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RLGADOFGQDQ R @?M JRUG SGJMJMWIG S?IRJQDQ SGJMJMB V?PMNGP F? DFGI , IGEDALMPQ G IRJQROR PHILOLOGIST JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, LITERARY AND CULTURAL STUDIES IV/2011 OOIDIK>IK I K> UKI O>A Vladislava Gordi E Petkovi E Filozofski fakultet u Novom Sadu UDK 821.163.41(091) NARRATIVE STRATEGIES IN CONTEMPORARY SERBIAN FICTION Abstract: The paper deals with nine authors of contemporary Serbian ction which represent three narrative strategies: postmodern textual play, rewriting history, and obsessive confession. However, their common interest lies in the reinvention of reality. Dra- gan Veliki E, Mileta Prodanovi E, Radoslav Petkovi E, Sreten Ugri GiE and David Albahari manipulate facts and ction in di erent ways, exploring the blurry border between the two, and the result of this playful trespassing is meta ction packed with actual events from either recent or remote history. Unlike their male counterparts, Serbian women writers explore the pursuit of happiness as their main motif. Mirjana Novakovi E, Mirjana #ur Kevi E, Jelena Lengold and Ljubica Arsi E either twist master narratives or reinvent intimate stories in order to escape preestablished designs imposed by the male-oriented literary canon. Keywords: Serbian literature, postmodernism, meta ction, history. Contemporary Serbian ction could Petkovi E’s latest novel the Irish poet Wil- be described as an intersection of three liam Butler Yeats appears within a crum- narrative strategies: postmodern textual bling world of the 14th century Constanti- play, rewriting history, and obsessive con- nople, in a vision of a young man whose fession. The greatest concern of the writers meddling with magic will forcibly lead him which will be discussed here, however, is into priesthood and provide him rescue in the reinvention of reality. Both male and the form of the newly acquired identity: he female authors whose work will be pre- will become Philarion. Since the authori- sented in the paper manipulate facts and ties frown upon practical magic, even if ction in various ways, exploring the blur- meant to save the city from the impending ry border that separates the two realms, Ottomite invasion, embracing religion will and the result of this playful trespassing is be Philarion’s narrow escape of death. meta ction packed with actual events However, even as a dutiful monk, this from either recent or remote history. young man will a ront magic yet again, In his novels Destiny, Annotated (Sud- owing to his mysterious tutor, who is a phi- bina and komentari, 1993) and The Perfect losopher and a wizzard. Abounding in Remembrance of Death (Savršeno se Eanje mysticism, philosophy and juicy historical na smrt, 2008) Radoslav Petkovi E explores tidbits, The Perfect Remembrance of Death the ways war, revolutions and unrests is both an esotheric thriller and an adven- shape up social and personal histories. The turous travelogue, as well as a bildungsro- author twists and turns some lesser known man of an enchanter. historical facts so as to induce unexpected In Petkovi E’s previous novel Destiny, encounters of literary heroes and histori- Annotated , which received all Serbian lit- 11 cal personages in time and space. Thus in erary awards, history is used as a material Vladislava Gordi E Petkovi E to be subverted. The narrative is under- On the other hand, Dragan Veliki E pinned by a consistent current of irony and has been warmly received in the German- the narrator uses every opportunity to ap- speaking countries with his novels which peal to the reader by using generic state- mostly deal with personal quest for iden- ments drawing on a commonality of expe- tity amid the turbulent scene of the south- rience. Petkovi E’s history takes on a cycli- eastern Europe. Inclined to investigate cal form instead of the more common lin- personal histories hidden behind the walls ear conception, with historic events rele- of European cities from the Mediterranean gated to the margins of the narrative and to the Central Europe, Veliki E is deeply turned into a backdrop against which the concerned with exile as the condition of personal histories and private turmoils of the modern man. Thus his character Rudi the two main protagonists are presented. Stupar from the much praised novel The The rst two sections of the novel deal Russian Window (Ruski prozor, 2007) trav- with the 18th century Trieste and the third- els from his hometown Szabadka further person narrator whose identity remains to the north in order to invent a new life, unknown to the reader focuses our atten- unburdened with ethnic animosities and tion on Russian naval o cer Pavel Volkov, war con icts. A considerable part of the who desperately tries to navigate his way novel takes place