Serbian Literature Research Articles

Humor i satira u modernom pikarskom romanu The bodigard Radivoja Bojičića - od etnopsihološke anegdote do društvene kritike

Starting from Northrop Frye's claim that one of the main characteristics of satire is the element of humor based on the feeling of the grotesque or absurd, but that satire is a critical presentation of social, political and other situations, this paper discusses the elements of humor and satire in the novel The Bodyguard by Radivoje Bojičić, which is already defined in the title as a "pictorial novel". Although pictorial novels in Serbian literature do not have a long and solid tradition, Bojićič's novel about a bodyguard, who as a kind of anti-hero tells about his life's vocation full of temptations and risks, with strong touches of irony, satire and parody, as well as humor that affirms values contrary to those that are recognizable at first glance, enters the ranks of original and self-contained achievements, thus strengthening the humorous-satirical tradition embodied mostly in the work of Branislav Nušić and of Branko Ćopić. The writer achieves a special dimension of the comic in the novel by using the procedure of comic characterization of the main character, the procedure of comic exaggeration (caricatural, hyperbolic, grotesque), the procedure of inserting intertextual sections, in which the main character parodically refers to well-known phrases, platitudes and quotations from domestic literature and culture, and using a linguistic corpus and terminology appropriate to the world in which the main character found himself, but putting in the foreground precisely the language of the main character and highlighting his origin, social status and special dialectal "literacy". Because of all this, it is possible to read this novel not only as a humorous and satirical piece but also as an ethnopsychological anecdote about a primitive, aggressive and naïve man who must be first in everything - especially in heroism.

„SEKS-APEL“ U MEĐURATNOM BEOGRADU: RODNO ČITANjE TERAZIJA BOŠKA TOKINA

This paper aims to study gender identities in the novel Terazije by Boško Tokin, which is considered by some literary critics to be the first modern novel of the Serbian literature. In his story of interwar Belgrade, Tokin depicts a world in which traditional morality and customs have been replaced by the amorality of the new age, in which each individual is left to themselves and their conscience, and there are no social penalties for great sinners. At the beginning of the work, we gave an overview of the reception of this novel, starting from the first reviews in the contemporary press, through lack of interest for the most of the twentieth century, to the renewed interest in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In the part of the work dedicated to the analysis of the novel, we first reflected on the formation of the character of the modern woman, shown through the marriage of Đorđe and Olga, but also her subsequent moral downfall. After that, we analyzed Đorđe’s relationship with the maid Zuza and interpreted the space of Palilula as an expressionist locus amoenis in which a man gains freedom from a woman. Olivera Jovićević, wife of MP Sima, as the character of a sexually frustrated woman, offered another look at a woman of the new age, who will still experience her most complete incarnation in Zora Bogosavljević, whose relationship with the bon vivant Strahinja represents an apology of free love. This, however, stands in sharp contrast to Zora’s tragic ending, which shows a split in Tokin’s approach to this character. The final part of the work is dedicated to cross-dresser Rista/Rikica, one of the earliest characters of homosexuals in the Serbian literature. These characters depict Toxin’s complex and often contradictory attitude towards issues of gender, sexuality, and morality and attract the modern reader with their modernity.

ODNOS ŽIVOTINjA: ČOVJEK U PROZI VELjKA PETROVIĆA

The role of animals in literature has always been not only thematically but also stylistically significant since Aesop and Orwell. Literary criticism noticed that Veljko Petrović possessed the skill of a great storyteller and observer of life, especially in the domain of the animal world, calling him the best animalist in the Serbian literature. The presence of animals in Veljko Petrović’s short stories is at the heart of his narrative dramaturgy and points us to the connection and reflection of the animal world in the human world and vice versa. In his stories, Petrović reveals to us that there are interesting details in the animal world as well as in the human world, and that animal creatures often have a closer and purer relationship than individuals in the human world. In these stories, animals and birds experience dramas, they have almost human feelings, and the writer introduces us to the secrets of nature and wins us over to that world through his love.

