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In this interview, the well-known Albanian writer Fatos Kongoli talks about literature, tyranny, democracy, transition, the authors he read, and how he created. As one of the most successful Albanian writers, he talks about the socio-political context that affected his creations, which were dominated by characters traumatized by their past.
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Në këtë intervistë, shkrimtari i njohur shqiptar, Fatos Kongoli, flet për letërsinë, tiraninë, demokracinë, tranzicionin, për autorët që ka lexuar dhe mënyrën si ka krijuar. Si një prej autorëve më të suksesshëm shqiptarë, ai këtu flet për kontekstin social-politik që ndikoi në veprat e tij, ku dominojnë karakterer e traumatizuar nga e kaluara e tyre.
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The following paper aims to briefly analyze how Frankflurt School theorist Walter Benjamin’s concept of ‘aura’ from his unfinished essay ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ can be reactualized in the context of performance art, using as a case of study the works of two émigré artists in North America between 70s – 80s: Ana Mendieta and Tehching Hsieh. Benjamin discusses the work of art in the age of its technical reproductibility in which the artistic product loose its authenticity, its uniqueness given by its creative process and its tradition throughtout the centuries (historical object). The auratic experience can be represented in the performative moment when the human body becomes, perhaps, the most authentic artistic product because the performer leaves himself to the will of the audience. In many cases, a performance can be considered interactive art because the audiece becomes the participant, as can be seen in the case of Marina Abramović and Chris Burden’s works. Hence, performance art has a powerful militant dimension in which its cultural and social worth are being assessed.
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The study Between dream and reality: Mihai Eminescu and Novalis is an application of literature field, comparative literature in particular. Thesis in the direction which it argues: Both Eminescu and Novalis, in prose belive that the world is a dream trough which the dream becomes the world. In our opinion, the motif of the blue flower, the preference for nocturnal and dreamlike spaces, are the axes that create the connection between the Romanian and German poets. The probing of the real depths and the principle of the continuous present are also visible in the short story Poor Dionis by Mihai Eminescu, as well as in Disciples from Sais. Henrich von Ofterdingen by Novalis. In conclusion, the life transcribed, in a poetic act, the nocturnal space that favors dreaming and the descent into the essential depth are specific to the thinking of both poets-prose writes. Similarly, the desire to access a higher knowledge, to the Absolute, is the key element can be identified from both Eminescu᾽s and Novalis᾽s thinking. All these ideas converge in European romanticism.
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Fan Fiction presents itself as a form of creative expression in which fans of various forms of media contribute to their communities with engaging stories. With the rising popularity of this genre as a vibrant and dynamic aspect of contemporary popular culture, this paper will provide an overview on its emergence, its particularities, and its roots in fan communities with the purpose of understanding how it shapes and reflects contemporary media landscapes. Further, the implications of Fan Fiction’s ties with intertextuality for notions of authorship, creativity, and participatory culture in an age in which the concept of authorship has begun to lose its meaning and value.
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The Slovak authorial fairy tales published before 1930s are nowadays often seen as works without real artistic character. The literary research and theoretical sources about authorial fairy tale development describe this period only in some (even contradictory) general information. Our interpretation of the historical resources (books published in the period from 1877 to 1928) shows the initial inclination towards contamination of genres and the didactic purpose. First steps of the genre foundation can be found in the didactic (Christian-didactic) works written by J. D. Čipka and A. H. Škultéty modelling a child character. The first concept of the authorial fairy tale genre in Slovakia is formed in Kristina Royova´s animal fairy tale. In the period 1910–1930 the main tendencies in the works labelled as fairy tales are modelling a child hero; didactism: the stories based on a didactic purpose seen in reward or punishment of the main character; imitating a play of children, and working with the elements of dreaming.
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The novel 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐼𝑟𝑜𝑛 𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛: A Love Story by the British and Serbian writer Vesna Goldsworthy is set in London and in the capital of an unnamed state-socialist country behind the Iron Curtain. It follows the fate of young Milena Urbanska, a privileged “red princess” but also a victim of the communist regime, both in exile and on her return to her homeland. The protagonist leaves her homeland in pursuit of freedom and love, but her return becomes an act of vengeance, casting her in the role of a latter-day Medea. This article focuses on the themes of border crossing and exile, which are central to this exophonic novel.
