Resorting to Faith in a World of Dystopia

Author(s): Irina-Ana Drobot / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the phenomenon of resorting to faith which is present in the science fiction novel published in 2022 “O lacrima de Batavia” by Sergiu Somesan. The novel could be described as showing what happens after an apocalypse, since the sudden lack of electricity and electromagnetism suddenly occur. The story of the main characters resorts to the old myth of renewal and keeping faith. We could make an analogy with the situation during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many turned up to faith given the situation. What makes anyone resort to faith in difficult circumstances will be analyzed from the perspective of psychological theories. The dystopia described in the novel could have links with various presuppositions in the current political world; however, the author claims to have thought of the idea of lack of electricity before it was given as a possible scenario by the EU.

Problemi traduttivi a proposito di A Distant Shore di Caryl Phillips

Author(s): Alessandra Lipari / Language(s): Italian Issue: 2/2020

The author has translated into Italian for the first time a significant passage of the seventh novel by contemporary British author, Caryl Phillips, “A Distant Shore”, and has analysed translationally and metalinguistically the problems concerning the transition from the source text to the target text. In particular, we have focused on the morphosyntactic level, on the pragmatic level and, above all, on the lexical level. The translation work and the analysis of the problems connected to it have allowed, on the one hand, to enter the author's writing laboratory and, on the other, to verify the consistency of translation theories in vogue. It has been noted that, in any case, the translator must also open his/her own laboratory in which to combine metatranslation knowledge, adherence to the source text and own creativity in problem solving.

“From Japan, With Love”: Frozen and Baymax in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Author(s): Maria Grajdian / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

Based on a decade-long fieldwork in the volatile and convoluted area of mass-media in Japan, this paper draws on empirical data and ethnographic research combined in hermeneutic interpretation and contributes with fresh insights into the impact Japanese popular culture has been providing on Western products of similar caliber. In this case, the animation movies Frozen (2013) and Baymax (2014), both released by Walt Disney Productions and hugely popular in Japan, are carefully scrutinized in their cross-cultural significance, on the background of an increasing awareness on the identity crisis faced by the concepts of “femininity” and “masculinity” nowadays and inspite of repeated waves of feminism, public outrage and legislative progress. By proposing the concept of “empowered, enlightened human being”, the current paper seeks to foster a more profound alternative to the ongoing debate, while taking into account the fundamental human needs to belong and to be free – an apparent contradiction, though nevertheless, an essential precondition on the path to becoming a responsible, self-confident citizen in late modernity.

Какво, колко и как чете българският ученик (у нас и по света)? (Анализ на данни от анкетно проучване)

Author(s): Angel Petrov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 6s/2024

The article presents the results of an analysis of a survey related to some problems of the reading practices of students (5th - 12th grade) educated in secondary schools in Bulgaria and at Bulgarian Sunday schools abroad. Data from student answers to the following questions were processed and studied: How often do you read? Do you have a lot of books at home? How often do you see your parents at home reading? What do you do when you read? What do you pay attention to when you read? etc. The conclusions of the analysis are used to make a methodological comment on the role of Bulgarian language training in secondary school to help build and improve the reading skills of Bulgarian students in Bulgaria and around the world.

MIGRACIJE U KNJIZEVNOSTI I UMJETNOSTI

Author(s): Jasmina Nikčević / Language(s): Montenegrine Issue: 2/2024

There are currently more than 60 million refugees in the world. More than 60 million people are fleeing war, violence and oppression. Over 60 million stories. With these words, the collective Power of Art House (Amsterdam) describes the migration crisis we are currently experiencing. Starting from the fact that literature, painting, cinematography, photography, music, art and culture as a whole gather and unite people and their stories, we would like to see the complexity of the phenomenon of art and creativity. We will present some works of great European authors, created in different historical periods and circumstances, which emphasize the importance of the experience of exile and migration in the aesthetics of French art. Since art has always been a strong voice of condemnation of persecution, injustice and crime, through significant examples of contemporary creativity inspired by the theme of migrants in the European framework, we will try to answer the question of whether and to what extent art affects a change in thinking and attitudes, i.e.why is it in the current moment, the attitude towards migrants is often negative, while the experiences of the past, collective memory and art deny us.

