Neohelicon (2019) 46:575-590 https://doi.org/10.1007 /s11059-019-00493-2

Demarqinallzations and destinationts) of post-Yugoslav literary canons

Dubravka Djuric1E> · Aleksandra Nlkcevlc-Batricevic'

Published on line: 10 August 2019 © Akadernlai Kiad6, Budapest, Hungary 2019

Abstract The focus of om paper is on the changing status of female authors in post-Yugoslav literary canons caused by feminist interventions. We will point to the broader con• text of the fall of communism and the decomposition of socialist Yugoslavia, its transition to capitalism and the reintroduction of feminism. We will discuss the dif• ferent aspects of the politicization of the national canon ranging from pointing to its gender bias, and the restoration of female authors, who have not been part of the canon. Then we will point to the political function of the literary canon in (re) constructing post-socialist, post-Yugoslav national identities and the supporting of female authors as part of the process of European-integration, as well as the possi• bilities of experimental writing in post-Yugoslav literatures. The essential thing will be to point to feminist reception of post-Yugoslav literatures as an important part of the processes of reconciliation after the Yugoslav war in the first part of the 1990s. In the final part of the paper, we will discuss the anxieties caused by feminism and the stance of most female authors who seek the diversification of female literary production which will move between the positions of particularity and universality.

Keywords Feminism· (De)marginalizations · Post-Yugoslav literature· Destination(s) · Women authors

Bl Dubravka Djuric [email protected] Aleksandra Nikcevic-Batricevic [email protected]

Singidunum University, Karadjordjeva 65, 11000 Belgrade, University of , Danila Bojovica bb, 81 400 Niksic, Montenegro

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Apstrakt

U ovome radu analizira se promjena statusa autorki u književnom kanonu koja je uzrokovana djelovanjem teoretičarki i kritičarki koje nastupaju sa fona feminističkih studija. Rad ukazuje na širi istorijski kontekst u kojem se opisuje pad komunizma i raspad Jugoslavije, prelazak na kapitalistički poredak i ponovno uvođenje feminističkih studija. Osvrćemo se u radi i na različite aspekte politizacije nacionalnog kanona koja se kreće od rodne komponente i uvođenja u kanon autorki koje do tada nijesu bile dio književnog kanona. Potom se ukazuje i na političku funkciju književnog kanona u rekonstruisanju postsocijalističkih, postjugoslovenskih nacionalnih identiteta, kao i na podršku autorkama koja je uzrokovana uvođenjem tekovina evropskih integracija, kao i mogućnostima koje se iniciraju eksperimentalnim pisanjem u postjugoslovenskim književnostima. Najznačajniji aspekat ovoga rada jeste fokus na feminističkoj recepciji postjugoslovenskih književnosti koji se uklapa, u istorijskom kontekstu, u segment priče o pomirenju na postjugoslovenskim prostorima, nakon rata devedesetih godina. U završnom dijelu našega rada, razmatra se anksioznost koju kod nekih autorki izaziva termin feminizam, kao i na njihovu težnju da svoj književni tekst smjeste u središnju tačku, između partikularnog i univerzalnog. 576 D. Djuric, A. Nikcevk-Batncevk

Introduction: the position from which we narrate

As feminist scholars from the former Yugoslav region, 1 it is in this paper that we have decided to make a provisional map of the complex impact of feminism after 1990 on literature, especially on poetry, as an artistic practice at "the periphery of cultural imagination" (Bernstein 2011, p. 43), on experimental drama, as well as on prose writing. What is important to stress is that our approach is marked by our position in om own cultures as Americanists and as critics focusing on modernist oriented national Montenegrin and Serbian poetry. When using the terms modernist and modernization, we refer to the efforts of Yugoslav writers in the context of the socialist Yugoslavia and/or post-socialist former Yugoslav nations to posit modern• ist forms of literature as hegemonic in the local context of literary production which are rooted in the European concept of Modern writing usually connected with sym• bolism, with the urban thematic, the usage of free verse and accompanied by the cosmopolitanization of literary production. We are also interested in political and economic transformations in the former Yugoslavia, especially the transformation from socialism to post-socialism, and the evident impact of this transformation on literary destination(s), with its emphasis on the structuring of the new position of women writers and critics under the influence of global feminist trends. It is for this reason that we emphasize the fact that the transmission of Western feminist concepts has occurred through the impact of femi• nist non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in most parts of the former Yugosla• via, and that in such a historical moment feminist literary studies have proliferated with the resulting effect of enhanced literary production by women. We also empha• size the importance of women's and/or feminist journal culture that has functioned as a platform for the establishment and further development of feminist theoretical and artistic ideologies. At the end of the text, we deal with the diverse aspects of the politicization of literature and the status of women writers in post-Yugoslav national cultures. What is evident in the context of this narrative is that literature is politi• cal par excellence, if we consider its relation with the national languages and its function in the generating of the modern European nations (Casanova 2004). In this regard, the first thing that may occur to us is the internationally well-known scandal which took place in when in 1994 in the weekly Globus, a text titled "Croa• tia's Feminists Rape Croatia" was published that pointed to five "witches", the writ• ers, scholars, and journalists Dubravka Ugresic, Slavenka Drakulic, Vesna Kesic, Rada Ivekovic, and Jelena Lovric, who were pronounced traitors (Acevedo 2011). As a result of the public denunciation, some of them left the country and for decades could not publish their work in Croatia. But we have decided to emphasize other examples as well: the formation of a national literary canon in Bosnia and Herzego• vina along with the construction of the national identity of Bosniaks, as well as in Montenegro along with its developing European identity. As feminist criticism has

1 The term region was introduced in the area of the former Yugoslavia as a neutral term, in order to avoid rhetorical use of the adjectives Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav, because in the new situation in the country, these adjectives were described as traumatic, with extremely negative connotations.

