Ricerche slavistiche. Nuova serie

Strange Relations: About the Co-existence of Languages and Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe

Annalisa Cosentino — 2024-03-26

Considering the long-lasting co-existence of different languages and cultures in Central and Eastern Europe provides an interesting perspective on the cultural history of that part of continental Europe, full of fruitful intersections, and of conflicts. This section of “Ricerche Slavistiche” contains some articles dealing with relations, connections and intersections within the Slavic and Germanic world, and in its vicinity.

Beyond Space, Beyond Time: Sumatra

Rosanna Morabito — 2024-03-26

The scholar follows the path that in the young Miloš Crnjanski’s work leads to the formulation of the theory of cosmic bonds, Sumatraism. As a survivor of the Great War, in the disintegration of civilisation provoking the first global massacre, the writer expresses and acts as a spokesman for the avant-garde instances of young artists aspiring to break down the artistic conventions of tradition to create a new art, capable of restoring meaning to deflagrated reality. Having wiped out the values of human civilisation and lacerated the primary bonds of the individual, the discovery of the network of cosmic bonds (strange bonds!) that envelops everything through space-time allows one to imagine new, eternal values and to find consolation to existential despair, but with the awareness of the parallel loss of meaning of the individual, temporal and human dimension.

Naive Literature: The War Memories of Dumitru Nistor, An Austro-Hungarian Soldier from Transylvania

2024-03-26

An exemplary text of “naive” literature, Nistor’s “diary” is an extraordinary book, which I intend to study from a perspective close to Leo Spitzer’s investigation into the birth of literature and the expressivity of language in the written testimonies (letters, memoirs) of the prisoners of war. In the discovery of distant and unknown worlds Nistor is moved by a great curiosity; at the same time, he continues to make comparisons with his world, the familiar world which he is very nostalgic for and which he does not want to forget. How does he, a barely literate peasant from Năsăud, parallel worlds so distant and unknown with the familiar one, the one he left at home? What links does he discover between these foreign spaces and his Transylvanian world?

Renegade relations

Angela Tarantino — 2024-03-26

The paper aims to describe the character of the renegade, understood as the exemplary figure of one who betrays the pact of loyalty to one’s own community, putting its existence at risk by adopting the behaviour and expressions of the oppressors. Starting from the first occurrences of the term recorded in Romanian around the middle of the 19th century, the analysis highlights how the literary representation of the renegade changes over the following decades. In particular, the first part of the paper is devoted to outlining the representations of the renegade in the writings of Romantic authors (Bălcescu, Bolliac, Bolintineanu, Alexandrescu), while the second part discusses the significance of the term “renegade” in Liviu Rebreanu’s prose set during the First World War.

Women’s Travel – Writing – Capital Conversion: the Case of Alma Karlin

Anna Bodrova — 2024-03-26

The research is dedicated to the female travel phenomenon and focuses on the travelogues of the German-language writer of Slovenian origin Alma Maximiliana Karlin (1889-1950), in particular on the economic aspect of her mobility. The emphasis is on the specific connection of three categories: women's travel, women's writing and capital (both economic and cultural).
The theme of money often arises on the pages of the travelogues of this writer. During the eight-year unaccompanied voyage, Karlin traveled to numerous countries, while earning money for all her trips herself. Such a model of behavior of a woman at that time was considered as very strange and even venturesome. In her ambitious multistage project, which could be called “Travel around the whole world and earn symbolic capital”, finance plays a huge role. Economic capital, obtained by her own work, allows Karlin to travel, and then turns into a discourse, which, according to the plan of the traveling writer, should become symbolic capital. The life and works of Alma Karlin are difficult to consider in the framework of a single national identity. Having Slovenian roots, she was born in Austria-Hungary, had a Yugoslavian citizenship later in her life, and used German to write her works. Her works are of interest to a researcher, among all other reasons, due to the “borderline” story of her life that shows how symbolic the category of nation is and gives serious reasons for studying into the phenomenon of nationality being a social construct. Karlin’s travelogues contain numerous examples of her unsuccessful attempts to identify her own nationality. There is a similar problem in her work's perception as well. The case of Karlin is regarded as a proof of a discursive character of the category of nationality. The paper deals with the reception of Alma Karlin's work both in Slovenia and in the German-language research and art field in connection with the phenomenon of symbolic capital.

On Milena Jesenská’s Relations

Annalisa Cosentino — 2024-03-26

The aim of this paper is to describe the context of the education and subsequent journalistic activity of Milena Jesenská (1896-1944) and identify her main personal and intellectual relationships. The richness of these relationships, which crossed the borders of the Czech language and culture and placed themselves within the broader framework of the Central European culture of the first decades of the 20th century, has its roots in the “asymmetrical” bilingualism that characterised the Habsburg Empire; the particular kind of linguistic communication present in Jesenská’s correspondence permits to recognise linguistic uses that subsequently disappeared and some dynamics specific to the composite social and cultural fabric of the time.
Keywords: Milena Jesenská, Central European culture, Prague German literature, asymmetrical bilingualism.