Recent Serbian literature as a reflection and agent of the political environment

Recent Serbian literature as a reflection and agent of the political environment

SLIKOVITA IMENOVANJA U KNJIŽEVNOM STVARALAŠTVU ZA DECU DEJANA ALEKSIĆA

Children’s literature represents a part of the overall literary creativity in a specific language, therefore it should not be viewed as an isolated artistic phenomenon. On the other hand, literary pieces for children have self-acquired characteristics compared to other artistic texts. The subject of interest in this paper is recent linguistic research into the language and style of Serbian literature designed for children. The corpus includes linguistic works dealing with Serbian children’s literature, which were published after the year 2000. The corpus does not include examinations dedicated to folklore literature, Serbian language teaching, contras- tive and translation topics. The aim of this review is: (1) to highlight the scientific topics that were dealt with by scholars of Serbian literary creativity for children in the selected corpus; (2) to note linguistic approaches and achieved scientific results. The analysis showed that: (1) in the recent linguistic research of Serbian children’s literature it was stylistic features that were primarily investigated; (2) the stylistic approach was applied most often, but other linguistic approaches were represented, too, such as psycholinguistic and cognitive linguistic ones.

BOŽIDAR PETRANOVIĆ AND THE EMERGENCE OF PERIODICALS IN SERBIAN IN THE PROVINCE OF DALMATIA

Božidar Petranović belongs to a group of prominent actors as regards to the 19th-century Serbian culture in the province of Dalmatia (part of the present-day Croatia). Although his social engagement is versatile (among other things, he was a law attorney, a writer, a literary historian, a translator, a deputy in the parliament, a creator of legal documents, and a historian), one of his most notable contributions would be the establishment and subsequent editing of a journal entitled Srpsko-dalmatinski magazin, the first publication dealing with Serbian literature in Dalmatia, whose influence was felt far beyond the imagined borders. For that reason, this paper is focused on the editorial, cultural, and literary engagement of Božidar Petranović among the Serb population in Dalmatia, especially as regards to the aforementioned journal.

O literackich losach opowieści o bitwie na Kosowym Polu i próbie przybliżenia jej polskim czytelnikom dziecięcym

This article is devoted to the Polish edition of a collection of Serbian folk songs, which was published in 1962 by the Polish publishing house Nasza Księgarnia under the title Bitwa na Kosowym Polu (The Battle of Kosovo). It is the first and only complete edition of the songs of the Kosovo cycle in Polish, translated for young readers by Zygmunt Stoberski, an outstanding translator and promoter of Serbian literature in Poland. The article is divided into several parts. In the first one, attention is focused on the battle itself, which took place in 1389, the folk songs commemorating this event and the importance of the Kosovo myth. In the second part, the focus is on the fascination with the Serbian Middle Ages in Serbian literature for children and youth. In the following parts, Polish‑Serbian literary contacts after World War II and the history of translations of texts for children, the translation and popularization activities of Zygmunt Stoberski, and the reception of Serbian folk song in Poland were reviewed. The main purpose of the article was to show how the translator and the publishing house Nasza Księgarnia adapted the Serbian epic to the perceptual abilities of young readers. It also shows how Bitwa na Kosowym Polu can be seen against the background of Polish historical prose for children, which was written in the 1950s and 1960s.

On the Border of Worlds and on the Periphery of the Canon: The Place of the Dubrovnik Tradition in Serbian Literary History

The article attempts to discuss the status of Dubrovnik and its literary and cultural tradition in 19th- and 20th-century discourses in the frame of Serbian literary history. The starting point for the presented considerations will be the opinion of Jovan Deretić, who, perceiving the Dubrovnik tradition as “borderline”, referred to it as “a tradition of secondary importance” for the Serbian culture and literature system. In his opinion, it could not have become for the Serbs what it had become for Croatian literature, that is, “the central national tradition”. The text will discuss different points of view (both “internal” and “external”) on the “location” and importance of the city and its traditions in the context of ongoing discussions on the identity of Dubrovnik. The t exts of the n ineteenth-century authors (Đ. Nikolajević, I. Stojanović, L. Vojnović) and twentieth-century authors (J. Skerlić, P. Popović, M. Pantić) will be analyzed. The framework of the article will be determined by contemporary reflection on this subject (Z. Bojović, I. Arsić, S. Stipčević).

