Svašta U Mojoj Glavi a Story by Miro Gavran
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Supplementary Materials for Reading Svašta u mojoj glavi a story by Miro Gavran by Marta Pirnat-Greenberg © 2014 Marta Pirnat-Greenberg About the author, text Miro Gavran (b. 1961) is a contemporary Croatian author of short stories, novels, and plays for adults and children. He is one of the most widely translated Croatian authors (35 languages) and his plays have been performed all over the world; a summer festival called Gavranfest, started in Slovakia and continuing in Poland, has been devoted exclusively to his plays. Several of Gavran’s novels and short stories depict life in the Croatian countryside and everyday people who confront difficulties, injustices, even the absurdities of life and the political system with a positive attitude and humor. Those themes and attitudes are also represented in one of his eight books for children and young adults, Svašta u mojoj glavi1 [All Sorts of Things in My Head]—a coming-of-age story, recounting events in the life of a nine-year-old narrator, starting with his sixth birthday. The unique child’s perspective on the events and life in general that the author so compellingly created makes the narrative particularly interesting and often entertaining. The work also vividly and historically accurately portrays the circumstances of growing up in the 1960s Yugoslavia, which made it popular with both young Croatian readers and their parents, who were raised in that era. And what, besides its literary value, makes this text suitable to introduce a BCS learner with (at least) intermediate level proficiency to the reading of a longer, unaltered piece of literature? Its language, stylized to create the illusion of a nine-year-old writing the story, entails some adaptation on the syntactic and textual levels that makes the story more accessible to a language learner. With proper reading support and activities, the learner should not only be able to follow the plot, but also appreciate the literary value of the text and notice the stylistic devices the author uses in assuming the role of a child narrator. Acknowledgements: The first two chapters of the text are provided here through the generosity of the author, Miro Gavran, and are intended only as an introduction to the story. Those wishing to continue with the story are encouraged to purchase a personal copy to use with the supplementary materials provided here. The project was supported by the Curriculum Development Grant for 2011 from the KU Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. I am grateful to Professor Stephen M. Dickey (University of Kansas) for his valuable comments and suggestions to an earlier version of the materials and to Dr. Jonathan Perkins and Keah Cunningham (EGARC, University of Kansas) for their work on the online publication of the project. 1 First published in 1991 (Zagreb: Znanje); several subsequent editions. The materials are based on the editon from 2005 (Zagreb: Mozaik knjiga). © 2014 Marta Pirnat-Greenberg The supplement was copyrighted by Marta Pirnat-Greenberg in December 2014 and is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND license. For more information, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. © 2014 Marta Pirnat-Greenberg Instructions to the reader for using the materials All units are organized in the same way: most are built around one chapter, a couple of them include two, and one includes three (shorter) chapters of the story. Organization of units: (1) The first two units include the text, which is presented unadulterated (not adapted or changed), but it is annotated in the form of footnotes. Annotations are provided for the entire text and are quite extensive, particularly for the initial chapters (the vocabulary builds up as the reading progresses and, in turn, less help is needed in the later chapters). In Units 3-12, which do not include the text of the story, annotations are presented in the form of a list that appears at the beginning of the supplementary materials for the corresponding chapter(s), which are clearly marked at the top of the list (following the ‘glasses’ icon). See below in more detail about the organization of annotations and their use. (2) Prije čitanja: questions or an activity related to the topic of the chapter. The reader should always look at this section and answer the questions/complete the activity before proceeding to reading, unless stated otherwise (some activities are supposed to be completed along reading). This section is intended to prepare the reader for reading or guide him/her through it. (3) Razumijevanje pročitanog teksta tests the reader’s literal understanding of the text with (a) questions in English (understanding of the basic plot) and (b) true or false statements in BCS (in