Roman Jakobson’s links with the German Press of Prague. The case “Prager Presse”

Martina Mecco — 2024-03-26

This paper examines Roman Jakobson’s involvement with “Prager Presse”, a German-language newspaper published in Czechoslovakia during the interwar years (1921-1939). While Jakobson’s period in Czechoslovakia (1920-1939) has been the subject of several studies, his contributions to periodicals, particularly those in the German language, have remained largely unexplored. Investigating Jakobson’s collaboration with the German press also contributes to a deeper comprehension of the significance of his initial emigration period, preceding those to Scandinavia and the United States. The first part of this paper contextualises the establishment and evolution of German-language periodicals, highlighting the internationalisation of Czechoslovakian cultural milieu. Considerable regard is bestowed upon these periodicals as platforms for the exploration of development of Slavic studies during the interwar years. Subsequently the paper delves into the principal characteristics of “Prager Presse”, shedding light on its foundation and growth. Special attention is devoted to the prominent intellectuals involved in the editorial team, i.e., Arne Laurin, the editor-in-chief, and Antonín Stanislav Mágr. Within this context, the challenge of pinpointing the precise commencement of Jakobson’s association with the newspaper is examined, revealing that it predates the commonly cited date of 1925 found in academic papers. Furthermore, the analysis also delineates an instance of antisemitism of which Jakobson was victim during the early 1920s. A presentation of Jakobson’s activity in the newspaper is provided, focusing on the genres he employed (reviews, celebrative articles, or obituaries) and the topics he analysed, such as T. G. Masaryk. The concluding section is devoted to an analysis of Jakobson’s review of Naděžda Melniková-Papoušková’s monography on the Russian Symbolist Aleksander Blok (1925), serving as an illustrative example of his published writings in the newspaper. This analysis of Jakobson’s review highlights certain typical features of his publicistic writing, including the deviation from conventional review formats and his interest in specific topics, such as the reception of Russian culture abroad.

Ivan Wernisch and his poetics of “subtractions”

Marta Belia — 2024-03-26

Ivan Wernisch is one of the most significant and influential Czech writers of the second half of the twentieth century. He is also a sui generis translator who, during the years of normalization, began to use translation as a replacement for his own writing when he could not publish officially. He began to include his original poems in the translations he was preparing for Czechoslovakian radio, attributing them to other authors, famous or unknown. The fakes created for radio broadcasts can be considered the ancestors of those texts that Wernisch, using a neologism, will define as "překrady" (subtractions): poems, for the construction of which elements borrowed from other authors have been used.
Starting from the eighties the "subtractions" become a constant in Wernisch's poetry. In Beránci vlci aneb Marcipán a pumprnikl he deceives his readers and censors by placing his poems into a book officially published as a collection of German folk poetry translations. The collection has a distinctly popular character that coincides with Wernisch's idea of poetry, and it is a mix of playfulness, gaiety, and mockery on the one hand and wistful sadness and anxiety for human destiny on the other. In Frc. Překlady a překrady the centrality of “subtractions” is already made explicit by the title. It is a peculiar tribute to modern European poetry elaborated in a mysterious way: here it is not possible to recognize which text is a translation and which text is a subtraction, it is necessary to understand that poetry is one and only one. Frc itself can and must be read as a single poem following a path that leads from the lightheartedness and joy of the game to the apocalypse and death.
In Wernisch's “překrady” it is not clear how close the connection between the original and the newly born text is, the source texts are just an inspiring impetus for the creation of new poems. It is therefore not only difficult, but above all irrelevant to establish where the authorship of one writer ends and where the authorship of the other begins. In both collections mentioned, authorship loses its meaning, intertextuality and context are what matters most.

Transposing the language and linguistic picture of the world in Hektorović’s Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje from literature to film

Amir Kapetanovic — 2024-03-26

Transposing the language and linguistic picture of the world in Hektorović’s Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje from literature to film
The paper analyses the believability of the language and linguistic picture of the world presented in the screen adaptation of Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje by Petar Hektorović, a Croatian writer (from the island of Hvar) who wrote this work in verse in the Čakavian literary language in the 16th century. The discussion presents and analyses representative examples of linguistic failures in terms of locality and temporality in transposing Hektorović’s world. The language of the film is mainly Čakavian, however the language is only partly localised as the lines of some non-Čakavian actors also contain some Štokavianisms. The temporal backdrop provided by the usage of the Čakavian language is faulty, as no attempts appear to have been made to bring the language of the film closer to 16th-century Čakavian language or the dialect spoken on Hvar at the time.

Far away and nearby. An overview of Józef Hen’s literary work

Marcin Wyrembelski — 2024-03-26

“A mosaic is not judged from the shape of each pebble individually”, wrote in Nie boję się bezsennych nocy [I’m not afraid of sleepless nights…] Józef Hen. The purpose of my article is an attempt to lay out – albeit in a format limited to essences – a mosaic of the writer’s prose output, to present in a nutshell an overview and review of his extensive, long-standing literary activity. Given the breadth of this, as well as due to the necessity of volume limitations, I omit from my essay the screenwriting, playwriting and fictionalized biographies authored by Józef Hen. The crux of the discussion will be prose works, with an emphasis on diaries, which in recent years have become the writer’s main form of literary expression and platform for contact with readers. The essay is also a small commemorative contribution to Joseph Hen’s centenary anniversary, which falls on 8 November this year.