N.I. Tolstoy and Slavo-Serbian Literature

With this paper we would like to pay hommage to N.I. Tolstoy´s research of the pre-standard Serbian literature. That topic, as usual within the broader context of Slavia Orthodoxa, has accompanied Tolstoy during almost the whole of his scientific activity. In this area his studies about the Slav(en)oserbian lierature are of particular relevance, because it is one of rather poorly studied periods of the Serbian cultural and language history. Slav(en)oserbian literature has been in use among the Serbs in Austria during the 2nd half ofthe 18supth/sup – 1st half of the 19supth/sup century. In our overview the focus will be on such themes and questions which are rather poorly researched in the conventional sources, while N. I. Tolstoy´s works are characterized by his systemic, descriptive, analytically approach to the matter. This approach includes non-lingusitic features of the corpus, too. To demonstrate it is the main purpose of this paper.

АУТОБИОГРАФСКИ АСПЕКТИ ПРОЗЕ ИЗ ЈЕДНОГ ДНЕВНИКА ВЕЛИМИРА РАЈИЋА

The paper analyses the prose From a Diary by Velimir Rajić (1879-1915), which was published as a short story in Srpski književni glasnik (Serbian Literary Gazette) in the issues of May 16 and June 1 and 16, 1904, and then in 1908, along with poems from the first and only collection Pesme i proza (Poems and Prose). Problematizing the issue of the genre of the mentioned text, it is also pointed out that the introductory chapters of the diary were “added” and written by the literary critic Pavle Popović, who read the manuscript in its original form. Also, the paper analyses the coincidences of individual episodes from diary entries with the biography of their author. Rajić’s reflections on illness and unrequited love correspond to the real life of the poet. Using the testimonies of the writer’s friends and contemporaries, we point out that the diary can be used as material for the interpretation of Rajić’s poetry, especially the poem “On the day of her wedding”(„Na dan njenog venčanja”) which, according to the testimony of the poet’s friends, is dedicated to Kosara Bоbić.

Contemplation of the Sermons at the Foot of the Mount and Petar II Petrović Njegoš in the Critical Thought of Nicholai Velimirovich

Snežana Adamović’s book is written in simple language, so one can easily understand the complexity of the two icons of the Serbian Orthodox Church and Serbian literature: St. Bishop Nicholai Velimirovich and St. Bishop Peter II Petrović Njegoš. In addition to being composed as a diptych, spontaneously or not, with the icon of Christ the God-Man in the center, a triptych and an intercession (gr. δέησις) arise. With freedom of speech without imposing final answers and definitions, the author’s work is didactic. The goal is to reveal through these icons a Christian method of life in the quest for eternal answers to the meaning of existence. That is why the conclusion of this book is Lord Jesus Christ Himself — the visible Word of the invisible God the Father, as a fundament in the oratory of Saint Bishop Nicholai.

„RELIGIJA TRAGANjA“: INTERTEKSTUALNI I INTERMEDIJALNI HORIZONT STRIPOVA O KORTU MALTEZEU

Hugo Pratt’s opus can be considered as one of the crucial contributions of contemporary Italian art to global culture for the opening of an exhibition of his drawings in Grand Palais in Paris (1986) is identified as the initial point of institutional legitimization of the ninth art. Accordingly, it is important to mention how Umberto Eco recognized Pratt’s The Ballad of the Salty Sea as a pivotal cultural event, regarding it within the context of transcending not only the domain of popular culture but also traditional and conventional literary forms via fusing literary and comic discourse. In the light of the aforementioned, the paper aims to examine interme- dial adaptations of Pratt’s Corto Maltese comics, paying particular attention to how the graphic novels resonated through Serbian literature. Likewise, by analyzing stylistic, semiotic, narra- tive, and thematic particularities of the defined corpus, the paper would attempt to prove the hypothesis regarding the fundamental influence of English and American literary traditions on constituting Hugo Pratt’s poetics. Such an approach would facilitate the interpretation of Corto Maltese comics within the broader context of adventure fiction, which would raise the issue of ideological and ontological status of this literary genre. The paper aims to answer the following questions: is the imperative of „the useless quest” the impulse that initiates the creation of new worlds within the blank spaces between reality, hallucination, dreams, and imagination; sup- posing that the production of meaning of a literary text on the recipient horizon is essentially wandering, the unpredictable, risky and precarious endeavor without guaranteed success, is it justified to claim that every literary text is in fact a piece of adventure fiction; ultimately, is the permanent movement the ontological determinant of human identity.