Prikazi

Author(s): Edin Veladžić,Admir Adrović,Veselin Konjević,Faruk Dizdarević,Vlatko Simunović,Vanja Kovačević,Jasmin Medić,Kemal Musić,Bogić Rakočević,Bruce C. Wearne,Braho Adrović,Hodo Katal / Language(s): Bosnian,Montenegrine Issue: 95-96/2024

Review of: 1. Istinom protiv zaborava, Adil Zulfikarpašić, Put u Foču, Bošnjački institut – Fondacija Adila Zulfikarpašića, Sarajevo 2022.; 2. Dragocjena monografija, Bajro Agović, Džamije u Crnoj Gori, Almanah, Podgorica, 2023.; 3. Monografija o mušovićima, Ulvija Mušović: Mušovići – od begova i kapetana do zbjegova i svjetskih metropola, Almanah, 2024.; 4. O prodorima vječnog u prolazno, Nusret Idrizović Bistrička svitanja, Bošnjačka nacionalna zajednica Hrvatske, Zagreb, 2003.; 5. Pogledaj u svoje djetinjstvo i ne okreći se sine, Dino Burdžović, Bruce Lee je umro u Bijelom Polju, Alternativna Grupa Monte Art – Frankfurt Am Main, 2023.; 6. Čovjek u vremenu zla, Aleksandar Srdanović, Kraj dana, Bijelo Polje, 2024.; o vanjskoj politici Putinove Rusije, Nikola Samardžić, Drugi hladni rat. Zapad i Rusija: 1999-2019., Laguna, Beograd, 2021.; 7. Pjesnikove se oči na tamu vremena privikavaju, Safet Hadrović Vrbički, DIVAN - Antologija vlastite lirike Rožaje – Cetinje, 2023.; 8. Gusta mreža različitih značenja, Kemal Musić, Dan poslije, Nova knjiga, Podgorica, 2020.; 9. Haverićeva knjiga muslimanske zajednice u Australiji, Muslims Making Australia Home: Immigration and Community Building By Dzavid Haveric (Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 2019); 10. Naša rijeka roman duboke emotivnosti, misaonosti i nesvakidašnjeg stila i jezika, Esad Kočan, Naša Rijeka, Almanah, Podgorica, 2023.; 11. Moć onoga što vidiš i onoga što ne vidiš, Redžep Nurović, Pjesme iz slušalice, Centar za kulturu “Vračar”, Beograd, 2024.

OD MARGINA PREMA JUŽNOSLAVENSKOM ROMSKOM ŽENSKOM KNJIŽEVNOM I KULTURNOM POKRETU

Author(s): Merima Omeragić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 48/2024

