Филолошки факултет Универзитета у Београду
МОДЕРНИЗАМ ПОД ЛУПОМ: ПОЕТСКО КРИТИЧКА ПРЕИСПИТИВАЊА ЈЕДНОГ ВЕКА (Јелена Панић Мараш, Поетскокритички модернизам,Службени гласник, Београд, 2023, 247 стр.)
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ЈЕДНА СТАРМАЛА КЊИГА (Недељка Бјелановић, Андрић и авангарда, Београд: Институт за књижевност и уметност, 2025, 155 стр.)
У СНУ СЕ СНИЛО, А НА ЈАВИ НЕ ВИЂЕЛО! (Снови, пророчанства и измењена стања свестиу фолклорним жанровима. Ур. Смиљана Ђорђевић Белићи Немања Радуловић. Београд: Институт за књижевностии уметност, 2024, 377 стр.)
НА ИЗВОРУ ЖИВЕ (ИНТЕРПРЕТАТИВНЕ) ВАТРЕ (Јован Делић, Ходочашћа уз Усправну земљу.Архипелаг, Београд, 2024, 266. стр.)
THE (UN)HIDDEN AMERICA IN SRĐAN VALJAREVIĆ’S COMO
This paper explores the yet unexamined image of America as a global capitalist power in Srđan Valjarević’s Como. The very title, evoking the northern Italian lake and city of Como, sets the spatial coordinates of the novel’s chronotope, while the Rockefeller Foundation scholarship – its driving motive – and Villa “Serbelloni” as a site of American cultural influence remain overlooked in most readings. Consequently, the interpretive potential for exploring the relationship between the narrator – a marginal figure of Yugoslav origin – and American, Western influence through Rancière’s notion of the politics of literature and postcolonial theory remains unexplored. Through close reading and the aforementioned theoretical perspectives, this paper aims to reveal the (un)hidden figure of America in Como, a central work within Valjarević’s prose and a notable piece of contemporary Serbian literature.
GOTHIC IMAGINATION IN ANDRICʼS SHORT STORIES
The paper analyzes the constitutive elements of Ivo Andric’s gothic fiction. Gothic chronotopes, motifs, vividity, and characters appear in some of his narrative works, creating unified gothic narratives (The Ivory Woman, The Excursion) or stories containing gothic elements (In the Camp). It examines the ways in which they are shaped, their function, effects, psychological and ideological implications. It also draws a few conclusions regarding the position that these gothic-inspired fictional worlds take in Andric’s narrative opus. The paper is based on a firm belief that the latent gothic narrative tradition also had a significant echo and role in enriching Andric’s ’’synthetic’’ poetics, his vision of the world, human nature and history, which is pointed out in the given interpretations of the selected short stories.
THE EXILE IN VLADAN DESNICA’S NOVEL THE WINTER SUMMER VACATION
Vladan Desnica’s first novel The Winter Summer Holiday is recognized as the writer’s important prose text. One of the key themes which, as will be shown, affects the narrative thread in this novel, is the issue of exile. The relation between the city and the countryside, which was regularly found in Desnica’s novel, is actually recognized as the relation between exiles and non-exiles. The fate of exiles is an important issue and its importance should be carefully noticed. The exile in the novel goes through several stages: first of all, the exiles leave the space of trauma, move and find another space for themselves – the space where they can go on with their existence. But finally, that new space, like any other, turns out to be a place of constant and open trauma that only confirms the finality of homelessness. The exiles form new illusions; when they realize that it’s impossible for them to adapt, they try to break away, leave and run away but they are again faced with an endless exile. Writing the biography of an exile, The Winter Summer Holiday – 75 years after its publication, is one of the key places of modern literature.
POSTMODERN PROCEDURES IN THE NOVEL ASH, FOAM,WHISPER BY MILISAV SAVIĆ
The novel Ash, Foam Whisper contains the increasingly present literary tendency of fictionalizing autobiography, which is realized in the autofictional genre by erasing the boundaries of fictional and non-fictional narrative. The author not only builds an intertextual relationship with the work of Miloš Crnjanski, but also gives him the status of a fictional character and the position of narrator. The presence of a single chronotope of travel contributes to the spatial dispersion that conditions the abolition of linear temporality. The dual narrative voice of the narrating self and the experienced self is associated with a double temporality, related to the time in which the story is narrated and the time of the story (narrated time). The rather complex narrative instance in this novel implies the presence of an extradiegetic narrator who is at a higher narrative level and a homodiegetic narrator at the story level. Thanks to the presence of the extradiegetic narrator, subsequent commentary and retelling of events or corrections of biography are possible. This procedure allows the reader to harbor doubts about the credibility of the facts, but also to view it all as the writer’s seductive game that draws the reader completely into the text. The process of historiographic metafiction also enables a critical and parodic attitude towards the past, which manifests itself in the form of a critical examination of some events from the past, as well as parodying the famous myth of the Argonauts and the idea of uniting around the common good in general. We recognize postmodern practices primarily in the use of hybrid genre, intertextuality, the presence of historiographic metafiction, a parodic attitude towards mythology and literary tradition, as well as the use of mathematically precise prose structures that bring prose closer to poetic expression.