MATOŠEVI KRITIČKI TEKSTOVI O SRPSKIM PISCIMA

In this paper, we will deal with Matoš’s literary criticism of Serbian literary contempo- raries. The aim of the paper is to point out the importance of the texts that one of the most important artists of Croatian literature dedicated to the Serbian writers of his time, but at the same time to draw attention to the importance of Matoš’s involvement in Serbian literature and culture at the turn of the century.

Književnost kao kritika ideologije - prilog tumačenju društvenog i kritičkog mišljenja Predraga Palavestre

The problem of literature as a critique of ideology is essentially a question of the relationship between creativity and artistic freedom, on the one hand, and social order, on the other. With Predrag Palavestra (1930-2014), this question is a continuation of the discussion about critical literature as an alternative to postmodernism and its development trends. The book of essays Literature - Critique of Ideology (1991) contains 17 papers and all of them stem from the book Critical Literature (1983) in which 31 papers were printed. The introductory place in the discussion of literature as a critique of ideology belongs to the problem of Serbian literature in the Yugoslav or South Slavic civilization at the moment when it became clear that the Yugoslav state was falling apart. Palavestra starts from the idea, even though since the time when its concept was defined (as an ideological and state goal), Yugoslav civilization remained an imaginary concept, that the first task of Serbian intellectuals at that time was to "bring and establish a new, modern, critical and democratic Serbian national program", based on experience in the past and present, so the Yugoslav civilization will survive, if other intellectual forces of the Yugoslav peoples decide for it "democratically and with creative energies, truly and actively". The task of the work is to show how Palavestra's critical thought, communicated throughout the world, aimed to understand the values not only of Serbian literature and culture, but also to prevent the drama and bloody disintegration of the Yugoslav state and the civil war of its peoples. In all parts of the world, in many institutions, newspapers and magazines, he advocated dialogue as a way out of impasse. Also, we show that all the books and topics he dealt with were the way to the great synthesis he achieved in the History of Serbian Literary Criticism 1768 - 2007 (2008).

Overcoming the Soviet-Yugoslav crisis. The translation of Serbian literature into Russian language during the second half of 1950-s

In the history of Yugoslavia, the period of 1948–1953 is called “the times of Information Bureau”, when all the relations between USSR and Yugoslavia were severed, including cultural ones. In the second half of the 1950s they began to recover. The most important part of this process was the translation of Serbian literature into Russian language. The main works of Serbian classic and modern literature were published (P. Negosh, R. Domanovich, B. Nushich, B. Chopich, D. Chosich). Special attention was given to the works of Ivo Andrich. The translators, authors of prefaces, comments and notes were mainly professional slavic scholars from Moscow State University and University of Saint Petersburg. The poets M. Zenkevich and I. Golenischev-Kutuzov had significant impact on the development of poetry translation from Serbian into Russian.

Hrišćanska inspiracija u savremenoj srpskoj poeziji

The subject of our research in this paper are aspects of religious spirituality in contemporary Serbian poetry. First, we give an overview of poetic, ideological and cultural characteristics of poetic production in the last three decades, with certain value categorizations. We then direct our attention to the individual poetics of poets born in the seventies and eighties, whose poetry has a proven presence of Christian inspiration. Our goal is to establish a literary-historical and culturally distinct poetic flow and situate it within the History of Modern and Contemporary Serbian literature, predominantly secular. The focus of our analysis is not exclusively quotes, narratives or motifs from the Bible and patristic literature. We examine how Christian (Serbian-Byzantine and Western-Christian) spirituality participates in the formation of an individual poetic view of the world, as well as poetic spirituality that manifests itself through poetic images, expressions and figures. We are interested in the work of the religious consciousness of our poets in shaping their artistic, moral and value attitudes towards the phenomena of our epoch, but also towards the culture to which they belong. Therefore, we analyse the cultural models that these poets embrace in their poetry, as well as the humanistic messages that they place within their immanent poetics. We come to the conclusion that male and female poets, with their poetic and spiritual commitment, have taken the risk of deciding to give up poetry as a form of social engagement, aware in advance of the burden of the alternative and the minority.

