MYTHISTORY IN A NATIONALIST AGE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SERBIAN AND GREEK POSTMODERN FICTION by TATJANA ALEKSIĆ A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Comparative Literature written under the direction of Professor Marie Josephine Diamond New Brunswick, New Jersey May, 2007 © 2007 Tatjana Aleksić ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Mythistory in a Nationalist Age: A Comparative Analysis of Serbian and Greek Postmodern Fiction By TATJANA ALEKSIĆ Dissertation Director: M. Josephine Diamond The dissertation is a study of postmodern Serbian and Greek novels that reflect the most recent historical trauma in the Balkans. The texts I analyze in specific chapters are Eugenia Fakinou’s The Seventh Garment (1983), Milorad Pavić’s The Dictionary of the Khazars (1984), Rhea Galanaki’s The Life of Ismail Ferik-Pasha (1989), and David Albahari’s Bait (1996). The appropriation of the term ‘mythistory’ as a key concept in defining the postmodern narratives analyzed in my dissertation derives from the absence of a clear distinction between mythological and historical national origins. In the Serbian texts analyzed interrogations of history feature as the dominant narrative mode, while even in historically informed Greek texts mythical subtext often figures as the cardinal referent. A possible reason for such a broad appropriation of myth lies in the claim of late 18th-century Greek nationalists to the classical glory of Ancient Greece. This liaison enabled the closure of the gap between the classical period of, predominantly mythically informed, Greek antiquity and post-Ottoman Greek modernity. The pagan content of mythical antiquity became successfully subsumed under the Christian context and thus unified entered the service of national literature. My contextualization of mythistory, both within Greek women’s postmodern fiction and Serbian postmodern narratives uncovers its complex involvement with the national issue. However, as my dissertation clearly shows, it is not only a persuasive rhetoric of nationalism, but also a narrative style that subtly promotes the political without propagandist intentions. Instead, in the texts analyzed emerge very distinct agendas of gender, identity, culture, philosophy, and ii aesthetics, all interwoven with the national problematic, but steering away from the definition by which mythistory is relegated to the transparently propagandist. Moreover, my dissertation defends the position that postmodernist Serbian and Greek literature, inclining towards the postcolonial interrogation of history rather than the more playful postmodern style employed in western literatures, engages the mythistorical narrative approach as a critical alternative to classical national allegories and organicist foundation narratives. iii Acknowledgements The painstaking process of writing a dissertation is usually a solitary undertaking, although not the achievement for which the author alone can be credited. In the years directly leading to my doctoral degree and marking my life in the United States, it is the love, friendship, kindness, and support of many people that made this achievement possible. This is the time and place to thank them. I wish to thank the Graduate School of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Program in Comparative Literature, Rutgers Writing Program, and Program in Modern Greek Studies for their constant material and logistic support in my studies. My personal gratitude goes to the people who helped me tame my sometimes unruly thoughts into coherent language, the way Milorad Pavić says that wild Slavic dialects were caged by the Cyrillic alphabet. I am glad to say that Josephine Diamond became much more to me than a dissertation advisor. It is her insatiable curiosity and belief in students’ creativity that allowed many of us under her guidance to pursue our desired projects despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. I will fondly remember many hours we spent over staple coffee and chocolate discussing my project, or trashing just about anything at all when work élan was not at its highest. As I am probably one of rare lucky doctoral students whose dissertation was guided by two advisors, I thank Vangelis Calotychos for always demanding more from my writing, and for his guidance through the rough times when I doubted the viability of this project. One of many curious coincidences of my life arranged it that Vangelis Calotychos become an accidental accomplice in my decision to uproot myself from my life in Serbia and pursue doctoral studies in the U.S. It was after I learned about his work that my idea to come to the United States, which had been brewing for some time, finally turned into a decision. The next thing I know I was in his office discussing the possible iv course of study he would supervise. I am indebted to Gerald Pirog for his careful reading of my chapters and patient and meticulous editing of my sentences. I cannot thank enough to John McClure for all the fruitful