My scientific research on the beginnings of the Yugoslavian Romani women's movement is based on the idea of connection between these two areas, often viewed as mutually exclusive. Therefore, my research is based on a carefully constructed theoretical framework, which includes transnational and decolonial feminist perspectives. Taking into consideration the fact that Romani literature and culture are dismissed due to the systemic production of discrimination and racism, I have dedicated myself to the task of deconstructing the universalization of the stereotypes that delve into romanticization and dollarization or absolute dread of otherness. Within the existing order, the formal systems dispute the minority cultures, and thereby, as Maria Dalbello (1989) claims, the stereotypes about the Romani become metaphors for themselves. The minority cultures are determined by the attitude that, as Françoise Vergès (2023) points out, their authors, male and female, are lower beings without common sense, aesthetics, or abilities, which is mainly reflected in the double otherness of the Romani woman and her work, created within the framework of the dominant knowledge and culture, as well as under the conditions of a difficult tradition of her own community. Since Romani women are perceived as a disturbance to the norm, these women are robbed of their value, and their works are disregarded and rejected. The results of cultural exclusion need to be disputed by transnational and decolonial feminist knowledge focused on the fight against the dominant system, which “dismisses scientific knowledge, aesthetics and entire categories of human beings” (Vergès, 2023: 26). To fight this ultimateness, it is necessary to reach for a closer investigation of the context, as well as the representation of the praxes of the Romani women writers. Along with reading about Romani women’s culture through the lens of decolonial feminism, I have established a transnational connection between South Slavic and Romani women’s literature and culture. On another level, that context is best studied compared to the innovative translation philosophy established by Rada Iveković (2022). The translation policies are focused on the resistance to unambiguous systems of knowledge in a way that creates an alternative history that disturbs this knowledge and thereby introduces a metamorphosis of the texts in the act of interpretation. The emphasis is on the negotiation of the positions, the fight against discrimination, and the elimination of cultural racism. The process of transnational translation relativizes the notions of the center and the margin, thereby opening the door to a mutual literary and cultural impact, as well as the recontextualization “within the other (albeit related), culture and language, in this or that form” (Iveković 2022: 303). Therefore, the idea is to open the door from the dominant to the minority cultures. Connecting the spaces of the discourses themselves, I shall identify and question inequality through history, pointing to the “epistemological violence” (Spivak 2011: 99). The result of this action is mirrored in the dismantling and disturbing of the discrimination contained within the very essence of heteropatriarchal nationalism, which results in the inclusion of Romani women’s culture and literature. This research exercise and the interpretation of the specific aspects of the Romani women’s culture and literature is performed by questioning the possibilities for the newly created and released context. Connecting the discovered continent of Romani women’s literature and culture with engagement, I aim to point my research towards articulating an apparent literary and cultural movement. This research aims to reconstruct the beginnings of the Romani women’s literary and cultural movement. At the same time, I am dealing with the challenge of the unambiguous national corpora by opening those places for understanding different contents. One of the tasks is to describe the context and perspective of women’s lives described in and encompassed by these fields through a thorough shakeup of the cultural dogmas, the destruction of false universal truths, and Eurocentric epistemology. On the other hand, my focus is also on creating a map of works written by the first researchers of Romani women’s literature and culture, through which I will encompass some of the primary motifs of the artistic expression of our Romani women writers. The object and aims of my research are defined by the task of reconstructing the Romani women’s literature within a Yugoslavian context and the suppression of the continued erasure of the Other, as I choose to use decolonial feminist theory. In the chapter Decolonization: the Romani Sister, not Outsider (Dekoloniziranje: Romkinja sestra, a ne autsajderka) I perform an intersectional reading (connected to the women’s race, class, gender, nation, and sexuality) of the position of the Romani woman and their role and engagement in the creation of their own literature and culture. To that end, I refer to my point of view as a female researcher, which determines the aims of translating that culture, examining intercultural connections, and rewriting it in transnational fields. Generating my position, I consider Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s thesis (2011), which problematizes the opposing discourses and subjects of the marginalized and the privileged. While establishing the communication between these two options, I will tear down the labels of Romani women as outsiders “whose experience and traditions are too ‘foreign’ to make their understanding possible” (Lord 2022: 104). My role as a researcher is defined by the need for “allyship” due to the ambition to deconstruct the dominant narratives by broadening the knowledge and acknowledging the speech, affirming the Romani women’s literature and culture. My allyship activities, stemming from my humanist engagement, exist to contribute to the dismantling of the racialized order and, consequently, suppress separation. Denying the differences comes through the almost normalized “rejection to question false assumptions which result from the wrongful naming of the differences and their influence on human behavior and expectations” (Lord 2002: 102). At the same time, I aim to avoid the traps of civilizational discourse on liberation but also the mimicking of the discourse based on the mere exploitation of women. Through a scientific intervention, I will consider the history of racialized women and their work on reviving and affirming their culture. A characteristic of the Romani women writers’ works is their writing of how they dismantle the stereotypes about them, the stigmatization, marginalization, and discrimination that interweave through their experiences, creating a basis for the creation of the viewpoint and the motif in writing. That results in a significant challenge and a disturbing of the established orders. The theory I am applying in my research is based on the materialization of identity (the previously mentioned stratification of gender roles) between the epistemic underprivileged and the experience of repression and the systemic oppression of Romani women. If the woman writer determines the character of the narrative, to paraphrase Chandra Talpade Mohanty, then the