(ITALIJANSKI) FRANjEVAČKI SVETITELjI U SRPSKOJ MEĐURATNOJ KNjIŽEVNOSTI

The paper primarily catalogues, rather than interprets, the reception of Franciscan saints’ characters, theology and spirituality in the texts (travelogues, essays, newspaper articles) writ- ten by Serbian interbellum modernists. Accordingly, it represents a pledge of further research, a “dialog” and “consonance” between the Serbian authors’ modernist poetic viewpoints and spiritual and theological viewpoints of Catholic saints and holy men, and therefore an articu- lation of Eurocentric cultural and poetic “program” upheld by our writers of the period, which was far-reaching in broadening the cultural horizon of Serbian literature.

Dominantne odlike sintaksičkog oblikovanja u Crvenoj planeti Gorana Korunovića

The text provides an analysis of the dominant syntactic features in the poetry book Red Planet by Goran Korunović, one of the most notable contemporary Serbian poets. The analysis of the text has revealed that in the prose fragments, sentence simplicity is achieved through the use of specific sentence types based on meaning, realized through coordinating relationships within communicative sentences, employed dependent clauses, and predicate actualization. Furthermore, the prose text lacks extensive syntagms, sentence condensers, and interpolation and inversion of sentence constituents demanding for reception. In the poetic section of the Red Planet, there is a slight change in syntactic composition: more demanding sentence constructions, an interweaving of multiple dependent clauses, and occasional verb condensers, appositives, and more complex syntagms occur. These mentioned aspects of syntactic shaping are closely related to the semantic layer of the text, suggesting the immediacy of the narrator's discourse, a sense of emotional distance, and perceptual limitations in encountering a new and different world. Additionally, subtle deviations from the uniform prevailing syntactic groundwork are derived, conveying the quality of the narrator's consciousness and the procedural nature of the events in which they participate and unfold within them. All of the above demonstrates the skilfull and artistically relevant shaping of the world of the Red Planet, one of the most remarkable works in contemporary Serbian literature.

IMAGOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF SAVA TEKELIJA’S DOCUMENTARY-ARTISTIC PROSE

The paper approaches the documentary-artistic prose of Sava Tekelija – a representative writer of this genre of Serbian literature of the 18th century – from an imagological point of view. Self-images and hetero-images can be observed in his Diary and memoirs (Descriptions of My Life) and the boundary line of civilization drawn by the author is recognized, clearly delineating the area he perceives as Otherness

O nacionalnom radu Svetog Save

There is no doubt that, when it comes to the spiritual rooting of Serbs, and therefore the estabilishment of a national identity, the key place belongs to Saint Sava. He is the main constant, the spiritual vertical, the central figure in the histiry of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Serbian people. Of all church dignitaries and saints, the cult of Saint Sava always occupied a central place. He is the creator of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the first Serbian archbishop. His role in the creation of the Serbian church, state and nation made him a fundamental figure in Serbian nationa history. Sain Sava began his historic mission by going to Mount Athos. He knew how important it was that his father Stefan Nemanja, the creatoir of the Serbian state from which the Serbs count their historical time, would join him there. And so it was, Nemanja stepped down from power, became a monk and followed in his son's aootsteps to Mount Athos. Together they built the Serbian monastery on Mount Athos - Hilandar, which would become a source of Serbian literacy, education and culture. Sava compiled a biography of his father, a work that is considered the beginning of Serbian literature. And with which the creation of Nemanja's cult, but also the cult of his family - the holy lineage of Nemanjić. Even before Nemanja, Serbs represented a political factor, sreated state unions that had their own cultural basis, legendary and historical traditions, but the real historical life of the Serbian people began with Stefan Nemanja. Sain Sava knew how important the close relationship between the church ant the state is for the future of the Serbian people, he was convinced that the mission of the church requires the support of the state and that the state, if it wants to be strong and stable, needs the support of the church. But it is also tempting to determinate the scope of work for each of them, because he also knew how dangerous it is if they start falling into each other's jurisdiction. The strenght and solidity of Sava's church was showen even after the collapse of the Serbian state, when it lived in foreign countries, because it became the property of the Serbian people with whom it shared its destiny - the church was the people, the people were the curch. These are the reasons for which it can rightly be said that, in addition to being the founder of the Serbian Church, which is the orginator of Serbian culture. Sain Sava is also the founder of the Serbian nation.