Progutati M/mamac: čitanje Albaharijevog predstavljanja Holokausta u kontekstu postjugoslovenskih ratova
Swallow the B/bait: reading Albahari's presentation of the Holocaust in the context of the post-Yugoslav wars

Author(s): Aleksandar Pavlović
Subject(s): Serbian Literature, History of the Holocaust, History of Antisemitism
Published by: Institut za filozofiju i društvenu teoriju
Keywords: David Albahari; Holocaust; bait;
Summary/Abstract: The work of David Albahari represents a specific phenomenon and in a certain sense a challenge for the literary studies of the Holocaust. Namely, although we are talking about a writer of Jewish origin whose parents and family suffered heavily in the Second World War, in Albahari's work the topic of the Holocaust actually appears relatively late. Until the nineties of the twentieth century and the outbreak of war in the former Yugoslavia, postmodernist obsession with language and story prevails in his books, the (impossibility) of telling a story, the status of storytelling and storytellers, postmodern experimenting with form, changing different narrative levels, etc. Albahari writes in the first person and his stories and novels deal obsessively with family; topics are the home atmosphere, chatting, walks with my father by the Danube, conversations with my wife and the like. Although the topic of Jewishness and Jewish characters have a prominent place in these works, their suffering in the Second World War is rarely mentioned, as if the Holocaust belongs to some kind of past that is not addressed or remains unspoken, deeply intimate and repressed.

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