Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne
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Writing from a Distance. The Past and the Present in Novels by Central and Eastern European Female Migrant Writers in Italy
Get PDFBased on a research concerning literary works by the authors from Central and Eastern European countries living in Italy, this article explores the imaginary bonded to a vast geographical area and to a variety of social experiences connected to that area under regime or to the post-migration condition. The interviews conducted with the selected writers allow the authoress to gather elements that show the perception of the place of origin and its connection with neighboring countries, suggested by different motivations. The literary works cited in the article give testimony of lives under regimes and describe moments of transition due to political and social change or to the choice to migrate. While revealing sometimes a stereotyped view of the idea of ‘East’ in opposition to the ‘West’, these different voices, located at a spatial and temporal distance from the social realities they explore, suggest an important role of literary expression as means for contrasting the oblivion of the past and present injustices
Dialogue Document Without a Dialogue: Current Debates on World War II in Croatia
Get PDFThe article deals with the recent controversies over the interpretations of World War II. The dominant narrative of World War II, which was created after 1945 to ensure the basis of legitimacy for the Yugoslav Communist regime, was revised at the beginning of the 1990s. One of the consequences of this revision has been the upsurge of historical revisionism regarding the fascist Ustashe movement. After years of bitter debates that had divided and polarized the Croatian society, the government appointed in 2017 a special council to deal with the World War II past and make the recommendations on the public usage of the symbols and insignia of the 20th century “undemocratic regimes”. The final product of its work was the so-called Dialogue Document whose provisions and impact are dealt with in the second part of the text
„Tijelo pamćenja je pčela koja me bode.“ Emancipatorne prakse ženskog pisma 80-ih
Get PDFThe book of essays Smrtni grijesi feminizma (The Deadly Sins of Feminism), written by Slavenka Drakulić, and Irena Vrkljan’s novel Svila, škare (The Silk, the Shears), both published in 1984, became the samples of feminist activism and the poetics of l’écriture féminine in Croatian literature. Considering their generic aspects and their narrative strategies focused on revealing the conflict between public/historical/political and personal/everyday/trivial, in our paper we will discuss Vrkljan’s novel as outstanding example of the emancipatory changes in the cultural field of the 1980’s. “Trivial as political” in Slavenka Drakulić’s writing, articulated through Irena Vrkljan’s autobiographical narrative, incites the emancipatory power of l’écriture féminine that simultaneously reflects the Other in itself, produces its own difference and writes without inscribing itself. This type of women’s writing, as previously defined by Hélène Cixous, is presented in Irena Vrkljan’s text as writing its own life that is “always in-between” and that undermines declared democratic values as much as the politics of literature, as understood by Jacques Rancière. Revealing discordances between poetic and social hierarchies, women’s writing makes changes in the partition of the visible and the sayable, in the intertwining of being and writing, body and words.The book of essays Smrtni grijesi feminizma (The Deadly Sins of Feminism), written by Slavenka Drakulić, and Irena Vrkljan’s novel Svila, škare (The Silk, the Shears), both published in 1984, became the samples of feminist activism and the poetics of l’écriture féminine in Croatian literature. Considering their generic aspects and their narrative strategies focused on revealing the conflict between public/historical/political and personal/everyday/trivial, in our paper we will discuss Vrkljan’s novel as outstanding example of the emancipatory changes in the cultural field of the 1980’s. “Trivial as political” in Slavenka Drakulić’s writing, articulated through Irena Vrkljan’s autobiographical narrative, incites the emancipatory power of l’écriture féminine that simultaneously reflects the Other in itself, produces its own difference and writes without inscribing itself. This type of women’s writing, as previously defined by Hélène Cixous, is presented in Irena Vrkljan’s text as writing its own life that is “always in-between” and that undermines declared democratic values as much as the politics of literature, as understood by Jacques Rancière. Revealing discordances between poetic and social hierarchies, women’s writing makes changes in the partition of the visible and the sayable, in the intertwining of being and writing, body and words
Spacing of Memory in The Book of My Lives by Aleksandar Hemon*
Get PDFThe paper examines the memoir The Book of My Lives by Bosnian-American writer Aleksandar Hemon. This non-fiction work explores the author’s childhood in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina before the collapse of Yugoslavia, and then his exile experience in Canada and the United States after the outbreak of the war. Through the prism of memory, the book deals with the subject of exiles, uprootedness and efforts to start a new life in a new environment. Being an autobiographical record, The Book of My Lives lends itself to the examination of the issue of exile and memory issues, which is one of the two themes of this paper. The second concerns the understanding of the relationship between memory and space. The paper seeks to show how the spatial dimension is also important for the creation of memory because memories represent an essential factor for the transformation of abstract space into a particular place.The paper examines the memoir The Book of My Lives by Bosnian-American writer Aleksandar Hemon. This non-fiction work explores the author’s childhood in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina before the collapse of Yugoslavia, and then his exile experience in Canada and the United States after the outbreak of the war. Through the prism of memory, the book deals with the subject of exiles, uprootedness and efforts to start a new life in a new environment. Being an autobiographical record, The Book of My Lives lends itself to the examination of the issue of exile and memory issues, which is one of the two themes of this paper. The second concerns the understanding of the relationship between memory and space. The paper seeks to show how the spatial dimension is also important for the creation of memory because memories represent an essential factor for the transformation of abstract space into a particular place