marginalization that breeds art imposes itself as the key to the reading. Governed by the assumptions about the value of Others’ knowledge and the previously discussed allyship, the research will analyze the idea of translation between the South Slavic and Romani women’s literature and culture. Having defined the conditions of the research and answered the questions of why we translate cultures and what the role of the female researcher is, the next question I pose is—how to translate cultures? Translation is the “process of an asylum, and it means reciprocity” (Iveković 2022: 155) between the elements and the circumstances of the process, which reflect inequality. In the state of complex translatability or untranslatability, there is a communication gap between the marginalized Romani women’s culture and the dominant South Slavic national cultures. Hedina Tahirović- Sijerčić (2016), an influential scholar in Romani studies, calls that gap cultural racism which determines the reception of the Romani, especially in terms of Romani women’s literature and culture. Using translation, we can successfully draw attention to the need to dismantle the negation of otherness and aim to suppress the erasure of all traces of the Other and different subjects. On the other hand, the translation process follows the descriptions of the fields of Romani women’s literature, which is written in the broader scope of the South Slavic literary field. While translating cultures, this research is an exercise in the conscious speech of justice, and it contributes to creating a space devoid of stereotypes in which the affirmation of Romani women’s voices as the important voices of a specific community and a specific society, is possible. Having created and described the research framework and laid out the theoretical construct, the next step represents the examination of the existing research in the field of Romani studies, specifically that of Romani women’s literature and culture. I reach towards the analysis and representation of the earlier research because contemporary literary theory, as practiced in the Yugoslavian centers, almost as a rule, excludes and marginalizes the knowledge of Romani women’s literature in our countries. That is how I introduce different modes of research, while, on the other hand, I evaluate the autoemancipative efforts of fellow female researchers from Romani communities. To that end, my efforts are dedicated to the representation and interpretation of the pioneering research of Hedina Tahirović-Sijerčić and Iskra Vuksanović. I complete this chapter by directing readers towards the works of those Romani and nonRomani female researchers that are previously unnoticed, such as the works of Dubravka Đurić, Simbi Husarić-Junuzović and Antonija Raguž. The information on Romani women writers is rare in general, as confirmed by few titles available through a Google search—Women Writers from Former Yugoslavia—Selected Romani Poetry Written by Women (Autorice sa prostora bivše Jugoslavije – izabrana romska poezija koju pišu žene) (an anthology based on TahirovićSijerčić's research) or the existence of the thematic edition of Phralipen “Literature is Female” („Književnost je ženskog roda“), dedicated to Romani women writers and activists. The first challenge to interpreting the position of Romani woman in the fields of culture and women’s literature was tackled by Hedina Tahirović-Sijerčić. The author, recognizable by her interests in a broad field of different types of social research, made Romani women’s literature more available and more visible in her study Gender Identities in the Romani Women Writers’ Literature in Former Yugoslavia (Rodni identiteti u književnosti romskih autorica na prostorima bivše Jugoslavije) (2016). Her effort to make these works more available and visible included the translation level from Romani into Serbian/Montenegrin. Tahirović-Sijerčić based her research on postcolonial theory, with its insight into cultural differences, and the creation of a new identity of Romani women writers. Determined by the struggle to be free from patriarchal tradition and racial stigma, the identity of Romani women writers is written into the texts through the symbols of the Romani tradition: the motifs of escape, road and departure, superstitions, the lack of belonging, the sorrow of the Romani people, and woman’s difficult intimate emotions, from the relationship with paterocentric men to the pressures of the tradition. In terms of the creation of a new field, Tahirović-Sijerčić turns towards a gynocritical reconstruction of male literature—being both female and Romani, building the road from the first Romani female poet Gine Ranjičić (as a foremother in creativity) to the literary efforts of the contemporary women writers. Contextualizing gender and the experience of subordination as well as the exploitation based on race and class, the researcher analyzed the processes through which Romani women become subjects of their works. TahirovićSijerčić builds a corpus made of poetry and prose produced by Akila Eminova (Macedonia), Desanka Ristić Ranđelović, Maja Familić and Gordana Đurić (Serbia), Izeta Sejdović (Montenegro) and Amela Avdić (Bosnia and Herzegovina). In her doctoral thesis Anticolonialism and Gender: the Analysis of the Works of the Romani Women Writers Gordana Đurić, Desanka Ranđelović, Jelena Savić and Hedina Tahirović Sijerčić (Antikolonijalizam i rod: analiza dela romskih književnica Gordane Đurić, Desanke Ranđelović, Jelene Savić i Hedine Tahirović Sijerčić) (2022) Iskra Vuksanović tests the postcolonial theory using the knowledge of discursive practices and epistemological dogmas of otherness where our Romani women are in question. Starting with the reinterpretation of Gina Ranjičić’s inheritance, the researcher identifies the importance of works created by the female writers from the title of her thesis. In the last chapter of my research, I sketch out the future research that would further broaden our understanding of Romani women's literature through the works of new women writers who have not been included in the study so far. Along with the affirmation of Romani women's literature, as well as the South Slavic cultures, new research could oppose the domination of the monopoly in knowledge of the existing big cultures. To that end, I point out the main contours of the work by female writers Dragica Kladeraš, Zvezdana Lazić, Sandra S., Ferida Jašarević, Danijela Živković, Dušica Stupar, and Maja Jovanović, but also the authors from the anthology Romanipe – from the Shadow towards the Light (Romanipe – iz sjene na svjetlo) (2021) by Maja Grubišić, Selma Pezerović, Miridita Saliu, Vedrana Šajn and Nataša Tasić-Knežević. My sketch includes the Slovenian Romani women writers Jelenka Kovačić, Mladenka Šarkezi, Marina Breza, and Madalina Breza, as well as Jasmina Ahmetaj and Marta Gregorčič. In this research, I have opened the previously closed spaces of cultures for the contact of two fields and deconstructed the ideas of the centre and the margin in classical interpretations and narratives. The research, observed in its entirety, was created with the belief in and dedication to identifying and encouraging the starting point and enthusiasm for developing the Yugoslavian Romani women's literary and cultural field.