places with greatest potential for misunderstanding). Follow the general rule throughout the activities: answer the questions in the language in which they are asked, unless specified otherwise. (4) Vokabular brings into focus some type of vocabulary from the chapter, providing exercises that help the reader with vocabulary building and use. (5) Jezične osobine brings into focus one or more grammar points from the chapter, provides explanation and exercises for practice. (6) Daljnje ispitivanje teksta helps the reader with deeper understanding of the text, moving beyond the literal understanding: the questions focus more on relationships, social context, author’s intent, and creative process; they require the reader to use inference, evaluation, and prediction. (7) Kulturni i društveno-povijesni kontekst trains the reader to recognize and understand differences between American and Croatian cultures; it also puts these differences into historical perspective and explains the historical and socio-political context necessary to fully understand and appreciate the text. © 2014 Marta Pirnat-Greenberg (8) Uvježbavanje pisanja: the reader utilizes some elements that s/he learned in working through the chapter in his/her own writing of a paragraph in BCS on a related topic either from her/his personal experience or as a response to the text. Organization of annotations and their use In a list, the items with their annotations appear in the same order as they appear in the text. In most cases, English equivalents or explanations are provided; in some cases when a more common BCS equivalent—presumably familiar to the intermediate-level learner—is available, then that BCS synonym is used to help the learner negotiate the meaning. Items in BCS appear in bold print in order to be easily distinguishable from English equivalents and explanations. Only meanings and explanations relevant to the use of each item in the text are provided. For example, the word stradati can mean ‘to suffer’ or ‘to perish, die’; in the given context it has the latter meaning, and only that one is provided in the annotations. Some information regarding grammatical categories, register, style, and phraseology is provided. The abbreviations (italicized), mostly appearing next to BCS equivalents in the left column, should be disambiguated as follows: adj. adjective aor. aorist dem. deminutive expr. expression (idiom) f. feminine fig. figurative meaning G, D, A… initials for the case required (genitive, dative…) ipf. imperfective pf. perfective pl. plural vulg. vulgar © 2014 Marta Pirnat-Greenberg Svašta u mojoj glavi a story by Miro Gavran Supplementary Materials Unit 1 © 2014 Marta Pirnat-Greenberg I Ovo će biti povijest moga života. Mnogo se toga zbilo u njemu, u tom mom životu i bila bi velika šteta1 da se to ne opiše. Puno se toga naslagalo2 tamo iza,3 puno je toga prošlo i zato sam uzeo ovu veliku bilježnicu, pa ću pokušati sve to zabilježiti. Samo ne znam hoću li moći. Čitao sam da veliki ljudi, oni što su jako veliki, da svi oni napišu knjigu koja se zove memoari. A ja sam sto posto siguran da sam i ja, siguran sam da sam i ja velik čovjek, a to znam po tome što u mojoj glavi svašta4 ima, svakakvih misli prođe, a to sigurno nije slučaj s drugim glavama, i ja baš o svemu razmišljam i o svim stvarima i o ljudima i o nepoznatim krajevima. Osim toga, iza mene je veliki dio života i bolje da odmah sad napišem prvo poglavlje knjige što se zove memoari, nego kasnije, kad se sve to pobrka5 s onim što će se tek dogoditi. Meni je već punih devet godina i četiri mjeseca i krenuo sam u treći razred. A imam i još jedan razlog6 da napišem ove memoare, ali to ne smijem otkriti7. Taj veliki razlog možda otkrijem kasnije, a možda ga nikada i ne otkrijem. A sad bi trebalo započeti, ako je uopće moguće sve to, ako se to može u slova staviti, jer sve je to komplicirano kad se treba opisati, a tako je jednostavno dok je onako u životu, dok teče. Možda bi trebalo, sad na početku, napisati kako se zovem. Zvonimir. Moje ime je Zvonimir, idem u treći razred osnovne škole, živim u selu koje se zove Omorina,8 a moja mama je učiteljica, a tata je učitelj i mi živimo u stanu koji se nalazi u školskoj zgradi.9 1 šteta – shame, pity 2 naslagati se pf.– to pile up (intransitive) 3 iza – behind; here: in the past 4 svašta – all kinds of things 5 pobrkati se pf. – to get confused 6 razlog – reason 7 otkriti pf. – to reveal 8 Omorina – fictitious name of a village in Slavonija (a region in Eastern Croatia, Eng. Slavonia, not to be confused with Slovenia), located somewhere near the town of Nova Gradiška (see the gloss for N.G.). 9 It was common in the Former Yugoslavia of the 1960s for small, four-grade village schools to include an apartment © 2014 Marta Pirnat-Greenberg Unit 1, page 1 Tata podučava prvi i drugi razred10, a mama treći i četvrti.