The Mousetrap of Language: The Mechanism of Anamorphosis in the Works of Edgar Allan Poe and Antun Gustav Matoš

Rethinking conditions of revolutionary potential of literature, with special regard to ways literature incessantly has re-examined otherness in language, in this paper we have chosen to focus on specific mechanism of illusion-making, i.e. anamorphosis taken both as a technique and a theme. Since one of the most famous elaboration of anamorphosis in literature is to be found in Poe’s stories, it is worthwhile to examine how Poe’s game of hide and seek with depth and surface is reflected in his devoted Croatian reader and interpreter A.G. Matos. In a comparative analysis of Poe’s and Matos’s stories, we will elaborate on how a procedure of naming and a procedure of signifying are revealed to be mere effects of anamorphosis in Matos’s short story “Miš” (The Mouse). Since it is an embodiment of a figure designating schism and split, the rodent from the title of Matos’s short story reveals the other side of thinking, which is no other than the other within

Putopisna inskripcija Bosne i bosanskog u 19. stoljeću

The topic is romantic travelogues with the subject of Bosnia: descriptions andinsights into the perceived “reality” of the Bosnian area and people of the19th century presented through linguistic and stylistic means and on examples of selected travelogues from that period. New historical experiences of the writer opened the way for the emotional reception of collective practices of people, and this often leads to ahistorical conceptualization and long-lasting stereotypes. Considering that both linguistic activity and historical memory are mutual psychological processes, the diverse strategic character of the travel discourse through research shows that known cultural patterns can often deceive with their simplified form.The topic is romantic travelogues with the subject of Bosnia: descriptions andinsights into the perceived “reality” of the Bosnian area and people of the19th century presented through linguistic and stylistic means and on examples of selected travelogues from that period. New historical experiences of the writer opened the way for the emotional reception of collective practices of people, and this often leads to ahistorical conceptualization and long-lasting stereotypes. Considering that both linguistic activity and historical memory are mutual psychological processes, the diverse strategic character of the travel discourse through research shows that known cultural patterns can often deceive with their simplified form

Skazani na imperium. Wizja rosyjskiej drogi dziejowej w Jeźdźcu miedzianym Aleksandra Puszkina

The article is an attempt to explore the vision of Russian history in Alexander Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman. The key role in the poem is played by the figure of Peter I, who is shown as a despot on the one hand, and a bold visionary on the other. In The Bronze Horseman, Pushkin presents a suggestive image of the flood in St. Petersburg, referring to such problems as the clash between an ordinary man and history or the essence of rebellions and revolutions. Deciphering the meaning of individual motifs allows us to perceive Pushkin’s coherent and multidimensional historiosophical vision. The main conclusion of the article is the statement that Russian imperialism in The Bronze Horseman is shown as an organic element of Russianness, without which Russia could not have formed as a strong and modern state. Moreover, the poem can invariably be seen as a key to understanding the essence and vitality of Russian imperialism.The article is an attempt to explore the vision of Russian history in Alexander Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman. The key role in the poem is played by the figure of Peter I, who is shown as a despot on the one hand, and a bold visionary on the other. In The Bronze Horseman, Pushkin presents a suggestive image of the flood in St. Petersburg, referring to such problems as the clash between an ordinary man and history or the essence of rebellions and revolutions. Deciphering the meaning of individual motifs allows us to perceive Pushkin’s coherent and multidimensional historiosophical vision. The main conclusion of the article is the statement that Russian imperialism in The Bronze Horseman is shown as an organic element of Russianness, without which Russia could not have formed as a strong and modern state. Moreover, the poem can invariably be seen as a key to understanding the essence and vitality of Russian imperialism

The Slavonic Literary Studies at the Crossroads: Redefining, or Preserving?