COMPOSITIONS OF COLOURATIVES IN "EVENINGS ON A FARM NEAR DIKANKA" BY NIKOLAI GOGOL

Author(s): Elena Nikolaevna Bekasova,Lukáš Gajarský,Andrea Grominova / Language(s): English Issue: 48/2024

The research within this article is interdisciplinary, at the intersection of linguistics and literature, and focuses on the modeling of the world's colour palette in artistic texts. In this regard, a study examining colourative compositions in the works of N.V. Gogol, where the volumetric and multidimensional style as it plays a determining role in the poetic colourization, is of special interest. The significance of word colouration in N.V. Gogol's early works shapes the objective of this article, which aims to uncover the specific representation and peculiarities of the colouratives in "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka". To characterize the systemic organization of colouratives in each short story, methods such as description, generalization, and the interpretation of linguistic material are employed, taking into account statistical data as well as elements from linguogenetic and textological approaches.

СПОМЕНИЦИ РАНИХ ИСТОЧНОСЛОВЕНСКО-СРПСКИХ КЊИЖЕВНИХ ВЕЗА КАО ИЗВОРИ ЗА ПРОУЧАВАЊЕ СРПСКОГ ИДЕНТИТЕТА

Author(s): Snežana V. Jelesijević / Language(s): English,Serbian Issue: 4/2024

A larger segment of this paper is dedicated to the presentation of the major results of studying Saint Sava’s Nomocanon to date, including the data about Serbian-Slavic transcripts, Serbian abridged version of the Old Church Slavonic language and examples of Moscow printed Krmčija in Serbian collections from 1649 to 1653. A brief overview is given of the observed traces of the application of Nomocanon and its impact on the life and consciousness of the Serbs in the Middle Ages. An important place among them is held by the realization of the idea of the symphony between the Church and the state, and their cooperation in regulating marital relations. The author thinks that Saint Sava’s personality and acting, as well as Nomocanon within it, contributed to the formation of Serbian identity. The author looks at the importance of Saint Sava’s Žiča Sermon on the True Faith, and the Synodicon of Orthodoxy, while drawing attention to the necessity of studying Serbian transcripts of the Pandects of Nikon of the Black Mountain.

JEZIČKE KARAKTERISTIKE KULENOVIĆEVE PRIPOVIJETKE STARAC I DIJETE

Author(s): Vedad Mulavdić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 19/2024

Scholars of Skender Kulenović's literary work have long noticed the special importance that the writer places on language. It is not without reason that some of them have called him a "miner" or "wizard" of language. Although the linguistic beauty of Kulenović's expression was initially most often observed in poetry - sonnets and poems above all - his narrative work is no less interesting from a linguistic aspect. This paper will discuss the linguistic characteristics of the story The Old Man and the Child, which belongs to the post-war period of Kulenović's literary work. A poignant and emotional theme had to be told in a special and condensed linguistic expression that reflects not only the ambience of the place and time of the story, but also the complex psychology of the characters, in the presentation of which speech characterization plays an unusually significant role. In this story, linguistic expression spreads in several directions, which proves that literature is primarily a linguistic art, and Kulenović is a writer who knows not only the basic tone, but also the numerous nuances of our language.

Reflecții pe marginea unor recenzii scrise de gazetarul Vasile Avram

Author(s): Gabriel Hasmațuchi / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 4/2024

Through this article, we intended to bring to the attention of the public only a small, but, nevertheless, conclusive part of the contribution of the publicist Vasile Avram (1940-2002). The analysis focuses on 25 book reviews published by the journalist in Transilvania journal between the years 1977 and 1989 under the “Mișcarea literară” column. This selection gives us the possibility to focus on a certain sub-category belonging to the opinion journalism that Vasile Avram often opted for, to aesthetically guide the targeted audience. We consider these critical texts sufficient to illustrate that the journalist had the rare quality of a critic of good taste.