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This article examines two works of one of the first Latvian postmodernists, Marģeris Zariņš (1910–1993): Viltotais Fausts jeb Pārlabota un papildināta pavārgrāmata (Counterfeit Faust or Corrected and Supplemented Cookbook, 1973) and Trauksmainie Trīsdesmit Trīs (The Turbulent Thirty Three, 1988). The author of the article analyzes the postmodern techniques used in these books with a purpose of criticizing and deconstructing the ideological framework of Soviet regime and the Socialist Realism art that was prevalent during that era. Three additional research questions are asked to explore this thesis. First: how is the language used to go against the Socialist Realism grain? What are its peculiarities? Second: what “decadent” and modernistic cultural references and tropes are used? How do they contradict the Socialist Realism standards? Third: what Socialist Realism tropes and archetypes are reinterpreted or confirmed? With what aim? What is their relation with more modernistic elements in the both books? In this research, the methods of close reading and comparative analysis were used. It is concluded that Socialist Realism and socialism is criticized and challenged in both of the aforementioned works: in Counterfeit Faust predominantly through the use of language and intertextual connections with Western modernism and postmodernism, and in The Turbulent Thirty Three by combining fourth-wall-breaking and surreal episodes with a harsh satire of Soviet life.
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The article explores gender roles in four Stagnation era Estonian novellas for girls – the so-called Silja series by Silvia Truu, which focuses on educational work experience gained in a candy factory. The stories are analyzed against the background of public discussions of that time which were characterized by a strong opposition between genders and fueled by buzzwords such as “women’s emancipation” and “crisis of masculinity”. The aim of this article is to find out whether and how this opposition was reflected in youth fiction, both on the level of its young protagonists and on the level of supporting adult characters. The books are also compared with advice literature for girls of that time. It is concluded that whereas the author of the Silja series takes care to use some of the constant motifs of Soviet youth education and to lay out a seemingly gender-neutral setting, the final result points in another direction: the fundamental difference between genders, even their incompatibility, is given more emphasis. The arising contradictions are reconciled through individual narrative solutions, often characterized by gender conventionalism – a conscious favoring of gender roles perceived as “natural” and “traditional”. The tensions familiar from media and adult literature of the same period are most evident in the background descriptions of families and their problem areas (divorce, alcoholism, and single motherhood); the desirable solutions seem to rely heavily on gender conventionalism here as well.
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In the era of late socialism, literary works played an important role in shaping public behavior models, controlling culture, and influencing social interactions. Additionally, literature contributed to the dissemination of the principles of the “socialist way of life”. In this context, Latvian literature helped Soviet institutional authorities to construct the ideal image of a socialist woman. This female ideal played a crucial role in popularizing socialist ideas among Latvians and supporting the efforts of the Communist Party to reorient the competition with the West. Unable to compete on the level of material living conditions, the Soviet Union prioritized hard-to-measure concepts – moral, ethics, and personal and emotional values. In their writings of the 1960s and 1970s, Latvian authors portrayed a modern woman’s image, encouraging the readers to contemplate a woman’s social role, lifestyle, education, career, etc. While the female images created by writers served as a paragon of the ideal Soviet woman, the literary works also provide a rather honest description of the Soviet reality where material values were also important. The literary texts show the complicated socioeconomic conditions of the time, such as poverty, lack of career possibilities, and the constant government surveillance.
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Translators and interpreters have always played a key role as intercultural mediators, however, their biographies and functions as active agents of cultural change have only recently started to be studied. Following the sociological and material turn in translation studies, there has been a growing interest in the figure of the literary translator, not as a category of the translation process, but as a living human being who not „only” produces texts, but influences cultural transfer, introduces new poetics and shapes literary canons. Nowadays, researchers point to the necessity of describing the place and role of translators not only within Translation Studies, but above all, in the network of social contacts and relationships. The sociology of translators includes such issues as the status of translators in different cultures, pay rates, place and conditions of work, the public discourse of translation, i.e. the manifestations of the public image of the translating profession, which is visible, for example, in the press or in literary works. This area also encompasses research on translators’ attitudes towards their work, as revealed in essays, interviews, prefaces and translators’ archives. The paper focuses on the biography of the translator, placed in a broad historical and social context and thus, in the cultural and sociological dimensions of translator studies. In examining the biography of the Polish translator Bronisław Zieliński, the methodology of microhistory (adapted for translation studies by Jeremy Munday) will be used and combined with Anthony Chesterman’s theoretical proposal of translator studies.
