Prisoner of War (POW) camps in Japan following the occupation of the German colony in China. They were the only European POWs held captive by an Asian Great Power, making this a unique colonial case study. This is the first essay to analyse how German POWs in Japan perceived of and narrated their experiences in their letters, with particular focus on the recurring themes of patriotism, nationalism, and cultural-racial constructs. I will analyse the ways in which the POWs used these socio-cultural concepts to make sense of their circumstances and maintain a link to the German diaspora and metropolis.

Tharaphi Than. Women in Modern Burma. London and New York: Routledge, 2014, 182pp.

Women in Modern Burma Tharaphi Than London and New York: Routledge, 2014, 182pp.The 2015 election in Myanmar was a pivotal moment in history due to landslide victory of National League for Democracy, led by world-renowned politician Daw Aung San Su Kyi. The presence of an outstanding female leader appears to be a testament of popular narrative that Burmese are powerful agents granted equal rights and status in society. In Women in Modern Burma, Tharaphi Than challenges this notion and reassesses social, economic, and political position of in Burma throughout twentieth century.The introduction offers an overview that includes official narrative and popular image of Burmese along with a brief political and cultural outline of twentieth-century Burma. Than shows how national framework of historical writing has defended privileged positions of Burmese women, who have been portrayed as powerful agents enjoying high status and equal rights to men. Contrary to this narrative, book attempts to challenge concept of liberated Burmese women by showing that Burmese experience little freedom in reality. It accomplishes this by exploring world of female soldiers, politicians, writers, and prostitutes and by referencing women's writings, personal interviews, newspapers, and magazine articles (p. 4). Next, Myanmar's political and cultural situation in twentieth century is briefly outlined as follows: transition to independence (1945-48), Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) (194652), Pyidawtha or Happy Land Years (1952-56), Burma Socialist Program Party (1962-88), and post-1988 period with a post-independence media landscape.Chapter 2 focuses on how female journalists, editors, and writers struggled to achieve their positions in print media. After first English-language newspaper in Burma was published in 1910, print media, especially newspapers, flourished in country and regarded as nonlethal weapons with which to challenge British colonial rule. Thus, young, educated Burmese nationalists viewed journalists and teachers as most attractive professions that could build a full engagement with national politics. Educated Burmese elite men often moved easily within print media industry, politics, and business arena, while such mobility was not available to women. Daw Phwa Shin became first female editor and publisher of newspaper Tharawaddy. However, she used her husband's name as publisher and editor, because she feared that readers would think Tharawaddy was inferior if it was known to be run by a woman. Even Independent Daw San, who demonstrated that a woman was indeed capable of managing a newspaper, wrote under a male pseudonym for fear of being blamed for not embracing modesty. However, independence caused a seismic shift in discourse of Burmese literature and female writers. Women writers played a significant role in shaping national themes and goals for post-independence literature, particularly for preservation of Burmese culture and contributions to nation building and national identity formation.Chapter 3 takes up subject of women's education. On subject of female education in colonial period, Chie Ikeya (2011) has already argued that British education system was crucial to success of Burmese middle-class and that modern education triggered most radical transformation in history of female education and professionalism. On other hand, Than insists that while British education system might have triggered a transformation, the transformation may simply have been a matter of learning in an institution and that Burmese were not empowered to make their independent way in world, with few exceptions (p. 49). Certainly, statistical data obtained by local NGOs, United Nations Population Fund, and government show that either highly educated or highly illiterate (p. …

White Dogs

After helping alert the country to a serious earthquake (Montenegro is seismically very active and suffered a severe quake in the year Mandić was born), the protagonists leave the country to live in Vienna for a time, hoping the change of scene will revitalize their relationship and allow Koko to get pregnant. It should be added that Montenegro has a very low birth rate, in addition to an exodus of the young and well-educated population. The latter issue is also a theme in the story “Leaving ,” by Slađana Kavarić (b. 1991), in which two young people are torn between wanting to immigrate and find a perspective abroad and not wanting to lose the modicum of security and familiarity they have at home, despite the mess the country is in. We are glad to present this piece by a young woman writer because Montenegro’s literary scene is heavily male-dominated. Among the female voices that have gained a degree of attention in recent years are two novelists, who also translate their own work into English: Ksenija Popović (Boy from the Water and A Lullaby for No Man’s Wolf) and Olja Knežević (From London, with Love). The poets Tanja Bakić and Lena Ruth Stefanović have received attention at home and abroad and also deserve mention in this context. Having followed Montenegrin writing closely for the last ten years, I still find it hard to put my finger on a common, unifying feature. Given the turmoil of the past and present as well as the ethnically diverse reality most Montenegrins live in, perhaps it is precisely a certain openness, eclecticism, and variability in perspective that characterize many of these writers. My impression is that they are less inclined to dwell on narrowly national themes and trends than their peers in Croatia or Serbia, for example. Together, the three pieces in this issue of WLT give a diverse insight into contemporary Montenegrin prose writing. Will Firth (www.willfirth.de) was born in 1965 in Newcastle, Australia. He studied German and Slavic languages in Canberra, Zagreb, and Moscow. Since 1991 he has lived in Berlin, where he works as a translator of literature and the humanities (from Russian, Macedonian, and all variants of Serbo-Croat). His best-received translations of recent years have been Robert Perišić‘s Our Man in Iraq, Andrej Nikolaidis’s Till Kingdom Come, and Faruk Šehić’s Quiet Flows the Una. photo : barn images ift . tt / 1 phxbx 2 30 WLT MARCH–APRIL 2017 White Dogs by Milovan Radojević S ince you intend to kill yourself anyway, why don’t you fit your death into our plans? We need heroes, and it’s all the same to you, he thought about a character from the novel as he rocked to and fro in the packed streetcar. “Slow down, why don’t you. We’ll all be killed!” yelled a fat woman with a bun on her head, and Matija’s ears rang painfully from her piercing, shrill voice. One of his reasons for being an avid reader was to detach himself from his vacuous clerical job. So he also read on the way to the office, fifteen stops from the building where he lived. He was standing in the stuffy streetcar once more, hemmed in by puffy-faced people and trying to focus on the print of his paperback. And then, as if he suddenly remembered something, he looked out the window. There’s the “Three Brothers” bakery, so it’s the fourteenth stop, he realized, and then he noticed a familiar female figure among the passengers. Maybe I should try to write some short stories, he mused and made his way to the door, which opened with a hiss. Big, melancholic eyes watched him as he descended the metal steps. Once I used to drown in those eyes, he thought and nearly stumbled. Yes, I’ll try, he resolved, and turned to look back into those black vortexes, as if to thank them for their silent encouragement. Their owner stared at him, holding on to the bar in front of her with both hands, as the streetcar moved away from the fifteenth stop. special...