Kanarbikurahvas: metafoorsed mõttemustrid ja loodussuhete ümbermodelleerimine Jaan Kaplinski loomingu näitel

Author(s): Timo Maran / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 03+04/2024

There can be no doubt that the most important challenge facing humanity in the 21st century is reacting to the manifestations of the global environmental crisis. Culture plays a central role in transitioning to a sustainable society, for it is culture that can show humanity the possibility of different ways of life, meanings and values. An important mission of environmental humanities and ecocriticism today is describing the potential of cultural texts to bring about an ecological breakthrough and facilitate change. There are many works in different genres and styles that depict the natural environment, various species, human relations with nature and environmental problems: these topics have been particularly highlighted since the emergence of ecocriticism in the 1970s. Besides literature, vigorous trends in photography and film, visual arts and theatre involve nature and the environment. This article discusses the deep structures of artistic texts that may have the potential to change humans’ relationship with the environment. I will discuss the work of the Estonian author Jaan Kaplinski (1941–2021) and describe figurative patterns of thought that create metaphoric links between humans and animals, or humans and the environment. On the basis of existing studies, it can be suggested that what is required to bring about cultural change is the circulation of numerous nature representations in texts of various types, and audiences’ exposure to them. However, our knowledge of the characteristics of artistic texts that can change human attitudes is insufficient. What are the structural, stylistic and narrative characteristics that can make a text effective and lead the audience to the critical evaluation of their own environmental impact? For instance, where is the reading experience of nature essays located in the human semiosphere as a whole? Human relations with nature do not simply become manifest in culture; they need to be mediated by signs, texts and thought models in order to be effective. Nature-culture cannot be advanced just by imagining the disappearance of the boundary between culture and nature, as these are semiotic systems that operate on different levels of complexity. While the semiotician Juri Lotman describes the boundary of culture as a translational membrane between the sphere of culture and external environment, the issue here lies in determining the characteristics of the membrane. A possible way in which texts of nature writing could transform human evaluations and behaviour can be found in the convergence of cognitive linguistics and literary criticism. Since the 1970s cognitive linguistics has dealt with conceptual metaphors: figures of speech that organise thinking and help us understand complex and abstract phenomena by creating relations of similarity with simpler and perceptual phenomena. Conceptual metaphors are considered significant in human cognitive development and learning, as using them can lead to changes in the conceptual structures of thinking. An intriguing type of metaphor used in literary texts is the extended metaphor, or sustained metaphor. Extended metaphors not only appear in particular expressions, as is the case with linguistic or conceptual metaphors, but also in literary texts containing such elements considered as wholes. It has been pointed out that literary texts representing nature, the environment and non-human species contain many metaphoric patterns of thought. Starting in the 1970s, links between culture and nature, as well as ecological problems, were recurring topics in Jaan Kaplinski’s work. Yet his ecological views did not fall into a carefully composed logical system, but were rather concentrated around figurative cores of thought: heather, extinction, the amber pine, the Titanic, the home place, wonder, longing etc. Kaplinski’s ecology was, to a great degree, an ecology of culture or ‘an ecology of the soul’; his views on solving environmental problems and sustainable culture coincided. He had a clear view of an ecological culture as part of a larger ecological system and did not draw clear lines between humans and other species. Kaplinski’s ecological thought was poetic and found expression in powerful images and linguistic patterns. In particular, I discuss two texts by Kaplinski: Ice and Heather and Leavers. Ice and Heather (1989) is a fragmentary collection of reminiscences, travel impressions, observations and meditations that has been called a prose text organised like poetry. At first sight, the work lacks a perceivable red thread creating coherence in narrative and textual organisation. The author’s mind keeps gliding from one topic to another, makes loops, the writing is associative. The thematic foci of the texts reside in childhood memories from the city of Tartu post-WWII, links between people and plants in different cultures and places, the traces and impact of the Ice Age in Scandinavia and Canada, biological descriptions of heather and heather communities, traces of war destruction in Lapland, Estonia and Germany, death and returning, travel impressions and observations from Lapland, thoughts on different religions, and depictions of an animist perception of the world by considering the sea, stones and plants. Motif analysis shows that the text’s thematically central axis can be found in linking heather and heather communities with the cultures of indigenous peoples of the North. The main image is not the time-honoured conceptual metaphor ‘humans are plants’, but rather the connection between humans and plants as parts of one whole. At the same time, Kaplinski does not make explicit declarations about the connectedness of humans and plants – this accumulates in metaphoric generalisations through the evolving of various topics, allusions and references. Most often, the author uses juxtapositions of humans and plants with a third element: conflagrations, ruins, Christian religion, the Ice Age. Analysed formally, the logical structure of Kaplinski’s extended metaphor could be the following: (1) kinsfolk share experiences and history; (2) humans and heather (or, more generally, Nordic flora) have similar experiences of the environment; (3) humans and heather are kin and belong together. Metaphoric transfer of meaning occurs between human kinship relations and ecological relations. Kaplinski’s creed is simple and thoroughly ecological: we are a heather people and can find neither happiness nor salvation outside our living environment or at the expense of it. Kaplinski’s Leavers includes three dystopian narratives on the relations of humans and nature that are presented from the point of view of genetic hybrids of humans and animals. The work can be read ecocritically as a description of the disintegrating and impoverished relations between humans and the natural environment in the context of the current mass extinction of species. The lack of meaningful relationships can be seen as the general state of living beings who have been extracted from their natural way of life and environment, be it an animal in a zoo or a human who has become alienated from meaningful work, nature and community. Proceeding from the biosemiotician Jakob von Uexküll, this broken state can be interpreted as a rupture in a being’s Umwelt: the meaningfully organised whole of the organism’s body, environment, senses and actions. The first-person depictions of the world seen through the eyes of the mutants emphasise the depth of the Umwelt rupture. This is not merely a question of humans having become detached from nature. The hybrid forms of the mutant bodies highlight the degree of such a shift: a different body radically changes the perception of, and the mode of being in, the world. Kaplinski’s artistic model in this text consists of shifting or removing the boundary between the organism and the environment, which results in environmental disintegration and the bodily deformation of living creatures turning into one and the same phenomenon. In Leavers, Kaplinski uses firstperson bodily experience as an artistic method to bring to readers’ attention the disappearance of species, destruction of nature and human alienation. Embodiment, bodily sensations and limitations are recurring topics in the book, examined from different perspectives. It has been difficult for humans to relate to climate change and the extinction of species, especially because these processes are seen as distant and unfathomable. Using the metaphor of the body makes it possible to perceive the environmental crisis. Kaplinski used the bodily deformations of mutants as an extended metaphor in order to describe the scope and effect of humans’ becoming distant from their natural environment. The logical structure of this extended metaphor is: (1) we are mutants; (2) we keep destroying nature of which we are part; (3) thus, the destruction of nature is self-mutilation. The metaphoric transfer of meaning occurs between the human body and the sphere of the environment. The texts discussed in the article employ the structure of extended metaphor to shift and transcend the boundary between humans and the environment. Including nature in human identity is certainly one of the most significant ways of moving towards a viable ecoculture. Extended metaphors as artistic models have an important role here. Through their imaginative dimension, extended metaphors create space for a dialogue between literary works and visual arts. Thus, Kaplinski’s texts have inspired several artistic interpretations, e.g. Kalli Kalde’s paintings illustrating Leavers and Britta Benno’s exhibition Ice and Heather. Kaplinski’s powerful ecological patterns of thought engage the reader, call into question the everyday view of the world and alter perception. Studies in cognitive linguistics have shown that the metaphoric structures of language are linked to the conceptual cores, categories and associations in human thought, and thus the use of new metaphoric associations in literature can bring about changes in thinking. In assessing the environmental impact of literature, the inner quality, ‘depth’ and intensity should be considered in addition to the number and circulation of texts. In this case, a text’s poetic structure, imagery, affectivity and thematic scope have impacts on readers, and the possibility arises that the text remains with readers, inspires thought and introduces changes in their ways of viewing the world. The artistic modelling of environmental relations can lead to changes in humans’ relations with the environment. In order to assess texts in the context of environmental change further, interdisciplinary research is required to analyse their artistic structure and compare them with actual experiences of appreciation and the environmental attitudes of readers.