~ Springer Demarginalizations and destination(s) of post-Yugoslav ... 577 remained important in the process of reconciliation in the post-Yugoslav area, we point to this practice, considering it to be political. We also point to the rarely dis• cussed concept of the politics of artistic form, which points to the (im)possibilities of radical literary practice in the region. In other words, we discuss how the global feminist trend, when it is localized, has affected the reshaping of the literary field and how it has impacted the status of women writers and their literary destination(s).

From socialism towards post-socialism

We begin our discussion on feminism and on the status of female authors in post• Yugoslav/ literary cultures (those of , Croatia, , Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia) with the claim that their literary canons were constituted in different ways in the period of late-Yugoslav socialism. Within these, the battle to modernize literary expression, which involved greater or lesser diver• gence from local models of the epic patriarchal framework, was fought in different Yugoslav nations during the decades after 1950. At the symbolic level, that referred to the battle for national emancipation in the circumstances of the socialist moderni• zation of Yugoslavia after the Second World War (which entwined industrialization and urbanization of the country) (Djuric 201la, b). From the end of the nineteen-sixties, the national literatures of Slovenia and Croatia had a predominantly modernist and urban character. was constituted through modernist-anti-modernist binary opposition, which implies that anti-modernist tendencies were always strong within it (Djuric and Obradovic 2016). Macedonian and Bosnian poetry was gradually shaped during the nineteen• eighties to become predominantly modernist, while the process of modernization in Montenegrin literature took place during the nineteen-nineties. Male writers domi• nated the prose of all the nations of the socialist republics that had been part of Yugoslavia, while female writers-if there were any-were on the margins of the canon of prose, an appreciated and high-status narrative geure. The situation in poetry was different in each republic.3 Up until the nineteen• nineties, women were a minority in Slovenian poetry, which during the nineteen• sixties was emancipated from traditional poetic conventions, as well as from the

2 Yugoslavia was initially constituted as the Kingdom of , Croats, and Slovenes, and then it was renamed to the (1918-1941 ). The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was established after the Second World War (1945-1991). The country fell apart due to a series of wars that took place in 1991 (Djuric and Suvalrnvic 2003). The seven countries that were formed after the were Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, the former Yugo• slav Republic of Macedonia, and Kosovo (with a reminder that our analysis does not include female authors from Kosovo, due to the fact that we do not speak the Albaniau language). The war in Croatia lasted from 1991 to 1995, in Bosnia from 1992to 1995, and in Kosovo from 1998 to 1999. 3 The numerical analysis which points to the fact that women poets were not usually included in Serbian and Macedonian poetry canons (see Kotevska's text, 2003, 159-177, and Djuric's text, 2000). It is also important to point to Tine Hribar's anthology Contemporary Slovenian Poetry (1984), consisting of 17 male poets. In his anthology titled Contemporary Croatian Poetry (1972), Zvonimir Mrkonjic included 10 female poets and 64 male poets.