“PIETÀˮ BY IVAN V. LALIĆ: THE EKPHRASIS OF A VISUAL MODEL AND THE PRAISE OF THE VISUAL ARTS
In this paper we are focusing on the poem “Pietàˮ from the book of poems Script (1992) by Ivan V. Lalić. The poem has not been given much attention by the critics so far, with the exception of several valuable studies, which we wish to expand on. Our main focus is to analyse the nature of the poem by turning to different theories of the ekphrasis. Our basis theory is the theory of the ekphrasis of the visual model (Tamar Yacobi). By applying, but also questioning theories by Leo Spitzer, Murrey Krieger, Wendy Steiner, James Heffernan, Tamar Yacobi and others, and bringing together some seemingly disparate theoretical implications, we interpret the relationship between descriptive and narrative thrust, space and time, as well as the visible and the invisible in the poem. We also step into the inevitable interdisciplinary dialogue with art history, Christian iconography and visual representations suggested by the poem’s title, e. i. the pietà compositions, which associate with two major motifs in the poetry of Lalić – Madonna and love. By leaning on a centuries-long tradition of interpretating the relationship between literature and the visual arts, we draw a conclusion that “Pietàˮ is not to be reduced to any theoretical frame without reserve – the literary devices which it consists of reveal that it in fact represents a verbal praise of the visual arts.
WHY NJEGOVANS ARE DYING FROM HISTORY? Contribution to the theater of the circus in Golden Fleece
The paper seeks to point out, on the one hand, a specific strucutal-compositional framework, and on the other hand, the immanent theatralicity of the being of Pekić’s Golden Fleece. The organization of the Njegovan-Turjaški family into a micro-theatrical community – a family theater – is emphasized. Attention is drawn to the fundamentality of the Njegovan’s credo of being-acting and to the symbolic subordination to the will od the didacticians. The symbolism of the circle is discussed in the context od defining the circus genre, as well as the semantics of the family circus. The nature of historical repetitiveness is analyzed and the relationship between the conceptualization of time in history and myth is examined.
FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL AT VREME SMRTI BY DOBRICA ĆOSIĆ
This paper seeks to provide insight into the analysis of female characters in one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, The Time of Death by Dobrica Ćosić. Through female characters, the writer helps us experience, understand and feel the tragedy of the events of an era. The main theme of the work, the First World War, leads to strong psychological changes in the lives of women, visible in their intimate confessions. Using the method of inner speech, the writer has shown the position and role of women in the family and the wider social environment. The emphasis is placed on the intimate world of the heroines, which in a narrative sense speaks of the position of the individual in society, while the feminine principle, pointed out by Dobrica Ćosić, refers primarily to a woman’s biological role, that of a mother, her care and dedication to the family, as well as a woman’s love for her beloved.
THE SHORT STORY ”THE GUEST” BY DRAGOSLAV MIHAILOVIĆ AND ALBERT CAMUS
This paper examined the short story “Gost” (“The Guest”) from the first book by Dragoslav Mihailović, Frede, laku noć (1967). The story was written as a variation on the short story of the same title by Albert Camus from the collection Exile and the Kingdom (1957). Mihailović’s “Gost” appeared in several versions, the first of which was published in 1959 in the Letopis Matice srpske; in our interpretation, we also have traced the differences between them. By comparing it with Camus’s original, we demonstrated that Dragoslav Mihailović’s early prose is deeply interwoven with modernist currents – particularly with contemporary European literature and culture – while also anticipating certain aspects of postmodernism.
