лептир машна, leptir mašna, папионка, вратоврска пеперутка, flutur... 2016 the literary journal of students in balkan studies Vol. 13/No. 1 Spring 2016 1 2 лептир машна, leptir mašna, папионка, вратоврска пеперутка, flutur... We dedicate this issue to Christopher Skrable, Associate Director for Community- Based Research and Experiential Learning at the University of Chicago 3 лептир машна, leptir mašna, папионка, вратоврска пеперутка, flutur... the literary journal of students in Balkan studies Editor Nada Petković Editorial Assistant Madeline Sovie Managing Editor Esther Peters Cover Art Dale Pesmen Cartoon Dušan Petričić Contributing Photographers Francesca Baio, Jamie Countryman, Rachel Rossner, Shomari Sankara Published with support from The University of Chicago College, The Center for East European Russian/Eurasian Studies and the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures Volume 13, Number 1 Spring 2016 Contact Address: 1130 E 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 E-mail: [email protected] Telephone: 773-702-0035, 773-702-8033 4 EDITORS’ NOTE We present here another modest collection of students’ writings on a variety of topics and from a number of courses taught on Balkan languages, literatures, anthropology, and cultures. There are essays on various topics, book and film reviews, as well as excerpts from a B.A. thesis and PhD dissertation—all born on pa- per during the 2015-2016 academic year. The pieces have not been embellished: we let those timid be timid, the eager remain eager, the concise or discursive stay concise or discursive. This issue is dedicated to Christopher Skrable in recognition of his passion for connecting students to the world at large by fostering community engagement and experiential learning. Christopher has been an indispensable support to our students and faculty, and has helped breathe life into our classes by taking us from campus into the greater Chicago metropolitan area—a mission well aligned with the work that we do here at Leptir mašna: connecting our readers to the exciting world of the Balkans. Join us by signing up for courses offered by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and the College. You can find the list and course description for 2016/17 academic year on pages 89-91. Sincerely, The Editors Spring 2016 5 CONTENTS GREAT EXPECTATIONS: VLAHO BUKOVAC, ÉPISODE DE LA GUERRE DU MONTÉNÉGRO (1878)..........................................................................................................................................................8 Rachel Rossner THE RIGHT TO THE WATERFRONT......................................................................................................13 Madeline Sovie KINDS OF TOLERANCE IN BOSNIA AND THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA ...............................17 Džan Harba A GARDEN IN THE RUBBLE: MEMORY, DAILY LIFE, AND THE ROSES OF SARAJEVO................22 Katherine Aanensen THE TIGER AND THE PUMA, BORGES AND PAVIĆ: TEXTUALIZATION AND HOW TO READ IN FICCIONES AND THE DICTIONARY OF THE KHAZARS........................................26 Leah Rachel von Essen MARGINALIZED MASCULINITY AND EMPHASIZED FEMININITY: GENDER IN GEORGI GOSPODINOV’S NATURAL NOVEL........................................................33 Melanie Snider KLOPKA / THE TRAP..............................................................................................................................40 Mia Radovanović HISTORY THROUGH THE SCREEN......................................................................................................36 Stephanie Miklaszewski THE MOLE ON HIS HIP .......................................................................................................................46 Melanie Cohodes FRAGMENTING FEMININITY: SKADAR, RHODOPE, AND THE ROLE OF THE MYTHIC WOMAN..................................................................................................................................................52 Freddy Bendekgey THE MEANING OF SIX MILLION DEAD: WITNESSING THE DOCUMENT IN YUGOSLAV HOLOCAUST LITERATURE....................................................................................................................57 Nora Dolliver FOOTBALL AS A SOCIAL DEVICE: THE SPORT’S RELATION TO THE BALKAN ANTAGNISM...........................................................................................................................................69 Edwin Jiang NATION BRANDING IN THE BALKANS: SELLING-OUT OR SELF-ADVOCACY? Kristin Manley..........................................................................................................................................73 6 SEMESTAR U PARIZU / SEMESTER IN PARIS...............................................................................77 