discussions that helped me shape this project and bring it to completion. Many thanks to Tomislav Longinović for his support, advice, and friendship. Finally, the person without whose influence I could never have come this far and to whom I am eternally indebted is Ljiljana Bogoeva, whose passion for life and literature nourished me at times during which I thought there was no hope left. My dissertation equally profited from the many discussions and exchanges of ideas I had with my friends and colleagues. I wish to thank primarily Caterina Romeo and Geoff Baker for their unselfish advice, moral support, and occasional proofreading. I owe as much to Jelena Đorđević and Milan Simonović, Madhvi Zutshi and Jacob Nalickal, Zoran Vidanović, Izabela Manić, Peter Covino, and Boba Krstić. I can only hope that in some foreseeable future I will be able to do for my family as much as they have done for me. My affection goes to my parents, Jasna and Velimir Aleksić, my sister Dubravka Đorđević, and nephews Emilija and Matija, whose pure love is my greatest motivation and solace. Last on this list, but first in every other way is my beloved husband, Slađan Stojković, whose personal sacrifice that made this achievement possible is immeasurable. And, if my debt to others lies in the gift of words, the passion for literature and ideas, to him I am indebted for teaching me how to love, and that the greatest understanding sometimes comes from just being silent together. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Dissertation Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv INTRODUCTION Postmodern Literature and the Problem of History 1 Literary Ethnopoiesis 8 Mythistory 11 Structure of the Dissertation 16 PART ONE The Balkan Immurement Legend: Between Myth and a Nationalist Project 24 Kazantzakis: The Bridge over the Gap of History 26 Male Body as a Locus of Nationalist Desire 32 The Elasticity of Tradition 41 The Historical Encroachment 45 PART TWO CHAPTER I: The Violence of Myth and the Inscription of Women 53 in History: Eugenia Fakinou’s The Seventh Garment The Grip of the Mythical Enclosure 59 Persephone as a National Paradigm 65 Lost Home – Almost 70 Contemporary reemergence of Persephone 73 Where is the delineation of History from Myth? 77 Inscribing Herself in History 82 CHAPTER II: The Politics of (not quite) Narrative Fragmentation: 87 Milorad Pavić’s Dictionary of the Khazars Novel as Body, Words Made of Flesh 87 National and Religious Allegory 91 Search for the Center, or Celebration of Chaos? 100 Dictionary as a Model of National Dissolution 107 Male and Female Narratives 113 Adam, or the (W)Holy Trinity, or the Truth of Plurality 119 Blowing up the Totality and the Self-establishing Order 131 vi CHAPTER III: Identity Crisis in Rhea Galanaki’s Ismail Ferik Pasha 138 Identity between the Semiotic and Symbolic 140 Janissary or Conqueror, or Memory and Identity 147 Gender and Colonial Identity 154 Colonialism in Reverse 162 The Greek post-Oriental Condition 167 CHAPTER IV: Extricating the Self from History: David Albahari’s Bait 172 Exile—a Substitute for Suicide? 177 The Loss 182 “It Is Not Silence That Frightens Us” 187 “Real Speech Is Not Heard, It Is Spoken Within” 195 “There is properly no history, only biography” 197 Writing as matricide 203 Body in History-Body of History 209 Is Extrication from History at all Possible? 215 Selected Bibliography 224 Curriculum Vitae 231 vii 1 INTRODUCTION Postmodern Literature and the Problem of History One of the key questions that arises in connection with the topic of my dissertation is whether we can talk about ‘Balkan postmodernism’ as such, and what are its affinities and differences when compared to one of the most contentious cultural categories in the West. Postmodernism, like Modernism is rarely, if ever discussed out of the context of Western culture. Critics and apologists of postmodernism alike have recognized and described it almost exclusively within the scope of Western cultural, literary, and economic developments. I will concentrate on the acutely sensitive issue of history, which is one of the key questions in most definitions of the Postmodern. From Lyotard1 onwards, the postmodern has been designated as a final subversion of history, its reduction to a textual residue disconnected with memory (which is likewise rendered obsolete), all the way to the total destruction of history as the knowledge of the past, and its ultimate identification with the fictional narrative.2 This rather general idea of the postmodern as a cultural phenomenon alters significantly with Linda Hutcheon3, who radically revises this problematic tenet in the critique of postmodernity and thus brings the historical back into the focus of the postmodern debate. However, even Hutcheon’s project of the reestablishment of the long-denied affinity between postmodern fiction and history under the name of “historiographic metafiction” denies postmodern developments 1 Lyotard stated his proposition in The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.