~ Springer 578 D. Djuric, A. Nikcevic-Batricevic models of socialist realism, while their number grew within Croatian, Serbian, and Macedonian poetry from the nineteen-eighties, and in Montenegrin poetry during the nineteen-nineties. In his study Sobodna slovenska poezija (Contem• porary Slovenian Poetry) Tine Hribar, one of the most influential Slovenian crit• ics, brought up two important events in Slovene poetry since the war, the first one in 1953 when the almanac Pesmi stirih (Poems by Four Poets), with , Kajetan Kovic, Janez Menart, and Tone Pavcek was published. Their poetry intervened into the cultural space of socialist realism, which did not toler• ate art's autonomy, by "introducing a lyrical subject and the relative autonomy of poetry" (1984, p. 178). Hribar also pointed to the linguistic turn in Slovenian poetry introduced by Tomaz Salamun's poems titled "Stvari" ("Things"), pub• lished in 1965 in the magazine Problemi, in which as Hribar explained, "Words are things and nothing else. Things a.re words and nothing else" (1984, p. 195). In the most important research into Croatian poetry published under the title Suvre• meno hrvatsko pjesnistvo: Razdioba 1940-1970 (Contemporary Croatian Poetry: Division 1940-1970) in 1972, Zvonko Mrkonjic, a poet and critic, pointed to the linguistic turn when he defined an important tendency by using the expression that he himself coined-"poezija iskustva jezika" ("poetry of linguistic experi• ence"). Mrkonjic emphasized that in this kind of poetry poets question the rela• tion of equivalence between language and reality that has usually been taken for granted (2009, pp. 83-138). Socialism proclaimed equality between women and men in all fields as a party policy, which contributed to a general sense of gender emancipation, which was pa.rt of the socialist gender policy, and it was reflected in everyday life. Women were edu• cated and they made up a major pa.rt of the employed workforce, gaining in that way economic independence. Still, women found themselves in opposition to the estab• lished demands to fulfill a traditional female role and at the same time to take up a subject position that was enabled by an emancipatory discourse and the practices of the new socialist society (Jambresic-Kirin 2008, p. 28). The participation of women in the field of politics in Yugoslav socialism and their sharing of political power was insignificant, as was also the case in the field of the production of symbolic goods. Despite the proclaimed emancipatory policies, men dominated both fields and these were ha.rd to access by female politicians or women whose ambition was to publish their writings. With the fall of socialism and the restructuring of socialist countries that resulted in the establishment of neoliberal capitalism, and with the break-up of multicultural socialist countries such as Yugoslavia, women from the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia found themselves in a position between the tendencies towards a rein• statement of patriarchalism in the state of war that led to the formation of countries along ethnic lines on one side, and towards an emancipatory feministic discourse on the other. Feminism opened up the possibility and demanded that women be more present and more visible in all areas of life, and therefore also in the field of literature. The latter was also proclaimed in pro-European legal regulations which became legislatively and rhetorically important, if not also in the very social practice that was moving towards European integration.

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The concepts of Anglo-Saxon and French feminism, as globally hegemonic con• cepts," were significant particularly in the wider social context. This can be noticed in the reflections of both male and female critics and of female authors themselves in their discussions about the status of women in the national canons. Our analy• sis, based on the texts written by feminist scholars and writers, to which we added several examples from personal correspondence with women authors, points to the position of female authors in the national canons of post-Yugoslav literary cultures, showing how they perceive the problems of the status of female authors and their work.

The intrusionof feminist theories and practicesin Post-Yugoslav cultural areas

In the nineteen-nineties, the Fund for an Open Society, as well as many other femi• nist or female-oriented foundations (for example Kvinna till K vinna and the Global Fund for Women) in the post-Yugoslav social and cultural spaces helped to establish numerous local feminist organizations which became part of global NGO network• ing. Those organizations had as one of their destination(s) participation in the pro• cesses of the global transformation of the world after the end of the Cold War era in which democratization of former communist societies was taking place in an impor• tant way through women's participation, as well as through the activities of gender and ethnic minority organizations. In this context, the field of culture gained a sym• bolically important transformative power full of potential, which promised easier collective and individual transformations. This meant attracting and organizing the population and working with them on awareness raising, offering them new ideolo• gies for everyday conduct. That was the time when feminist theories and practices started again to infiltrate the territories of the countries created by the break-up of the multinational socialist Yugoslavia, with the political and economic transformation from socialism to capi• talism, in which the transition process started to take place in a state of war. 5 These theories and practices had a twofold function: one was that peace feminist groups became a part of pacifist, anti-war activities across the former Yugoslavia, and, on the other hand, they introduced into the public discourse and practice feminist poli• cies, which started to appear in late-Yugoslav socialism, albeit to a limited extent.6

4 By using the notion of global hegemonic feminism our intention is to point to the fact that in most parts of the former Yugoslavia feminism's revival happened due to Anglo-Saxon influence, as after the fall of Berlin Wall the United States established its political and cultural hegemony, and English became the global (Globish) language. French feminism has in most cases been mediated through American and British interpretations. It is through the influence of Anglo-American women studies that feminist and gender studies were initiated in the Yugoslav region. 5 Feminism appeared in the South-Slavic region, which would later become part of Yugoslavia at the end of the nineteenth century. 6 Drug-ca Lena was the first conference in a socialistic country, organized by Yugoslav feminists in the Student Cultural Centre in Belgrade in 1978.