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The current text’s purpose is to compare the two novels mentioned in the article’s title, so it could examine some differences and some similarities in creating a fictional world, while emphasizing on the political dimensions of a dystopian narrative. The machine of power is a metaphor used in both novels, which are also comparable in their intention to show general mechanisms that take place within similar political regimes.
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Rooted in the dystopian tradition, 2084 : la fin du monde [2084: The End of the World] by Algerian author Boualem Sansal stands out for its inclusion of elements reminiscent of the philosophical tale, particularly Voltaire’s Candide ou l’Optimisme [Candide, or Optimism], such as the use of descriptive intertitles in the form of completive propositions, the schematic nature of the characters and the use of irony. It is this second generic affiliation that we will focus on in this article.
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The article based on the comparative principle seeks to introduce to a wide audience two novels by Lithuanian writers Kęstutis Navakas (Vyno kopija [“The Wine Copy”], 2016) and Marius Ivaškevičius (Tomas Mūras, 2022), whose authors wish to reflect on the status of the artist in the current era of excess and prosperity. The myth of the artist began taking shape in the 19th century and remained at its height throughout the 20th century, even though art itself underwent many changes. Is the artist still the representative of the elite in society in a post-modern age, when the line between art and pop, between personality and promotional image is almost blurred? These are the questions the authors ask and try to answer, joining inevitably those European authors who placed the creative person at the centre of their fictional world over the last two centuries. Anyone who writes on this subject almost inevitably becomes an author of World literature, as we have understood it since Goethe. The study seeks to reveal the diversity of literary associations, sometimes unconsciously touched upon by the authors, and the tradition of the European novel in dealing with questions of art, man, and his meaning on Earth.
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This article delves into the phenomenon of the extreme contemporary within the French artistic and literary avant-garde, exploring the radical innovations and boundary-pushing practices that define these vibrant cultural movements. The extreme contemporary art and literature scene in France is characterized by its relentless pursuit of new forms, materials, and conceptual frameworks that challenge conventional aesthetics and social norms. By examining key artists and writers alongside their groundbreaking works, this study highlights how these creators utilize transgressive techniques and provocative themes to provoke dialogue and reflect the complexities of modern life. Through a multidisciplinary lens, encompassing visual arts, literature, performance, and digital media, the article situates the French avant-garde within a global context, illustrating its significant influence and contribution to contemporary cultural discourse. Ultimately, this exploration reveals how the extreme contemporary serves as both a mirror and a catalyst for societal change, pushing the limits of artistic and literary expression and reimagining the possibilities of the art and literary worlds.
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Translation from Czech by Nina Todorova
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The paper focuses on two novels by Dimitar Agelov (“When the Man was not”, published in 1941, and “The Brave Chung”, published in 1953) that were defined as fantasy by literary critics. The novels are intended for children and teenagers, so the emphasis is as much on the fun intrigue as it is on a certain didactic idea. The paper comments on the problem of knowledge as a leading idea of the two novels. They present the life of several generations of monkeys which were named by the author chungs and poma. Under influence of hereditary factors, the environment and the changes of the climate the animals change into people. The main factor leading to this change is the characters start putting in the work.. Every day they do something to survive the fight with other animals, provide food, or adapt to nature. The paper examines the novels as an illustration of Darwin`s theory about the origin of species.
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This article delves into the complexities of translating ‘Bai Ganyo’ into English, with a specific focus on translating cultural realia, turcisms, and pragmatic markers. These linguistic elements saturate the text with distinctive cultural nuances, enriching Bai Ganyo’s speech with essential subtleties and impact. At the core of this inquiry lies the question: does Bai Ganyo’s intelligence resonate differently in English?
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