JEANS PROSE IN THE LITERATURE OF THE YUGOSLAV HUNGARIANS: MEMOIRS OF A MACRO LASLOV VEGEL
This paper will examine László Vegel’s contribution to the modernization of literary expression of the Hungarian national minority within the framework of a broader Yugoslav literature. From this perspective, his novel Memoirs of a Pimp will be analyzed, i.e. his narrative, for which evidence will be presented that it is a true example of jeans prose. The echo of this stylistic formation can be found across Yugoslav literatures during the sixties an seventies. Aleksandar Flaker, in his formulation of the term jeans prose, united sporadic phenomena of European and global literatures centred around a young narrator, noticing a number of other similarities: ich-erzahlung, the use of jargon, rebelliousness, ”civilisation complexes”, generational ties, a general disdain of the young for everything that comprises the adult world, and a lack of biographical data or moralistic sentiments. All these characteristics are also present in the novel being analysed. By further analyzing the diegesis, i.e. the fictional world of Memoirs of a Pimp, we will attempt to prove its originality through conclusions about the innovation of Bub’s character, with which perhaps the most important contemporary novel of minority Hungarian literature in the former Yugoslavia was constructed.
PERSPECTIVES OF JUSTICE: A NARRATIVE READING OF THE STORIES „JUSTICE” BY VLADAN DESNICA
This paper interprets Vladan Desnica’s short story Justice as a narratological and philosophical construct that reexamines truth and justice through the dynamics of narrative perspective. Applying Bakhtin’s methodology and modern narratological concepts focalization, chronotope, and metasubjectivity the analysis demonstrates that Justice transcends the boundaries of a short story, becoming a model for reflecting on moral judgment and the limits of human understanding. The paper identifies a triadic narrative structure (narrator, double, reader) that generates a polyphonic dialogue on justice. Desnica’s homodiegetic narrator, both observer and analyst, embodies the allegory of the author-creator and the metaphorical modern judge of reality. A comparative view with Kurosawa’s Rashomon and Babaja’s 1966 film adaptation highlights the relativity of truth, moral ambiguity, and the cinematic dimension of Desnica’s prose. Ultimately, the study concludes that Justice presents three forms of justice subjective, collective, and divine suggesting that true justice is attainable only through a hermeneutical reconstruction of context.
ON HAPTIC CORPOREALITY IN DIARY OF ČARNOJEVIĆ
The aim of this paper is to shed light on the narrator’s complex subjectivity in the novel Diary of Čarnojević from the perspective of corporeality, with particular focus on bodily experience emerging within the framework of the haptic sensory modality. Our intention is to uncover in the narrator of the Diary a haptic bodily identity, that is, a perceiving subject in whom the sensitivity of the skin (tactile sensitivity, thermoception, and nociception), kinesthetic sensibility, proprioception, and the vestibular sense converge and differentiate. Without losing sight of the complexity of the narrator’s inner doubling, nor of the constant alternation between individual and collective perspectives in the narration, an analysis of haptic corporeality leads us to several insights. First and foremost, we would point to the importance of this type of bodily sensory experience in defining and shaping the narrator’s subjectivity, as well as to the immediate action of haptic bodily impulses in the creation of the literary text. Another goal of the research is to approach the First World War through the body, considering it per se a corporeal issue and a sensory practice perceived haptically by the narrator – through touch, posture (bearing and balance), bodily position, movement, as well as experiences of bodily tremor, weakness, pain, awareness of deformation, falling, and dying of the body. By mapping haptic impressions, also represented in intersensory integration, the literary text can be read as tracing the bodily genesis of antimilitarist sentiment, which constitutes yet another research objective of this study.
CHARACTERS OF SICK AND/OR NEGLECTED CHILDREN IN SCHOOLAND HOME READING FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
The subject of research in this paper are literary works for elementary school in which sick and neglected children appear as main or secondary characters. The paper examines how the selection of literary texts (such as the fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, “The Moonflower” by G. Olujić, the short story representative excerpts from the novels The Secret of the Yellow Balloon by Nicole Lesueur, Agi and Emma, The Twelfth Sea by I. Kolarov, The Mowed Field by B. Ćosić) and the methodical apparatus in school textbooks contribute to preparing students to interpret dominant literary problems (illness, neglect, loneliness, social distance, social marginalization, abuse). Analyzing the significance of the presence of these literary works in school programs and textbooks contributes to appropriate teaching interpretation in modern education and encourages empathy, tolerance, and altruism among elementary school students.
