ONE NOSTALGIC COUNTER-NARRATIVE: 'THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH' BY MARKO VIDOJKOVIĆ Cover Image

ЈЕДНА НОСТАЛГИЧНА КОНТРАПРИПОВЕСТ: 'Е БАШ ВАМ ХВАЛА' МАРКА ВИДОЈКОВИЋА
ONE NOSTALGIC COUNTER-NARRATIVE: 'THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH' BY MARKO VIDOJKOVIĆ

Author(s): Dr Mirjana M. Bečejski
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Serbian Literature
Published by: Институт за македонска литература
Keywords: nostalgia; Yugo-nostalgia; nostalgia for the future; theory of possible worlds; parallel universe; “upward” and “downward” dimensions; counter-narrative; SFRY; irony; multiple identities

Summary/Abstract: Relying on the virtual narrative theory and the theory of possible worlds as a basis for interpreting narrative multiverses, this paper focuses on Marko Vidojković’s Thank You Ever So Much as a nostalgic counter-narrative in which the idea of nostos is realized by creating an alternative history. The events that the hero narrates/ writes in the first person take place in two parallel universes, “upward” (the world of the ideal SFRY, from which he comes) and “downward” (the world modelled after is the existential reality of the divided Yugoslav states) namely in the narrative present. At the diachronic level, the time axes, depicted in the form of the hero’s memories or dialogue, multiply backwards only until June 3, 1989, when the splitting of the universe(s) occurred. Further regressing introduces a motif of shared history and, through a wealth of details, reveals the position of the Yugo-nostalgic author of the narrative (Mirko Šipka or Marko Vidojković?), who avoids pathos with the help of irony, parody and vulgarisms while narrating us his anguish over all lost historical possibilities to create the best country in the world, and his inability to return to his desired homeland.

  • Issue Year: 18/2020
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 262-277
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Serbian