Antun Gustav Matoš, Pjesme i epigrami / Dubravka Oraić Tolić, Matoševo pjesništvo. Matica hrvatska, Zagreb 2020

Luca Vaglio — 2024-03-26

Giulia Marcucci, Čechov in Italia. La duchessa d’Andria e altre traduzioni (1905-1936). Quodlibet, Macerata 2022

Raissa Raskina — 2024-03-26

Galina Babak, Aleksandr Dmitriev, Atlantida sovetskogo nacmodernizma. Formal’nyj metod v Ukraine (1920-e – načalo 1930-ch). Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, Moskva 2021

Alessandro Achilli — 2024-03-26

Massimo Vassallo, Storia dell’Ucraina. Dai tempi più antichi a oggi. Mimesis, Milano - Udine 2020

Salvatore Del Gaudio — 2024-03-26

Itinerari danteschi nelle culture slave. A cura di G. Siedina. Firenze University Press, Firenze 2022

Gabriele Mazzitelli — 2024-03-26

Veronika Svoradová, Ľubica Blažencová, Matej Masaryk, Osobnosti slovenskej literatúry v interkultúrnych kontextoch – učebnica pre zahraničných slovakistov B1 – C1. Studia Academica Slovaca – centrum pre slovenčinu ako cudzí jazyk, Univerzita Komenského, B

Zuzana Nemcikova — 2024-03-26

Giovanna Brogi in conversation with Monika Woźniak. For a broad, curious and future-oriented Slavistics

Monika Wozniak — 2024-03-26

Giovanna Brogi and Ukrainian Studies

Maria Grazia Bartolini — 2024-03-26

In this article, I offer an overview of Giovanna Brogi’s substantial contribution to the field of Ukrainian Studies. I argue that her interest in Ukrainian literature, language, and culture developed organically from her previous scholarly involvement in the study of Polish Renaissance historiography and East Slavic medieval epistolography. This led her first to examine the persistence of medieval motifs during the Baroque period in the East Slavic lands (including Ukraine) and the correspondence between such influential early modern Ukrainian intellectuals as Dmytro Tuptalo and Stefan Javors’kyj. From studying these isolated phenomena in the 1990s, in the early 2000s, she moved on to an in-depth investigation of Ukrainian early modern culture as a system with peculiar laws and characteristics. In Brogi’s groundbreaking interpretation, Ukrainian early modern culture constitutes a system characterized by plurilingualism, multiculturalism, and a plurality of literary codes, one that should be studied with a pluralistic approach that considers its almost “ontological” diversification. According to Brogi, the very creation of a pluricultural and plurilingual system – a phenomenon that often escapes the heuristic categories of contemporary scholars – represents the essence of early modern Ukraine. Like other “polysystemic” cultures studied by Israeli cultural theorist Itamar Even-Zohar, Ukraine used its diversity as an antidote against the external forces (cultural, religious, and political) threatening its existence. The theoretical importance of Brogi’s approach can hardly be overestimated. At a time when the need to overcome traditional Russocentric (or Polonocentric, for that matter) perspectives is more acute than ever, it can lead to innovative results even in the study of modern and contemporary Ukraine.

Giovanna Brogi’s contribution to the Polonistic Studies

Emiliano Ranocchi — 2024-03-26

This article aims to assess Giovanna Brogi's contribution to Polish studies. Brogi's scholarly research has always been characterised by an interdisciplinary and wide-ranging approach, therefore even studies strictly related to Poland and its culture only receive their proper place within broader research. These can be traced back to two areas. The first twenty years of Brogi's scholarly career were devoted to the study of seventeenth-century historiography, with a particular focus on the learned historiography of the Counter-Reformation. Brogi has shown how this current formed a bridge between humanistic and Sarmatian historiography and that of the Enlightenment, from which modern historiography usually begins.
Her interest in the Baroque and the Eastern Slavic world later led her to focus on Ukrainian literature in the early modern age. These studies may appear peripheral or marginal in relation to Polish studies, in fact, they probably constitute Brogi's most relevant heuristic and theoretical contribution to the discipline. Having thoroughly studied the phenomenon of multilingualism in Ruthenian lands, Brogi actually analysed a phenomenon that we propose to call polonophony here, in analogy with the concept of francophony, i.e., the use of the Polish language by authors of Ruthenian nationality from the eastern border territories. These surveys play a significant role in revising the very canon of Polish literature and the paradigm of Polish studies, as they highlight the possibility of devising alternative and parallel narratives that do greater justice to the complex interweaving of languages and cultures in the countries once belonging to the Polish-Lithuanian Confederation.

Bibliography of Giovanna Brogi 2008-2023

Alessandro Achilli — 2024-03-26