The Demythisation of Heroism in Dušan Kovačević's Saint George Shoots the Dragon Cover Image

Демитизација јунаштва у драми „Свети Георгије убива Аждаху” Душана Ковачевића
The Demythisation of Heroism in Dušan Kovačević's Saint George Shoots the Dragon

Author(s): Mihail-George Hâncu
Subject(s): Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts, Customs / Folklore, Serbian Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature, Wars in Jugoslavia, Sociology of Literature
Published by: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti
Keywords: Serbian literature; Balkan Wars; Serbian folklore; Serbian history;

Summary/Abstract: Dušan Kovačević, a contemporary Serbian playwright better known for his comedies, gained further notoriety in 2009, when one of his dramas, Saint George Shoots the Dragon, was adapted into a film. This play describes the rather bleak fate of veterans from the Balkan Wars, who were faced with the paradoxical status of not being treated as heroes despite surviving the war, then being sent to die in the early days of the First World War. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the title and provide a satisfying explanation for the author’s choice of words: on the one hand, it focuses on the one appearance of Saint George as a character in a flashback from the First Balkan War and, on the other hand, on the dynamic between Gavrilo Vuković, one of the maimed survivors of the previous war and Đorđe Džandar, the village gendarme, who repeatedly lock horns over Katarina, Đorđe‘s wife. This love triangle also provides insight into the larger theme of the play, namely the mythization and demythization of heroism in Serbia.

  • Issue Year: LV/2019
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 40-55
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Serbian