Francesca Baio BAI GANYO AS A BELOVED SYMBOL: IDENTIFYING THE SOURCE OF GANYO’S POSITIVE APPEAL...............................................................................................................................78 Helen Sdvizhkov MOJE LJETO U ZAGREBU/MY SUMMER IN ZAGREB.................................................................83 Shomari Sankara Srđan Karanović: VALTER BRANI SARAJEVO (utisci o filmu)/WALTER DEFENDS SARAJEVO (film review)......................................................................................................................................... ..84 Jamie Countryman CONTRIBUTORS..................................................................................................................................86 UPCOMING COURSES........................................................................................................................89 7 8 GREAT EXPECTATIONS: VLAHO BUKOVAC, ÉPISODE DE LA GUERRE DU MONTÉNÉGRO (1878) (Exerpt from PhD Dissertation) Rachel Rossner Now I return to this young fellow. And the painted scene of expectancy. A vertical figure in communication I have got to make is this, that he has a vertical frame, the woman is locked firmly into 1 Great Expectations. place at the center of the composition by the sen- tinels of her heavy arms, and the lines of spheri- May 1, 1978. The Salon in Paris. Vlaho Bukovac cal buttons decorating the inner hem of her long (1855–1922) debuted at the Paris Salon with two vest. Frozen by dread, and illuminated before the canvases: Portrait de Mme la comtesse de C. and dark background of the forest, the woman waits. Épisode de la guerre du Monténégro (fig. I.1).2 She waits and she listens.4 We imagine The first, depicting the bust of a “good–natured” that she waits to spring upon someone or some- woman, foretells the interest in and exceptional thing not seen within the borders of the painting, talent for portraiture that would mark Bukovac’s someone or something she suspects will come artistic career.3 It is, however, the second, more from her right, the direction in which her wide ambitious painting that concerns us here. Ref- eyes and weapon are pointed, someone or some- erencing current events and depicting a Monte- thing she fears as a woman. The pose—a chore- negrin woman in distress, the Episode from the ography in potentia—tells us this as well. All the War of Montenegro—a work located explicitly woman’s weight is concentrated uncomfortably within the genre of Orientalist South Slavic im- in her slightly bent left arm, in the palm of her agery upon which Czech artist Jaroslav Čermák left hand pressing down onto the large boulder (1831–1878) built a successful career in Paris—was behind her. When she pushes off, her arm will Bukovac’s first, and perhaps most earnest, contri- straighten, the pent–up energy will be released bution to a self–consciously nascent Croatian art. and she will pivot backwards on her straight right A beautiful dark–haired woman waits un- leg. The dagger hitherto protecting her soft belly easily on the surface of Bukovac’s canvas, dag- will follow this turning movement, as her stiff ger in hand. Like a specimen caught between right arm swings backwards from the fulcrum of two pieces of glass, an angry praying mantis, her shoulder to slash at something as yet unseen. the woman is trapped in the shallow illusionis- She waits and she listens, ready to strike. tic space of Episode from the War of Montenegro. The Episode from the War of Montenegro depicts She is pushed right up to the imaginary screen an extremely pregnant moment, but one that that separates the foreground of the painting hardly can be said to follow Gotthold Ephraim from the space of the viewer by a large boulder Lessing’s (1729–1781) dictum to choose the “most against which she has recoiled in an awkward suggestive [moment] and from which the pre- contrapposto. Behind her, a steep wall of forest ceding and succeeding actions are most easily effectively closes off the background. The impos- comprehensible.”5 Characteristic of later nine- sibility of free movement, of running, of escape, teenth-century painting, the work is certainly is amplified visually by the woman’s footlessness “suggestive,” but offers more “blanks” than clues and the long skirts she wears, which merge the as to what has led up to this moment of waiting legs into a single mass, anchored to the ground. and what will transpire afterwards.6 The viewer This anchoring is further emphasized by the is tasked with imagining both the past and the weighty triangle created by the lines dividing future of the scene. About the past, the viewer shadow from light on the boulders, moving in- can only guess. Was the woman waiting for her wards diagonally from the bottom corners of the sweetheart