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Feminist theories from the West were primarily introduced through the activities of NGOs, such as the Belgrade Centre for Women's Studies or the activist journal Feministicke sveske (Feminist Notebooks), ProFemina (a journal on women's litera• ture and culture) and a journal about feminist theory under the title Zenske studije (Women's Studies), all published in Serbia. An increase in the number of female authors in all the nation-states created by the break-up of Yugoslavia was caused by this abrupt intrusion of feminist discourses that were presented by feminist-oriented theorists, critics and writers, who in the beginning were acting outside of the univer• sity system even though some of them were working at universities or in research institutes. In this phase of its development, it is important to emphasize the influence of two processes that were taking place largely in parallel. The first one being the establish• ment of what Rachel Blau DuPlessis calls feminist reception, while the other repre• sented the almost simultaneous shaping of feminist production (DuPlessis 2006, p. 65). Feminist literary production began within the frameworks of activist organiza• tions, and it related primarily to poetry which served the function of consciousness• raising in the context of feminist and lesbian studies, along with the translation of the literary works of Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde or Ntozake Shange, although fem• inist discourses influenced mainstream women's literature by pluralizing the poetic representation of femininity. Considering that context, Natasa Nelevic, the feminist critic, activist, and playwright, writes that a large number of female playwrights appeared in Montenegro around 2010: The fact that in such a relatively short period, given the circumstances in Montenegro, a significant number of plays were created, whose authors were women and which dealt with women's issues in a similar way, indicates that these plays were created as a response by women writers to the actualization of the public discourse on gender at that time. It also indicates the ubiquitous influence of feminist policies and feminist theoretical points of view, which reached them in different ways, as well as new teaching about women's play• writing and female and feminist art practices (2015, p. 165). Adisa Basic, the Bosnian poet and journalist, considers feminist theory and criti• cism as important allies in the way that literature is understood as an activity that belongs to women as much as to men (but not one where women are only those who interview, proofread, edit, retype and are otherwise placed at the service of male consideration, and the perception and interpretation of the world). She claims that femininity has become a positive and important concept, an inseparable part of her own identity and therefore an inseparable part of her own literature: "It is similar to the fact that I come from a working-class family, with a Muslim background. To understand my poetry it is important to know that it was written by a woman, in a given historical context and time. It is important for me to observe things from the female point of view, to examine human sexuality, social circumstances, roles and. divisions" (2015). To the majority of feminist-oriented female critics, theoreticians and authors, such as the Croatian poet and critic Darija Zilic, poetry represented a break from the return to traditional values, a search for a generational and individual identity

~ Springer Demarginalizations and destination(s) of post-Yugoslav ... 581 in a new political and cultural environment (2008, pp. 49-50). The general impres• sion is that feminine and feminist practices led to the domination of emancipatory discourses in criticism, as well as in literary production. For this reason, Natasa Govedic, the Croatian theatre theoretician and performer, describes the work on the play Divna, divna, divna katastrofa (A Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful Disaster) which she produced together with Selma Banich, Deana Gobac, Roberta Milevoj and Iva Nerina Sibila, in the following way: "We were interested in the emancipa• tory dimension of the narration, i.e. the (re jstructuring of the certain symbolic mod• els by a means of a story" (2015, p. 131). Emancipation in the field of theory and criticism meant dealing with feminist issues, analyzing female authors, generating a feminist public sphere in which women could self-consciously consider their social, theoretical and artistic positions, creating new, gyno-centric approaches to creative processes. Reception of Anglo-American gynocritics that included Sandra M. Gilbert, Susan Gubar and Elaine Showalter was significant for the development of feminist criti• cism. Their texts, which were translated in newly founded journals in Serbia during the nineteen-nineties, played an important role, while the book titled Ginokritika: Rod i proucavanje knjiievnosti koje su pisale zene (1993) by Biljana Dojcinovic (Gynocruicism: Gender and the Study of Literature Written by Women) was of great significance as well. Female critics in Serbia who were connected with the Belgrade Centre for Women's Studies (founded in 1991) and the ProFemina journal (founded in 1994) initiated numerous projects that included activities such as writing about women's literature. The core of feminist interpreters consisted of women theorists and critics such as Biljana Dojcinovic and Vladislava Gordie Petkovic in the field of prose writing, while Dubravka Djuric dealt with poetry, as she was a poet her• self (Izgarjan and Djuric 2015, pp. 303-326). The ProFeminajourna l was crucial in developing women's literature. The title of the journal, proposed by Ljiljana Durdic, an essayist and short story writer, the editor of the journal, was inspired by Carolyn Kizer's poem "ProFemina." The title points to the interest of its editors who wanted to make an impact on the mainstream Serbian literary scene of that time, which was characterized by substantial anti-modernist tendencies. The title suggests that its female editors wanted to support female poets, prose writers, and critics, as well as the dominant influence of Anglo-Saxon modernist, post-modernist and experimental writing. In Croatia, feminist critics who worked at the Institute for Ethnology and Folk• lore Studies under the auspices of the Zagreb Centre for Women's Studies (founded in 1995) published their theoretical works in the journal Treca (Third, founded in 1998), while the journal Kruii i ruze (Bread and Roses) was published by the Women's Info Bureau. Among the most important theoreticians of Treca were Lada Cale Feldman, Natasa Govedic, Renata Jambresic-Kirin, and Suzana Marjanic, who focused on playwriting, performing and prose, while poetry remained outside of their field of interest. Their interpreting apparatus was based on post-structural theo• ries. The title of the journal Treca refers to the positioning of the journal as taking up the mantle of pre-Second World Wru· liberal civil feminist activism. This posi• tion was set up in response to the two opposing positions of women from the time of the Second World Wru·, and this led to a crucial revival during the Yugoslav war