in Budapest, where Rudi among various national and religions com- successfully resettles until the city turns munities of Trieste against the backdrop of into a „Serbian Casablanca“ with the ow the impending Napoleon’s invasion of the of Serbian expatriates who have escaped city, unable to resist to the charm of the the NATO air strikes. Veliki E is at his best wife of a prominent Serbian merchant, Ka- when he casts his elaborate sketches of the tarina Rizni E, a fatal beaty who manipu- cities from Pola to Hamburg, which get to lates him both politically and sexually. The be much more than a mere backdrop to the third section of Destiny, Annotated deals characters’ identity crises. His heroes are with the Budapest in the second half of the con dent but dissatis ed lonely men who 20th century, where both the tone and the try to come to terms with their historical, narrator substantially change: this part of cultural and intimate legacies, looking for the book is written in the form of autobio- their idols and friends among the gures of graphical notes taken by historian Pavle prominent artists who set the example of Vukovi E, in which he describes his doomed successful reconciliation of love, ambition relationship with Márta Kovács and his and faith. visit to Budapest during the Hungarian The inclination toward both the po- Revolution of 1956. Pavle is a Serbian intel- litical and the fantastic can be observed in lectual who unwittingly got caught amid the ctional opus of Sreten Ugri GiE, which the 1956 revolution in Budapest, his desti- is positioned in between political allegory ny intersecting with the eventful life of his and a modern fairy tale with the element of ancestor and namesake, a 19th century of- the uncanny. As elsewhere, the intrusion cer who had been entangled into strata- of fantastic elements begins with the char- gems and schemes of seemingly benevo- acter’s perception of reality as monstrous lent people around him. Petkovi E’s multi- and perverted. Thus in his latest novel, To layered, intricate narratives are packed the Unknown Hero (Neznanom junaku, with both irony and suspense, having 2010), Ugri GiE skillfully combines the burn- earned him a huge critical acclaim in Ser- ing issue of Kosovo with dystopia and fa- bia and abroad, as his novels have been ble, turning the Serbia of the year 2014 into translated into Hungarian, French, Ger- a bleak country packed with terror and ig- 12 man, Greek and Bulgarian so far. norance, corruption and unrest, and the Narrative strategies in contemporary Serbian ction only free media in such a dismal place is Bait , a novel about exile, memory and in- con ned to – telepathy. The love story in heritance. The audio tapes, brought to such a dystopic world cannot but end in Canada from the Former Yugoslavia by the tears and tragedy, but even the much used main character, contain his mother’s per- convention of star-crossed lovers leads to sonal history. The narrator hears his moth- an unexpected twist: the lovers die of gas er’s voice speaking in his mother tongue poisoning after spending only one night „across time and outside of life“(Albahari together, and their lives end before they 1996: 93), equaling her voice to an urn con- have even managed to become the princi- taining the ashes and a substitute to reality. pal narrative concern of the plot. Ugri GiE For the narrator’s mother, „history had boldly uses history and politics as decon- been a fact, a mallet that with inexorable structed metaphors in order to show that precision had come down on her“(Albahari they su ocate love and life in general: an 1996:20). Born in a small Bosnian town, inscription on the wall, saying „Serbia she got married in Zagreb to a communist kills“, turns from a simple reality bite into a Jew from an Ashkenazi family, and con- concept of menace, which over ows the verted to Judaism at the beginning of the world of the novel. Second World War. In order to escape the David Albahari has obviously rein- Holocaust that started in Zagreb, the fam- vented his ction after having moved to ily moved to Belgrade, but the father was Canada in the nineties, focusing upon a sent to a concentration camp and killed. quest for faith, language and identity with- The narrator’s mother has to represent in a historical tapestry which is di cult to herself as an Orthodox Serb again, in order comprehend. Unlike Petkovi E, who o ers to save the lives of her children, and her an elaborate historical background, Alba- manipulations with her identity go on. „I hari is focused upon his character’s claus- never stopped being a Serb, nor did I re- trophobic world of intimate dilemmas. nounce the Jewish faith then. In war, life is The character from the novel Bait (Mamac, a document.

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