Między epokami
Get PDFThis review is a short presentation and an analysis of the book България – страна на розите, published in 2018. The book consists of three parts – a phototypical copy of the first Polish edition of the collective book from 1938, a translation of this edition into Bulgarian language with biographies of the authors of the texts and several studies, dedicated to Metodi Konstantinov (the 1938’s edition editor), to Polish-Bulgarian political and cultural relations in the late 1930s and their local repercussions in Poznań and last but not least – to the language of the first edition and its translation and re-translation. The aim of the publication – to remind the first edition of the book, to make it accessible for Bulgarian readers and to restore the memory about its authors and editors – is thoroughly fulfilled. Moreover, an additional advantage of the book is that it makes its readers more aware of the difference in Bulgarians’ self-representational practices before and after the Second World War.This review is a short presentation and an analysis of the book България – страна на розите, published in 2018. The book consists of three parts – a phototypical copy of the first Polish edition of the collective book from 1938, a translation of this edition into Bulgarian language with biographies of the authors of the texts and several studies, dedicated to Metodi Konstantinov (the 1938’s edition editor), to Polish-Bulgarian political and cultural relations in the late 1930s and their local repercussions in Poznań and last but not least – to the language of the first edition and its translation and re-translation. The aim of the publication – to remind the first edition of the book, to make it accessible for Bulgarian readers and to restore the memory about its authors and editors – is thoroughly fulfilled. Moreover, an additional advantage of the book is that it makes its readers more aware of the difference in Bulgarians’ self-representational practices before and after the Second World War
Poetic Manifestos and Democracy (in Poland after 1989)
Get PDFA form of poetic manifesto rooted in the avant-garde tradition is construed here as a performative project of the future. This temporal quality links it with the Derridean notion of “democracy to-come”. The presented paper attempts to trace an (im)possible connection between poetic manifestos and democracy in Poland after 1989. In pursuance of this objective, the paper briefly presents the only four 21st‑century Polish manifestos that attracted some critical and/or artistic attention: Meblowanie główww, Manifest Neolingwistyczny v. 1.1, Manifest poezji cybernetycznej and Manifest Rozdzielczości Chleba v. 1.7
Kasna antika: dekadencija ili „demokratizacija“ kulture?
Get PDFIn our age “without the emperor”, fascination with empires and with the emperor mystique continues. Take for witness Tolkien and his Return of the King, the third sequel of The Lord of the Rings, or the television serial Game of Thrones. In the background, of course, is the lingering memory of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, “a revolution which is still felt by all nations of the world”, to quote Edward Gibbon. It comes as a surprise that in this dramatic moment of its history, in times marked by political, economic and spiritual crisis that shook the very foundations of the Empire during the 3rd century, historians and art historians have recognized the revival of plebeian culture (arte plebea, kleinbürgerliche Kultur). It was the Italian historian Santo Mazzarino, talking at the XI International Congress of the Historical Sciences in Stockholm in 1960, who introduced a new paradigm: the “democratization of culture”. In the light of the historical process in the late Roman Empire, when growing autocracy, bureaucracy, militarization and social tensions leave no doubt as to the real political character of the government, the new paradigm opened up fresh approaches to the phenomenon of decadence and decline of the Roman world. As such, it stands against traditional scenario of the “triumph of barbarism and Christianity”, which was made responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire and the eclipse of the classical civilization of ancient Greece and Rome. It is not by accident that the new paradigm appeared around the middle of the 20th century, at the time when European society itself underwent a kind of “democratization of culture”, faced with the phenomenon of mass culture and the need to find new ways of evaluating popular art. Today, more than anything else, the notion of “democratization of culture” in late Roman Empire forces us to acknowledge a disturbing correspondence between autocratic and populist forms of government. It may come as a shock to learn that the very emperors who went down in Roman history as villains and culprits (such as Caligula, Nero or Commodus), were sometimes considered the most “democratic” among Roman rulers. Do we need to feel certain unease at this historical parallel?In our age “without the emperor”, fascination with empires and with the emperor mystique continues. Take for witness Tolkien and his Return of the King, the third sequel of The Lord of the Rings, or the television serial Game of Thrones. In the background, of course, is the lingering memory of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, “a revolution which is still felt by all nations of the world”, to quote Edward Gibbon. It comes as a surprise that in this dramatic moment of its