Publisher: Biblioteka XX vek

The Languages in the Attic

Jezici u potkrovlju

Author(s): Ranko Bugarski / Language(s): Serbian

This book includes works that were written, or especially for this publication expanded, revised or translated, during the past two years; the only exception is an obituary of much earlier origin which appears as Chapter 9. Details on the sources and of earlier publications of the works included, of which several were conference presentations, are given in the bibliographical notes at the end of the book.Composed of four sections, the content and structure of this book follow the model that is represented in the author’s previous books published by Biblioteka XX vek. The first section contains four works dealing with topics of contemporary European language policy, with an accent on the protection of minority languages, multiligualism and multiculturalism, as well as on the relation between language and national belonging. Which the author has been engaged with over the last decade as an expert consultant to the Council of Europe for the charter on regional and minority languages. This document is presented in detail in the introductory chapter, and is thematically engaged in the following four chapters. The title of the book refers to the challenges faced by many minority languages which struggle to survive under a shared European roof, while they are confined to the attic, while spacious rooms are occupied by the more widely used languages – among them English, the spread of which is discussed in the fifth chapter. This section ends with an essay on the idea of tradition, especially in linguistics.The second section of the book comprises four chapters on the Serbian language: the first on its identity, and the remaining three on multilingual portmanteaus (slivenice) and slang terms, material which the author has followed and researched for over twenty years, reporting his findings in a series of books in this edition; these chapters represent, thus, a continuation of earlier research. The third section carries three obituaries dedicated to distinguished interpreters of linguistic phenomena, especially in their social context, as well as three recent interviews on various linguistic themes. Finally, the fourth section offers a continuation of the author’s sociolinguistic bibliography of Serbia, concentrating on the period from the middle of 2014 to the end of 2015 (with added material from earlier years).Belgrade, February 2016

And Others are Singing About War

I drugi su pjevali o ratu

Author(s): Muharem Bazdulj / Language(s): Serbian

The Balkans – The terror of Culture

Balkan - teror kulture

Author(s): Ivan Čolović / Language(s): Serbian

Ivan Čolović is an ethnologist, an essayist, and the founder of The 20th Century Library (1971). He has published thirteen books and numerous articles on issues and problems of literature, urban ethnology, ethno-linguistics, and political anthropology. In the thirteen essays of which tis book consists the author speaks of culure as a detonator of hatred and wars in the Balkans. ”I had seen it at work over the years of crisis and war in former Yugoslavia, then I saw it come out of that cisis and those wars more or less intact and ready, to serve – if need be – the same purpose – that of detonating. This prompted me to pay particular attention to the post-war ”patriotic” discourse about culture in Serbia and other Balkan countries in order to determine in which manner, thanks to these retorical strategies, it manages to preserve its explosive potential. Thus, I became interested in myths of the so called ”national spiritual and cultural space” or those of ostensible organic oneness between the Balkan nations and the soil on which they live, and to which they lay exclusive claim. My attention was focused on cults of the national tongue, of poets and their tombs and monuments, of the epic tradition and its main symbol ”the gusle”.(From the Foreword).

Overhauling the Time Machine

Vremeplov na remontu

Author(s): Teofil Pančić / Language(s): Serbian

Teofil Pančić was born in Skopje in 1965. He writes columns, essays, commentaries, and literary reviews for the weekly magazine Vreme, as well as for other media in Serbia and surrounding areas. Before publishing the present work, The 20th Century Library had published the first three volumes of his series of books with the common title Life and Death in Serbian Post-communism (Život i smrt u srpskom postkomunizmu): The Urban Bushmen (Urbani bušmani, 2001), The Keepers of Bengal Fireworks (Čuvari bengalske vatre, 2004), Navigating Through Canyons (Kroz klisurine, 2007), as well a volume of his columns, entitled Karma Coma (Karma koma, 2007). The texts in the present volume cover the period from 2006 to 2009.