Pjetër Budi: Vepra II Speculum Confessionis / Pasëqyra e t' Rrëfyemit (1621)

Author(s): Evalda Paci / Language(s): Albanian Issue: 02/2024

Review of: Pjetër Budi: Vepra II Speculum Confessionis / Pasëqyra e t' Rrëfyemit (1621), Akademia e Shkencave e Shqipërisë, Tiranë, 2024. Riprodhim anastatik i botimit kritik të Gunnar Svane-s (1986), përgatitur dhe pajisur me faksimilet e tekstit burimor nga Bardhyl Demiraj

Imperativ pamćenja loma dominantnog književnog kanona – prva istraživačica bosanskohercegovačkog ženskog pjesništva Ajša Džemila Zahirović

Author(s): Merima Omeragić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 23/2024

This article takes as its starting point the task of remembering and re-evaluating the work of the recently deceased poet and researcher Ajša Džemila Zahirović. In an attempt to uncover and analyze the reasons why her work and the author have been forgotten, this paper seeks to examine the context in which women create and in which their work is valued. This includes the creation of a theoretical-critical framework that is reflected in the combination of feminist literary criticism and gynocriticism, with the aim to provide an adequate response to the problem of the exclusion of women from the dominant literary history and canon. Although the main focus here is on interpreting the editorial practices of the first Bosnian anthology of women’s poetry Od stiha do pjesme: Poezija žena Bosne i Hercegovine [From verse to poem: Poetry of women of Bosnia and Herzegovina] (1985), in addition the paper will identify the method of establishing a subgenre of an anthology of women’s poetry capable of giving voice to women and intervening in the dominant field of knowledge. The work is based on retrieving forgotten women writers from history, such as Zahirović. Additionally, the idea of this paper is to articulate the history of women’s writing. The aim is also to reposition both the researcher and her anthology within the spaces of the reconstruction of the female literary tradition and the imperative of memory. The entire analysis is based on a careful examination of the status of the writer and anthologist, that is, demonstrating and affirming her importance.