%) Springer 582 D. Djuric, A. Nikcevic-Batricevic years of the 1990s and remains important up until the present day: on one side were female partisans who took part in anti-fascist battles and the socialist revolution, glorified in the socialist time and demonized in the 1990s, while on the other side were the female collaborators with the occupation forces, demonized in the social• ist time and glorified in 1990s. Both of them were negative towards the third liberal position, reactualized in the title of this magazine, referring to bourgeois feminism (Jambresic-Kirin 2008, pp. 12-13; Djuric, ProFemina p. 266). Feminist criticism in Slovenia was taking shape in close relation with the Slove• nian School of Psychoanalytical Theory, so feminist textual production, dealing with film and media, was focused around the journal Delta and Eva D. Bahovec, its edi• tor-in-chief. Bahovec titled her introduction to the Delta's first issue "A Journal of Her Own," published in 1995 (Djuric, ProFemina p. 274) and along with a few other Slovenian theoreticians, she focused, among other issues, on the work of Virginia Woolf. It happened that even later, in 2000, the Serbian poet Radmila Lazic also referred to Woolf's A Room of One's Own, which was translated and published in Serbia in 1995. Lazic referred to Woolf explicitly with the title of her anthology of women poets Cats Don't Go to Heaven. The fact is that this canonized Anglo-Mod• ernist woman writer became the symbol of women's emancipation in post-Yugoslav literary and feminist cultures. The first and the most influential Bosnian and Herzegovinian feminist theoreti• cian and critic was Ninnan Moranjak-Bamburac, whose authority became the .cor• nerstone for younger feminist-oriented theoreticians, as well as for the critics and female authors in general. Alma Denic-Grabic writes that the Irazovi [eminizma (Challenges of Feminism), collection published in 2004 and edited by Moranjak• Bamburac, Jasminka Babic-Avdispahic, Marina Katnic-Bakarsic and Jasna Baskic• Muftic, marked a "new type of speech in Bosnian and Herzegovinian academic discourse and the making of an 'academic alliance' directed towards the female per• spective and the issue of gender" (2015). She adds that today's "literary criticism puts an emphasis on the value of female authors, feminist theory and female lit• erature, while research in female/gender studies have become an integral part of the content in separate departments, or else they have been integrated into the existing undergraduate and postgraduate studies in universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina" (2015). Similar tendencies were significant in Macedonia and Montenegro as well. As far as the context of Montenegro is concerned, it is important to mention the activi• ties of two non-governmental organizations, ANIMA (founded in 1996) and NOVA (founded in 2007), that are fighting for affirmation of both social and cultural issues through educational programs, research, publishing, and the creation of equal oppor• tunities (projects, journals, workshops and conferences), as well as activities that are pa.rt of some study programs at the University of Montenegro. Through the stud• ying of Anglo-American literature, for instance, issues that a.re important for this paper a.re affirmed, while within the context of journals published in Montenegro, the Cetinje-based Ars journal is notable for affirming feminist thought in some of its editions (Nikcevic-Batricevic 2010). In Macedonia, in 1999 the first feminist conference was organized by the Euro Balkan Institute and Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, titled "Otvoreni seminar: neka skorasnja pitanja savremene feministicke

~ Springer Demarginalizations and destination(s) of post-Yugoslav ... 583 misli" ("The Open Seminar: Some Recent Issues in the Context of Contempo• rary Feminist Thought"). The Euro Balkan Institute in 2001 started the journal Identiteti: casopis za politiku, rod i kulturu (Identities: Journal for politics, gender, and culture). Referring to the current situation in development of feminist thought, the Macedonian scholar and author Rumena Buzarovska (2017) emphasizes that although Macedonia women are quite active regarding affirmation of feminism and its incorporation into different aspects of life, they are still confronted by limitations of various kinds, such as binary opposition between men and women (vulnerable vs. rational, emotionally unstable vs. strong, creation vs. inspiration) and they remain well aware of the fact that feminism is still needed. We, therefore, put forward the thesis that two transnational processes influenced the appearance of a large number of women in the national literary corpora. The first process, which has already been discussed, relates to the demands of transnational emancipatory discourses on feminism which, in accordance with the proclamations of the second wave of feminism, demanded that women become more visible in the field of producing symbolic goods. In the foreword for the anthology Macke ne idu u raj (Cats Don't Go to Heaven) Radmila Lazic emphasized that, even though femi• nism had negative connotations in Serbia, it was undoubtedly significant and it influ• enced "women's self-consciousness and affected their own identity, including their literary identity" (2000, p. 9). The literary discourse was being democratized and pluralized and it became more open to marginal practices, but above all to women, to LGBT authors like Jelena Labris, sporadically to Roma authors such as Jelena Savic in the Serbian poetic culture and lesbian poets Sanja Sagasta and Aida Bagic in Croatia.7 The second significant process, to which the first one is fully connected, was the establishment of neoliberal capitalism in the post-socialist societies during the nine• teen-nineties. It turned everything into goods, including the entire sphere of culture. In that way, literature lost its primacy in the post-Yugoslav countries, which had been deemed philological cultures, as their language and literature were the most important areas in which the national identity was constructed, while this was also a global trend taking on unique features in the local context. 8 At the same time, due to the internet, which enabled quick and easy access to literary production from differ• ent cultures and the mobility of literary authors, the various post-Yugoslav national literatures and their production have been becoming more and more globalized. It means that at the present moment the literary production of poetry, prose, and plays is becoming more equal in the various national corpora, since this is particularly determined by hegemonic transnational models (Djuric 2014, pp. 254-255).