history, in times marked by political, economic and spiritual crisis that shook the very foundations of the Empire during the 3rd century, historians and art historians have recognized the revival of plebeian culture (arte plebea, kleinbürgerliche Kultur). It was the Italian historian Santo Mazzarino, talking at the XI International Congress of the Historical Sciences in Stockholm in 1960, who introduced a new paradigm: the “democratization of culture”. In the light of the historical process in the late Roman Empire, when growing autocracy, bureaucracy, militarization and social tensions leave no doubt as to the real political character of the government, the new paradigm opened up fresh approaches to the phenomenon of decadence and decline of the Roman world. As such, it stands against traditional scenario of the “triumph of barbarism and Christianity”, which was made responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire and the eclipse of the classical civilization of ancient Greece and Rome. It is not by accident that the new paradigm appeared around the middle of the 20th century, at the time when European society itself underwent a kind of “democratization of culture”, faced with the phenomenon of mass culture and the need to find new ways of evaluating popular art. Today, more than anything else, the notion of “democratization of culture” in late Roman Empire forces us to acknowledge a disturbing correspondence between autocratic and populist forms of government. It may come as a shock to learn that the very emperors who went down in Roman history as villains and culprits (such as Caligula, Nero or Commodus), were sometimes considered the most “democratic” among Roman rulers. Do we need to feel certain unease at this historical parallel
Historycy piszą o współczesności. Rok niebezpiecznego zwrotu (2010) w ujęciu Georges’a Minka i Timothy’ego Snydera
Get PDFThe author analyses the ways of depicting contemporary times in two monographs written by renown scholars: La Pologne au coeur de l’Europe. De 1914 à aujourd’hui, histoire politique et conflits de mémoire (Poland at the heart of Europe. From 1914 to the present day. Political history and conflicts of memory) and The Road to Unfreedom. Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder. A particularly important date here is 2010, the year of the Smolensk air disaster, which in Poland gave rise to many false myths and manipulations of facts (described by both authors). Snyder chooses this year as a symbolic turning point within the global process of shifting from the mindset of “inevitability” towards the mindset of “eternity”. The second main characteristic of this way of thinking and acting is that truth and facts are replaced in the public discourse with fake news, fabrications, creating social divisions and stirring hostile emotions.The author analyses the ways of depicting contemporary times in two monographs written by renown scholars: La Pologne au coeur de l’Europe. De 1914 à aujourd’hui, histoire politique et conflits de mémoire (Poland at the heart of Europe. From 1914 to the present day. Political history and conflicts of memory) and The Road to Unfreedom. Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder. A particularly important date here is 2010, the year of the Smolensk air disaster, which in Poland gave rise to many false myths and manipulations of facts (described by both authors). Snyder chooses this year as a symbolic turning point within the global process of shifting from the mindset of “inevitability” towards the mindset of “eternity”. The second main characteristic of this way of thinking and acting is that truth and facts are replaced in the public discourse with fake news, fabrications, creating social divisions and stirring hostile emotions
Simuliranje demokracije: emancipacija demokratske krize u esejistici Dubravke Ugrešić
Get PDFOne of the central notions of the post-Yugoslav literature is the status of democracy in national states formed after the breakup of Yugoslavia. From the perspective of the exile, not only as banishment, but also as a liberating outside view into the once common social, cultural and political space, the post-Yugoslav writers question the social democracy praxis in their former home states comparing it to the social practices in the states of their current residence. In her books of essays, Dubravka Ugrešić ironizes different forms of social ideology in Croatia from the beginning of nineteen-nineties. Her writing recognizes the standards of European democracy accompanied with the ideological view into the questions of social rights, religion and language as the stumbling block of modern society. Ugrešić describes democracy as a notion hiding different things: the praxis of ruthless capitalist exploitation, loss of media freedom, media manipulation, the censorship of corporate capitalism, production of lies, modern slavery... (Don’t take it personal, 2014), validating in her essays the importance of literature in disclosure of autocracy masked as democracy.One of the central notions of the post-Yugoslav literature is the status of democracy in national states formed after the breakup of Yugoslavia. From the perspective of the exile, not only as banishment, but also as a liberating outside view into the once common social, cultural and political space, the post-Yugoslav writers question the social democracy praxis in their former home states comparing it to the social practices in the states of their current residence. In her books of essays, Dubravka Ugrešić ironizes different forms of social ideology in Croatia from the beginning of nineteen-nineties. Her writing recognizes the standards of European democracy accompanied with the ideological view into the questions of social rights, religion and language as the stumbling block of modern society. Ugrešić describes democracy as a notion hiding different things: the praxis of ruthless capitalist exploitation, loss of media freedom, media manipulation, the censorship of corporate capitalism, production of lies, modern slavery... (Don’t take it personal, 2014), validating in her essays the importance of literature in disclosure of autocracy masked as democracy