Jedno žensko sjećanje na bosanskohercegovački socijalizam 1980-ih i njegov kraj: Melika Salihbegov(ić)

Author(s): Sabina Veladžić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 23/2024

This paper aims to present in an integral form selected sources from the “Melika Salihbegović” collection, archived in the Museum of Literature and Performing Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It seeks to illuminate one woman’s inner world, voice, writings, her perception of social, ideological, political reality and the structures of institutional power during socialist period in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the late 1970s and 1980s. Since the writer Melika Salihbegov(ić) was detained, trialed, and convicted in the Sarajevo Process of 1983, the sources presented here offer a poignant insight into the ways in which repression by state and so-called security authorities – and also social ostracism, which, as the sources suggest, aimed to erase the visibility of her person and her voice in the public sphere – along with social isolation, took a toll on the body, mind, and soul of a woman who, driven uncompromisingly by deep conviction, sought to affirm herself publicly as a free political being and cultural creator.

Научна конференция „Острови на неблажените. Неконвенционалната българска литература от 1944 до 1989“

Author(s): Boryana Vladimirova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 49/2024

„(…) będę czągał sankie szniegem (…)”. Głosy dzieci z Domu Sierot

Author(s): Wojciech Lasota / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2024

The purpose of the article is to present excerpts from primary sources from the history of the Orphans’ Home. There have been preserved the children’s texts, written down by them or their educators. Selected quotations illustrate functioning of the children of the Orphans’ Home in the Polish-Jewish borderland, as well as related struggles and dilemmas, primarily on the linguistic and identity levels. The excerpts presented are then juxtaposed with Janusz Korczak’s narrative of the Orphans’ Home in his book, to make it clear that he completely omitted Jewish themes from this story.

Прекосявайки с Хегел зоните на късносъветската (анти)утопия

Author(s): Vladimir Sabourin / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2024

During the late Soviet era, science fiction was one of the first zones of its ideological cosmos, registering the exhaustion of the communist utopia precisely within the literary genre aimed at its representation. In this articleI consider the history of the “editing to death” of the Strugatsky brothers’ shortnovel Roadside Picnic as a representative case of the anti-utopian “uneasiness incivilization” of late actually existing socialism. Simultaneously with the censorshiptaming of the uneasiness, the Strugatsky’s science fiction dystopia underwent aradical interpretation in Andrei Tarkovsky’s film adaptation Stalker as a Hegelian“good music with text”. In comparison to the censored edition, which is barely a timid emendation, ultimately yearning modestly for a good life during the most consumeristic and moderately repressive years of Soviet power, Tarkovsky’ s aesthetically singular re-reading is truly a “Zone” of editing to death.

Siedem fenomenów kultury studenckiej w PRL

Author(s): Sławomir Rogowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1-2/2024

An attempt at demonstrating the accomplishments of the student cultural and artistic movement in 1956–1989. The purpose of the text is to bring the titular phenomenon closer via a presentation of seven problem sub-chapters and within them – the prime determinants, authors, and values that comprised this output. The article’s summary discusses the development, prosperity, and end of the period of the thus comprehended phenomenon occupying a significant place within the student and academic milieu.

Toasting, Oratory and Parody in Britain during the French Revolution

Author(s): Rémy Duthille / Language(s): English Issue: 68/2024

In keeping with recent historiography on the interplay of orality and literature in Romantic Britain, this article starts from the emergence of toasting in the early phase of the French Revolution as a new form of radical discourse, in the context of a budding public-dinner sociability. The main focus bears on conservative parodies of such radical toasting, in papers such as the Times and especially the Anti-Jacobin and Anti-Jacobin Review. Parody enabled conservatives to mimic republican and regicidal tropes in ways that were much more outrageous than the alleged radical originals, thus testing the limits of public speech in 1790s Pittite Britain. The article ends with a close reading of a particularly ornate parody, based on an ode by Horace, of the Duke of Norfolk’s notorious toast to “the Majesty of the People,” which symbolized, in the eyes of the selfstyled anti-Jacobins, the treachery and inconsequence of the Foxite Whigs in the 1790s.