7 It is interesting to mention that, during the eighties, the gay poet Brane Mozeuc was included in the Slovenian poetry canon. 8 Highlighting this problem, the Slovenian theoretician Matevz Kos wrote that 1991 brought independ• ence to Slovenia and significant collections of New Generation poetry were published that year "at the center of national culture, but actually on the margins of society's interest." (Kos 2004, 2006)

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584 D. Djuric, A. Nikcevic-Batricevic

Politicizationof the literary canon

Dealing with the politicization of canons in post-Yugoslav literatures, we will shortly discuss several aspects of this issue. The first is the gendering of the canon, as feminist-oriented critics pointed to the fact that national canons con• sisted almost exclusively of male authors. Then we will highlight two aspects of the politicization of the canon in relation to the construction of a post-socialist; post-Yugoslav national state. In the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, this aspect relates to the constructing of a national identity, while in Montene• gro's case this aspect is visible through the process of modernization and "Euro• peanization" of the state, which affected the status of female authors within the national canon. We will point also to the politics of artistic form, which refers to the possibilities of experimental writing, having in focus here the writing of plays in Montenegro and Macedonia. Finally, we will point to feminist criticism as part of the process of reconciliation as presented in the case of Darija Zilic's work. From the nineteen-nineties, within feminist reception, post-Yugoslav feminist• oriented female interpreters started to focus their research on female authors, with the intention of drawing attention to their work while interpreting it from the fem• inist perspective and introducing a new value system into the predominantly male literary canons which had traditionally excluded the voices of female authors and presented them as inferior others. In this way, parallel canons of female authors were created, which valued female voices and had been highly receptive of their literary journeys and destination(s). This, in turn, since the nineteen-nineties has influenced the introduction into the canon of a number of female authors, who had been excluded up until that point. Thanks to feminist interpretations, a num• ber of contemporary female authors, especially female authors who had already been part of the canon but were on its margins, started to acquire cultural capital and to improve their standing within the canon. Feminist critics point out the feminine and gynocentric aspects in the oeuvres of female authors, re-evaluating them, as well as pointing out the feminist aspects (if it is at all possible to detect them) of women's writing and trying to include them into the existing structures of literary practices. But the majority of female authors have a negative reaction to classifying their work as women's creative work, since they consider that their work is in this way ghettoized and particular• ized. Since the field of literature was initially constructed as a field where the male subject could express himself and which is ideologically produced as uni• versal, women are placed within it as an asymmetrical (inferior) party. Feminist reception can also look at the work of anti-feminist women authors• and male authors as well-discussing their various gender ideas and claims dis• passionately. In this regard resistance to feminist criticism developed within the core of national interpretative endeavors, as the Croatian feminist drama theo• rist, Lada Cale Feldman showed. The feminist transnational discourse spread across the area of the former Yugoslavia and the need arose to distinguish female authors from the national corpus. However some of these endeavors were imple• mented as "philogynous and anti-feminist." On one hand, they focused on female

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authors and selected them from the dominantly male national canonical corpus of literary works, but, at the same time, they rejected feminist policies, without which interventions of this kind were impossible. In this endeavor Cale Feldman sees the tension between "'two policies'-one of national literary and historical positioning and a perceived literary and historical unfilled female absence within the national story" (2001, p. 41). Politicization of the canon in post-Yugoslav literary areas has even more aspects that might be discussed. In this regard, Adisa Basic emphasized that the literary canon is a political structure par excellence. The issue of the Bosnian canon particularly represents a focus of national interest in the complex political situation of today's Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which three nations (Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croatians) coexist in a state of constant tension and hostility between three extreme nationalisms. In these constant political struggles, the literary canon became enormously important as a symbolic representation of a nation and national identity. While Serbian and Croatian writers have their "national lit• erary canons" in Serbia and Croatia, the canon of Bosnian authors, which was not so clearly constructed during the time of socialism, is now being constructed with particular care. Basic points out that in today's Bosnia and Herzegovina it is noticeable that the canon needs to meet ethno-nationalistic criteria and ambi• tions. One can see that women are present only sporadically in the canon, and, in these cases, they are usually classified in the ethno-nationalistic category which is imposed on them. Therefore, for instance, Bisera Alikadic, whose works were published during the nineteen-seventies, would be declared the first Bosniak female novelist, but the fact that her erotic novel Larva is not representative of the Bosniak national identity is deliberately ignored. In this way, Basic (2015) considers that society is becoming sensitized to the fact that there are not enough women in the current canon. This takes into account the fact that literary-his• torical 'archaeology' can yield relatively poor results because a large number of books which should be a part of an alternative canon were never written/pub• lished, simply due to the social climate. The Montenegrin poet, Jelena Nelevic-Martinovic, pointed to another aspect of the politicization of women's literature. She draws attention to the political inten• tions that constitute the background to this phenomenon. Namely, with the gain• ing of independence in 2006 Montenegro positioned itself as a country striving to be part of the European Union and adopting EU regulations. Nelevic-Martinovic (2014) considers that when literature is concerned, it should be asked whether sup• port for female authors is just a platitude which is desirable when one goes out- side of Montenegro, with the idea of stating that we have modern women who write without self-censorship on topics that are 'stronger' than lyrical moments, which deal with sexuality, society, politics, the status of women, violence, erotica, men, nation, money, and wars. What she finds is a connection between the status of female poets and the status of female politicians, intellectuals, doctors and scientists, who are needed just to make up a European '30 per cent' quota. If publishers, edi• tors, and critics really appreciate women's writing, the following question of why '·j there are fewer women than men in anthologies should not be asked. There are fewer women poets and that is a fact that can be proven just by taking a cursory look. She