characters of sick and neglected children in school and home reading for elementary school
literary issues (illness, neglect, loneliness, social marginalization),
THE ACTS OF PAUL AND THECLA IN A DEČANI MONASTERY COPYDATING FROM THE MID-14TH CENTURY
The text entitled The Acts of Paul and Thecla has been singled out from a broader text entitled The Acts of Paul, and as such has existed for centuries as an independent work. Acting on the basis of The Acts of Paul and Thecla, Simeon the Metaphrast compiled a related work known under the title of The Martyrdom of Thecla the Protomartyr, known until now only in the Church Slavonic Menaion for September dating from the 14th century, preserved in the manuscript collection of the Chilandar Monastery under number 816. In the studies dedicated to it so far, The Acts has mainly been classified among the apocrypha. This, however, could only partly be justified bearing in mind that characters appearing in the apocrypha have their corresponding parallels in the Bible. There exist eight known Serbian copies of The Acts. The following date from the 14th century: the Dečani Monastery copy, no 94 (D), the one preserved in Sofia at the National Museum of History, no 24 (M), once kept at the Ohrid Metropolitan Library under signature number 3, the one kept in Sofia at the National Library “Cyril and Methodius”, no 1039 (S), the one kept in Zagreb at the Archive of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, no IIIc24 (Z), and the one kept at the Cetinje Monastery, no 64 (C). The copy preserved within the Ćorović Collection of the University Library “Svetozar Marković” in Belgrade, signature no 30 (U), dates from the 15th century. The copy that is now kept at the National Library of Serbia, no 59 (N), was made between 1614 and 1625. The Chilandar Monastery copy, signature no 438 (H), dates from 1623. Based on where they were made, there exist three groups of copies: the Mount Athos group (C, H), the ones made in the region of today’s North Macedonia (M, S, U), and the Kosovo-Metohija Group (D, N, Z). Being the oldest among the Serbian copies preserved, D is similar to the other ones, deviating from them in places to a lesser or greater degree. The D copy is closest to the N copy, and to a large degree to Z. A great degree of closeness is manifested by copies C and H. Based on the differences existing between these copies, one can observe a lexical riches created by the scribes working in developed Serbian manuscript copying centres. In the appendix to this paper we enclose an edited text based on the Dečane copy.
НОВА ОСМИШЉАВАЊА РАЗВОЈА УЧЕНИЧКИХ ВЕШТИНА У НАСТАВИ КЊИЖЕВНОСТИ
FANTASTIC ALTERNATIVES IN THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE DEAD
Considering Kiš’s negative autopoetic views on the fantastique in literature, this paper reevaluates and reinterprets the fantastical narratives within his collection The Encyclopedia of the Dead. We also briefly define the nature of the fantastique and the characteristics of this story collection. Further research, conducted inductively, highlights the various modes of fantastique that Kiš employs (sacral projection, horror, oneirism, and fantasy of reality) and interprets how these modalities, in conjunction with the implicit worldview of opposing matrices, transform the so-called grand narratives represented here by the Bible, the Quran, encyclopedic knowledge, official history, and totalising representations of the world. The approach, as demonstrated, is postmodern and innovative. It projects new perspectives on Kiš’s oeuvre and enriches Serbian prose from the latter half of the 20th century.
UNITY OF OPPOSITES IN THE CONTEXT OF ALEKSANDAR TIŠMA’S NOVELS THE BOOK OF BLAM AND KAPO
The fruitful influence of unity of opposites, as dominant constructive pattern of Aleksandar Tišma’s artistic word is analyzed on the example of Tišma’s poetically representative novels The Book of Blam and Kapo. These two creations in correlation, not only in terms of giving voice to the horrifying experience in the Second World War, but also with regard to crucial motives, stylistic models, narrative discourse and the type of literary characterization, illustrate the mechanism of the unity of opposites as a creative formative principle. Tišma’s tireless effort to reach out for the darkest abysses of the human soul with his prose works The Book of Blam and Kapo also reveals to us a modern literary approach to the unconscious domain of mental stream.
REVIVED LAND: TRANSPOSITIONS OF THE CONCEPT OF CULTURAL NATIONALISM IN THE EARLY ESSAYS
The main goal of the paper is to recognize and understand the ways in which the thought about the Serbian collective being and the national fate is shaped in the early phase of Isidora Sekulić’s essays, the end of which we see at the beginning of the First World War. In the first part of the paper we will try to point out the configuration of national and identity simbols, as well as the complex relationship between cultural heritage and the imperatives of time. Consequently, the second part will be devoted to the review of the value system within the framework of the First and Second Balkan Wars.
METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING LITERATURE AND THE SERBIAN LANGUAGE AT THE DEPARTMENT OF SERBIAN LITERATURE WITH SOUTH SLAVIC LITERATURES OF THE FACULTY OF PHILOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE
The paper examines the share of compulsory and optional methodical subjects and courses in basic, master’s and doctoral academic studies of Serbian literature and language at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade. It points to a multitude of diverse teaching methods, didactic principles, forms of work and approaches that enable successful preparation of students for contemporary teaching of Serbian language and literature. Special attention is paid to successful interdisciplinary graduate and master’s theses, but also to student projects that represent creative, active and productive teaching of literature and the Serbian language at the Department of Serbian Literature with South Slavic Literatures of the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade.
