Beton Polip Edition Prefinal

Zeitung für Literatur und Gesellschaft Redaktion: Alida Bremer und Saša Ilić Ausgabe: 11. März 2014 • Zur Leipziger Buchmesse 2014 Jahrgang, Nr. 1 .1 2 Boris Postnikov 3 Zlatko Paković 4 Vladimir Arsenijević 6 Miraš Martinović 6 Adil Oluri 8 Saša Ilić BETON INTERNATIONAL wird in mehreren Veranstaltungen auf der .Leipziger Buchmesse vorgestellt Beton International Special Edition May 2014 1 and deeper into poverty and helplessness, accept it with When, at the end the main actor, who needs to feel Boris Postnikov Zlatko Paković delight. honoured about being chosen for the main part, steps This is not a play which criticises Kosovo's statehood, out onto the scene to deliver the prime minister's speech, the making of which bore a huge number of victims. There- belated and hastily learned by heart, something happens fore, this is not a play which questions the very meaning which shatters the patriotic facade into oblivion. As he re- DIALECTIC of those victims, rather it questions the set meaning of cites the text which he has learned the words escape hism, statehood, which should represent some sort of freedom the actor faltering, stammering, and falling silent, only to and opportunity for its citizens and not additional lies and then speak again in his own name and in the name of all POST-YUGOSLAV ANTI- more misfortune. The Nezirajs show all of the decorum those people who he can truly represent! The actor has a of patriotism and all of the civility which the government responsibility for every word uttered in a play, a personal must act out according to the rules of European and Amer- responsibility! This was what Branko Gavela said. That re- -PATRIOTISM ican sovereignty controls (and it should be noted that the sponsibility, on stage too, is the truth of patriotism. Pristina premiere of this theatrical performance, on 5th The sentence which shines above this theatrical show LITERATURE? December at the National Theatre of Kosovo, would not after it is finished, just like the cage grid above the stage and A theatre critique have taken place without the intervention of several West- in the end falls like a mouse trap, uttered by the brilliant ern European ambassadors), the mask of civility and the tragedy performer Bajrush Mjaku is a question: “What face of patriotism without pulling any punches, in its true kind of a shit country is this when the parliamentarians ernmost of the seven newly created states ended the pro- If anything has become clear from this example, it is genre, as a farce, and, at the same time, in its natural set- receive a salary which is ten or twelve times larger salary cesses of reaching liberal-capitalistic eschaton a long time the fact that not much hope should be placed in the sub- ting, as a comedy of the absurd. than mine, and I've been an actor for over thirty years?” ago when it joined the European Union and entered the version of the symbolic potentials of “post-Yugoslav lit- The play's title alludes to the cult 1975 American film This particular performance emerges from a sketch Euro zone. The youngest of the states, however, has not erature”: they are merely an illusion of naive liberal crit- “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by the famous Czech which was performed last October, also at the Centre for yet even been recognised by more than half of the United ics, scientists and commentators who, due to their own director Miloš Forman, therefore suggesting that the plot Cultural Decontamination. Back then we wrote about Nations members. Between Slovenia and Kosovo, due to superiority and provocations aimed at narrow-minded takes place in a psychiatric hospital, where the craziest that sketch here (A Sketch as a Work of Art, 17th October, their radically different dynamics of political, legal and national canons, pay for their pleasure by overlooking the Jeton Neziraj, One Flew Over the people are in fact the administrators, whilst the patients, 2011), and the audacity of the author’s attitude was already cultural transformation, the experience can hardly be de- economic background of the whole story. And the speech Kosovo Theatre, directed by who are healthy, are forced to receive therapy. This hope- very clear in it, however, today, now that the entire perfor- scribed as common. Where can one find a reliable point, about post-Yugoslav literature, if it is to be truly critical Blerta Neziraj less ambience of the play was realised by Zuzane Majer- mance has seen the light of day, it is evident that, alongside what can be depended on in that confusing maelstrom of and productive, must above all be a discourse about the po- Qendra Multimedia, Pristina Staufen who set a cage grid above the entire performance the aforementioned Mjaku, the actress Anisa Ismaili and ethno-nationalistic narratives, smouldering conflicts, sys- litical economy of that literature: instead of trendy poetic space. actors Adrian Morina, Adrian Aziri and Ernest Malazogu, tematic offensives of neoliberal capitalism and “structural models, “reality prose”, “new