® Springer 586 D. Djuric, A. Nikcevic-Batricevic states that she does not think that her work should be a part of some anthology just in order to meet the requirements of gender equality. We have already indicated that poetry remained completely outside the interest of the feminist theorists and critics in the post-Yugoslav cultures, although many believe that women's poetry has been the best and most interesting in the region. Feminist theorists are interested in research into the social context and they place in the spotlight those genres that are believed to provide access to what is cultural, but this by definition is not considered to be poetry.9 Yet there is another kind of politicization of criticism of poetry that we find in the book Pisati mlijekom (Writing in Milk, 2008), by the feminist critic and poet Darija Zilic, who remains an activist, moving through the various post-Yugoslav cultures, which after 1991 were mostly hostile towards each other. It is the first book within the Croatian poetry frame• work that deals exclusively with women's poetry. At its beginning Zilic refers to the importance of the essay La Jeune Nee (The Newly Born Woman), written by Helene Cixous in collaboration with Catherine Clement, as well as Le Rire de la Meduse (The Laugh of the Medusa), in which Cixous claimed that the author needs to write with milk (Zilic 2008). Zilic was the only feminist critic to deal system• atically with Croatian women's poetry (poets like Dorta Jagic, Lana Derkac, Sibila Petlevski, Vesna Biga, Sonja Manojlovic and the lesbian poets Aida Bagic and Sanja Sagasta), as well as with other female poets from the region (the Serbian poets Ana Ristovic, Radmila Lazic, Dubravka Djuric, Azin's school of poetry, while she also wrote about an anthology of Slovenian poetry that had been translated in Croatia). Feminist post-Yugoslav politics was in large measure determined by the transgres• sive movement and monitoring of cultural situations in the various post-Yugoslav emerging countries, a politics that was practiced by feminist critics, theoreticians and writers. Gestures such as Zilic's meant that the writings of so many post-Yugo• slav authors of various national origins became a kind of peace activism within the .• field of literature. Literature thus became an important tool in the process of recon• ciliation, which was encouraged in the previous decade from outside, as well as from inside each of these countries. Unfortunately, at the moment of writing this text, the balance of political power in the region, particularly in Serbia and Croatia, is mak• ing such endeavors more and more difficult, again enflaming national intolerance. At this point what is also important for discussion is the notion of the politics of literary form, by which we mean the presence of experimental literary production. By using this term we are referring to Charles Bernstein's discussion of politics of poetic form (Bernstein 1990). This concept could be understood in a broad sense, and it could be said that quite different artwork (whether it be poetry, prose, drama or performance) need not be considered political at the level of its content, but rather at the level of the usage of its materials (for example, the visual aspect of the printed

9 For more about this, see Harrington (2009). As a reaction to this rather ignorant attitude towards feminist criticism in Croatian universities, the Croatist, poet and critic Sanjin Sorel wrote a study called Kidipin glas iii hrvatsko iensko pjesnistvo (2016) from a feminist point of view, defending the position that the women's poetry is of the highest quality at the moment. His interpretation focuses on a period from Renaissance-era Dubrovnik to the contemporary oeuvres of female poets.

~ Springer Demarginalizations and destination(s) of post-Yugoslav ... 587 page and of printed words, or working with so-called non-narrative modes, or work• ing with the voice in oral poetry or in performances). As literary experiments in the twentieth century were usually rare and marginal in Yugoslav literary cultures.l'' this kind of production has subversive potential if and when it appears. In this context, the appearance of new European dramas, which spread between nations and became localized in post-Yugoslav literary/theatrical cultures after 2000, was significant in women's playwriting. The phenomenon of new European drama saw the playwright, with his or her drama text, being incorporated again as an important part of drama production along with experimentation in the process of play writing. This referred first of all to the fact that drama-based literature-which was centered on men in almost all the national Yugoslav literary cultures and had played an important role in creating the national identity as a (theatrical) spectacle over the previous histori• cal periods, but was particularly marginal as a literary genre in Serbia and Monte• negro-became more popular and more women authors started to write plays. The phenomenon of new drama had different realizations in post-Yugoslav literary cul• tures. One was its inclusion in the national, mostly realistic corpus, which Natasa Nelevic wrote about, pointing to the fact that plays by contemporary Montenegrin female authors were "conventional, mimetic and narrative" (2015, p. 156). Jasna Kotevska claims that, in Macedonia, playwriting is the most conservative genre and is not sensitive to female voices, since it tends to canonize women as lyrical authors rather than as story-tellers (i.e. writers of prose texts and dramatic plays especially). Presenting the oeuvre of Zanina Mircevska, Kotevska emphasizes how this Mac• edonian playwright moved to Slovenia, a context which enabled her to overcome barriers that were impossible to overcome in Macedonia. Macedonian national play• writing had strict standards, set down in advance, which prevented authors from writing in accordance with the principles of new European drama, which corre• sponds to the oeuvre of this female author as she "made a clean break from Macedo• nian dramatic tradition" (Koteska 2015, p. 175). On the other hand, although play• writing in Slovenia was significant in drama studies and literature studies and had embraced transnational modernistic hegemonic standards, Nika Leskovsek (2015, pp. 192-193) points out that it was only since 2007 that three female playwrights, Dragica Potocnjak, Zanina Mircevska, and Simona Semenic, won awards at the fes• tival "Teden slovenske drame" ("A Week of Slovenian Drama"), which had been established in 1979.