Methodology of Teaching Literature and Serbian Language
TEACHING INTERPRETATION OF THE SHORT STORY “THE FIRST TIME WITH FATHER AT THE MORNING SERVICE” BY LAZA LAZAREVIĆ USING DRAMATIC METHOD
In this paper, we explore the possibilities of applying the dramatic method in the teaching interpretation of the short story ”The First Time with Father at the Morning Service,” focusing on Augusto Boal’s techniques, particularly forum theater. By applying forum theater techniques, students will actively participate in analyzing key scenes, stimulating discussions about various interpretations of the main characters, their relationships, and the complexities of the ideological layers of the literary work. The paper will include a detailed description of the application of dramatic techniques in teaching, examples of activities, and conclusions on how this approach can impact the understanding of literary texts. It will cover specific examples of classroom activities, such as group work and discussions, and highlight the significance of this approach to literary analysis.Through concrete examples, the paper demonstrates that the application of the dramatic method can positively influence the realization of a creative, exploratory, and imaginative teaching process in which both the teacher, as an active mentor, and each student, as a motivated researcher, can develop, learn, and acquire competencies for life and work in contemporary society, regardless of health, social, and other obstacles.
teaching interpretation of the short story ”The First Time with Father at the Morning Service”
ORAL TRADITION AND FOLKLORE FANTASY IN THE NOVELS OF DEJAN STOJILJKOVIĆ (LONG NIGHTS AND BLACK FLAGS, STORM RAMPART, A GOLD COIN FOR THE BOATMAN)
This paper interprets Dejan Stojiljković’s novels dealing with the events on the territory of medieval Serbia immediately before the Kosovo War, in the context of decoding the role of oral tradition and folklore fiction in creating the artistic world of Stojiljković’s works. By seeing the transposed motifs, characters and narrative plots from the folk epic, with the special importance of the dragon motif hero in the entire story, the role of the presence of mythical creatures from folklore, as well as of the archetypal layer of the work based on the Kosovo legend, our goal is to emphasize the potential of oral tradition as a source of inspiration for contemporary literature in interweaving of spoken and written words. Constants observed in the three works published so far in the five books announced by the author will provide a basis for future interpretations of the novel in which the oral tradition is an essential building component.
SEARCHING FOR RADE TANASIJEVIĆ’S QUIET PLACES
„Постоје” (Tanasijević 2009, 64), “They exist”, thus begins the poem Tiha mesta (Quiet Places) from the poetry collection Klimatske promene (2009, Climate Change) by Rade Tanasijević, later reprinted in his book Salon odbijenih (2014, Salon des refusés). This poem, however, would not be included in his books of new and selected poems Nestajanje (2013, Dwindling) and Stvari oko mene ubrzano stare (2020, The Things around Me Are Rapidly Aging) – at least not in the form it had in the earlier books. Instead, it would be condensed and transfigured into the title of one of the cycles of poems, which raises the question of whether the poet had lost faith in the existence of quiet places or whether he just wanted to expand and deepen this topic. Tanasijević often used the title of his poems for the title of the cycles of poems, which is especially noticeable in the selected and new poems (Tanasijević 2013; Tanasijević 2020). The poet, however, usually included the titular poem in the cycle itself – which (significantly) is not the case with the poem Tiha mesta. The basic premise of the following paper is that the poet’s quiet places, the idealistic and somewhat utopian spaces, are scattered around Tanasijević’s poetry and that they can be found, described and interpreted by close-reading all of his books of poems.
DUBROVNIK AS AN INTIMATE SPACE IN MILAN MILIŠIĆ’S BOOK OF POETRY ZGRAD
We will examine the specific experience of Dubrovnik recognized in Milan Milišić’s book of poetry Zgrad in relation to the centuries-old tradition of representing Dubrovnik, its urban architecture, Milišić’s poetic models in the representation of Dubrovnik and relevant extraliterary contexts. Of particular importance are the issues of the poet’s and the city’s identity, the intimate boundaries and geographical borders, and conflict between the poet and the city that prompts the use of certain poetic devices. By considering Milišić’s broader poetic and essayistic oeuvre, we will seek to determine why Dubrovnik stands out as a privileged intimate poetic space in Zgrad.