sensitivity” or “postmodern- The live performance by Gabriele Marangoni, who under the directorship of Blerta Neziraj, have devised an reforms” of cultural and economic spheres if we want to ism”, what needs to be addressed first are invariants of composed the music for the show, and Susanna Tognella, uncompromising aesthetic correlation to that uncompro- construct something like “post-Yugoslav literature”, de- capitalistic articulation of culture and literature, the de- There is only one proper definition of patriotism. in the joint sounds of the harmonica and the violin, which mising political attitude. spite the state borders and cultural-scientific institutions? valuation of the writers’ symbolic capital compared to the Namely, there is only one definition which defines patriot- Before we could even dare to venture that way, there socialist period and the logic of narrow corridors and wide ism as a truly valid intention and a thoughtful human en- are certain ideological sediments layered in the back- barriers on the borders of the newly established national deavour. However, it is more correct to say the following: a ground of the given term which need to be clarified, since literatures. Therefore, from that “Yugoslavism”, which definition which is determined by such an experience of an the term itself is two-fold. If its facade flickers with a wist- follows from its name, post-Yugoslav literature should not individual's humanistic dedication, on account of which he ful, Yugo-nostalgic smile, a touching memory of four and cherish the blurry, bitter-sweet feeling of nostalgia but a is prepared to sacrifice his privileges, if he is in possession a half decades of common history, its interior will inevita- memory of one radically different system of cultural work of any, his comforts, if he enjoys them, his honour, if it is bly reveal the work of capitalist market regimes. However, and cultural production, a system in which production, based on lies, prejudice and deceit, as is usually the case, or, he term used in the title is now only after the logic of profit has applied for a re-establish- distribution, valorisation and reception of writing were simply put, if he is prepared to sacrifice his personal pos- unofficially circulating in texts ment of lost connections between the former socialist re- not entrusted primarily to market mechanisms. And only sessions and existence. And that definition goes as follows: written by literary critics, essay- publics, is it possible to make that pseudo-subversive ges- then, from that lively interaction between different tran- a patriot is a person who in the name of moral principles ists and publicists. Its shares on ture of transgression from the beginning of the story, stick sitional experiences of what are today separate national and without compromise opposes immoral and retrograde the symbolic stock market have your tongue out at politicians, academics and scientists literatures, the virtual post-Yugoslav literature could be politics which govern a society and a state at a particular been soaring in the recent years, and then promote something like a common, post-Yugo- transformed into something like a field for research and historical moment. aided by the fact that it is appar- slav, experience. We know that sports and show business articulation of a different kind of community of authors, One day, and that day will have to come eventually, the ently self-explanatory: it should has had an advantage here; culture, and literature along- publishers and readers; just as the entire machinery of patriots’ efficiency in Serbia will have to be measured ac- be clear to all of us what is meant side it, however, has been lagging behind simply because (pop) cultural Yugonostalgia, once it would give up its fas- cording to this definition, a country where today patriot- by “post-Yugoslav literature”. these two calculate their moves with much smaller profit cination with the iconography and symbolic representa- ism is the most profitable branch of economy and a basis Therefore, to speak of post-Yu- rates. The “new union” on a symbolic level - a union where tion of the former state, as well as the fascination with Jo- for political analysis. In fact, the truth of the above stated goslav literature means to take books written by Croatian authors have overwhelmed sip Broz Tito insignia and suitable replicas of what used to definition of patriotism will finally be revealed in accord- up a position of implicit distance Belgrade bookshops, where a whole generation of young be celebrations of the Relay of Youth, open up a space for a ance with the effects of those patriots who spread like from isolationism and autarchy Montenegrin writers have established themselves in edi- dialogue on alternatives to the current global model of the wildfire after the war, and it will be clear that the actual of national cultures which were tions printed by Zagreb publishers and the Meša Selimović system -corrupt capital-parlamentarism.

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