Conclusion

Analysis of the status of female authors in the post-Yugoslav national cultures in Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro has shown that a breakthrough in a hegemonic feminist theory and activist practices con• tributed to an increase in the number of women authors. Women authors were faced with a gender-restrictive epic patriarchal framework, and also with a masculinized

10 For more about this statement, see Djuric and Suvakovic (2003).

~ Springer 588 D. Djuric, A. Nikcevk-Batricevic field of literary production that occurred after the Second World War, which has only become relatively permeable to female authors since the nineteen-eighties, as long as their literary work formed part of the universalist (actually 'male') national literary culture. The inclusion of feminist politics into the mainstream was one of the impacts of the nineteen-nineties on the women's literature renaissance: a large number of female authors appeared in poetry, prose, and drama in all post-Yugoslav literatures. Still, in the post-Yugoslav cultural area feminism caused numerous troubles. We will claim that literature can be understood as an ideological practice, which has been concealing its ideology under the guise of the universality of the male literary sub• ject. This means that in such constructed national literary cultures, literature as art is set in opposition to feminism as an ideology, and can be understood as a funda• mentally anti-feminist standpoint. In other words, the process of the feminist politi• cization of national literary canons meant questioning its universality, pointing to its particularity, its male-centeredness, its racial, class, and sexual exclusions. Femi• nist institutions (in the NGO sphere) and their discourses in post-Yugoslav coun• tries generated a new feminist public sphere, which managed to penetrate national media-spheres. We can talk about feminist interventions in media-spheres, as well as in national literary criticism, which had a certain impact on the established liter• ary canons. This arguably means that literary works by a number of women writers active in diverse historical periods, as well as in contemporary times, have been rel• evantly researched in literary studies while some of them have been introduced into the national literary canons. What should also be mentioned is that feminist literary critics born between the nineteen-fifties and the mid-nineteen-sixties were already known as exponents in the field of national literary theory and/or criticism, while younger authors were initiated into the research of feminist studies at the beginning of their careers. All this was happening in the context of global transformations of former socialist societies. At the same time, feminism has been regarded-by remaining patriarchal residues-as a negative and dangerous social phenomenon, which deprives women of their femininity and threatens the "natural" social order, i.e. the asymmetrical gender structure considered to be "normal." Feminism acti• vates a fear of a free, independent woman, who makes decisions about her own life and her own body, because her freedom has to have limits. And these limits are imposed by the nation in which she was born, which has to control her body, i.e. her reproductive function. This, both directly and implicitly, impacts the field of litera• ture, which excludes poetry and prose written explicitly from a feminist viewpoint. Mainstream literature sees feminist literary production as particular and intolerant, something which could never get universal status, because it erodes gender asymme• try, which is understood as being "natural," "normal," i.e. "normative." So despite the breakthrough that we have been writing about, female authors are not satisfied with their status, since male authors' dominance in literary culture is still evident. Feminist theory has contributed to the better position of female authors in the national canon, thanks to the efforts of feminist-oriented female and male interpret• ers. Thanks to the feminist intervention in the canon and the re-evaluation of cer• tain writing practices that in previous periods were considered feminine in terms of having poor artistic quality, the very practice of writing was pluralized. But it is

~ Springer Demarginalizations and destination(s) of post-Yugoslav ... 589 important to emphasize that the practice of female authors is now moving between demands for particularism and the right to difference and the claim to universal• ity. This complex position is perceivable in a large number of post-Yugoslav women authors. As a characteristic example we will quote Lidija Dimkovska who believes that feminist criticism can certainly affect affirmation of Macedonian (and we would add former Yugoslav) female authors, but not their creative work and writing, at least not to a huge extent. The position of Dimkovska, as well as a position of a large number of regional authors, is characterized by its medial, negotiating stance. "After all," Dimkovska typically concludes, "a literary work is important for what it is, not because of who wrote it" (2015). Although this stance could be seen as being shared by many contemporary female authors in post-feminist times which is ambiguous toward feminism, we suggest that at the moment feminism is more needed than ever for their further literary journeys. As many female authors are aware in the post• Yugoslav region, being a female writer purports a social and cultural position that is different from the position of a male writer.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Rachel Blau DuPlessis, James Sherry and John Cox for reading the paper and for their useful suggestions.

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