THE FOREST SPACE AS A METAPHOR FOR THE EXISTENTIAL
THE FOREST SPACE AS A METAPHOR FOR THE EXISTENTIAL

Summary/Abstract: Literary geography, as a subdiscipline of cultural geography, interprets the representations of landscapes and geographic phenomena in the literary discourse, and the connection between human subjectivity and emotions on the one hand, and space on the other. The forest is a mythical Slavonian space, depicted in Slavonian literature as an emblem representing paradisiacal plenty. The paper explores the forest space portrayed by selected Slavonian authors, who depicted it in their short stories and novels as an Arcadia, mirroring a variety of curious and wondrous events from the everyday life. The purpose of these mini itineraries, which take us for a walk in the forest, is reflected in the need to keep the authors and the readers alike from shutting themselves inside the myth of their personal smallness, and to make them speak and read about themselves in a way that pushes the boundaries, which are arbitrarily drawn, always from the outside, by another arbitrary myth: the one about greatness, grandeur, and great people. The great story about the Slavonian forest, as the owner and guardian of boundaries, the military and state ones as well as the private and intimate ones, in itself positions and constitutes the power of Slavonian authors. The paper provides an incentive for and a contribution to the development of so-called green literature within the cultural and creative dimensions of the European Green Deal project.

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