The author of the present study tries to answer the question from the title about the contemporary state and the future of Slavonic literary studies in connection with other disciplines, e.g., comparative and genre studies, their crises and shifts of methodological emphases. According to the author, the future perspectives of Slavonic studies are associated with the relatively constant entity of the subject, the Slavonic phenomenon or the Slavonic world as marking or delimiting the boundaries of Slavonic studies as an independent or autonomous discipline, and with their open or semi-open character in the philological framework, dynamic borders and transcending towards the cultural-area concept without losing their philological kernel

Mise en poeme: Epic (Auto)reflexivity and South Slavic Poetry in the Age of Romanticism

This paper deals with the discursive phenomenon of reflexivity in the epic poetryof South Slavic romantic poets around the middle of the 19th century. Reflection is here understood as a kind of poetic self-formation procedure of romantic literary subject and his efforts to renovate epic mode in its original form. Starting with concept of “epic Romanticism”, in a way specific to South Slavic literatures, the author proceeds by distinguishing basic modes: explicit, implicit, and intertextual reflexivity. While the first two are related to typical romantic affectivity (D. Demeter, F. Prešeren) and/or rhetoric identification with oral folk rhapsodists’ tradition (P. P. Njegoš), the third one is marked with so-called “integration story” (I. Mažuranić), or mise en abyme, i.e. “the mirror in the text” effect as a medium of artistic auto-perspectivization and possible creative invention which leads to indications of the early pro-modern poetic procedures

Wielogłos. Polskie, czeskie i słowackie teksty o Zagładzie

Handbook of Polish, Czech, and Slovak Holocaust Fiction. Eds. Elisa-Maria Hiemer, Jiří Holý, Agata Firlej, Hana Nichtburgerová. Berlin: De Gruyter. 2021, 514 s. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110671056Handbook of Polish, Czech, and Slovak Holocaust Fiction. Eds. Elisa-Maria Hiemer, Jiří Holý, Agata Firlej, Hana Nichtburgerová. Berlin: De Gruyter. 2021, 514 s. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/978311067105

And There Were the Plitvice Lakes. The Landscapes of the Croatian Lake District in the Romantic Journey Put na Plitvice

Put na Plitvice (The Road to Plitvice, 1860) is the first of the travelogue in Croatian language describing an expedition to the Croatian Lake District. The work of art is of significant “world-creating” and “culture-creating” value, introducing the Plitvice Lakes into the Croatian national text and into the national landscape, hence the biblical allusion in the title. It will therefore be a world-creating narrative, of bringing into existence and therefore giving a symbolic dimension of the work of art.I focus on the landscape-painting aspects of the text, understanding landscape as the manner of constructing and formulating the world, as a way of perceiving and incorporating it into cultural traditions. It is therefore rough, monumental, wild like a traversed space, which should be included in the category of picturesque and sublimity. Veber’s representation of nature illustrates how it was seen at the time within the framework of the national-revival programme

Translator’s Notes in a Russian Translation of Olga Tokarczuk’s Bieguni Novel

The article addresses the issue of translator’s notes in a Russian translation of Olga Tokarczuk’s “Bieguni” novel by Irina Adelʹgejm. The main text of the original, despite its abundance in borrowings, interjections and quotations in languages other than Polish, was not provided with explanatory notes by the author. The translator, however, provided the translation with 149 notes. They are notesexplaining terms, proper names, names of realities and others translated in the main text as well as notes explaining fragments formulated in the novel’s text in languages other than the language of the narration. On the basis of the undertaken analysis it is stated that the strategy of forming paratexts adopted by the translator is inconsistent. The secondary text designates an additional way of reading “Bieguni” novel, but it does not impose it as using the notes is just a possibility and depends on the reader’s choice

The Geography of Childhood and Affective Archetypes: A DiscursiveMythological Approach to the Representations of Serbia in British and American Interwar Travel Accounts

One of the key representations of Serbia between the two world wars in British and American travel accounts is the one about a child. Set in the context of Orientalism and postcolonial tradition this representation is usually interpreted as infantilization that reflects the marginalization and symbolic position of Serbia and the Balkans outside the mainstream of world politics and economy. As the academic discourse is mostly occupied with orientalism and postcolonialism, this paper focuses on symbolic and mythological potential of the discourse analysis about Serbia—“the child of Europe.” The paper analyses three forms of infantilization of Serbia in the interwar travel accounts, while each chapter is dedicated to specific form of infantilization: 1. Serbia as an orphan of Europe; 2. Serbs as medieval people (unspoiled by civilization and vital); 3. Their “temperament” reveals cultural, and thus, political immaturity. The analysis is based on Darren Kelsey’s discursive-mythological approach and it draws a conclusion about the interconnection between the child’s image, culture, historical circumstances, internal/external representation and affective archetypes