2011 | Knjizenstvo

Introduction

Theory in Focus/In the Focus of Theory

Aleksandra Vraneš
Faculty of Philology
University of Belgrade

Multiculturalism and Social Otherness

On the one hand, this paper examines the impact of multiculturality on women’s role in society, and on the other, their presence in social and artistic life, the level of autochtonousness and originality, but also that of dependence on general social problems, such as copyright and intellectual freedom protection. Relying on relevant information, the information society requires respect for two fundamental privileges: freedom of information, on the one hand, and protection of personal and social interest, on the other. The role of women in the society, however, and all their life determinants by the same token, as well as their scientific and artistic proclivities, have been paid attention to since the third decade of the XX century. The lack of intellectual freedoms frustrates the existence of quality information society, so in order to protect and defend these rights, declarations, manifests, laws and regulations are defined, supported or opposed by individuals, communities, associations, all of which contributes to the establishment of a value system protecting human rights, amongst which the attitude toward women and their creations is distinctive.

Keywords:

multiculturality, gender studies, bibliography, censorship, civil freedoms, copyright

Women’s Writing and Culture

Jelena Pilipović
Faculty of Philology,
University of Belgrade

Language Under the Veil: An Intertextual Reading of Lament for Ugljesha the Youth

Paper is dealing with the first work by medieval Serbian poetess, princess Jelena Serska (often called “Jefimija the Nun”), concentrating on one aspect of its intertextual liaisons – the classical and Byzantine threnody tradition, leaving aside other intertextual possibilities, the iconophilic and stoic traditions included. This poem is deeply integrated in the classical-Byzantine heritage. However, the poem significantly varies from the topos mater dolorosa as it is expressed in various genres, especially in threnody epigrams of the Greek Anthology. This disharmony represents the key-opportunity for a deeper hermeneutical insight: it leads to the revealing of the authentic poetic Self, first by confronting the classical and Christian perception of being, then by confronting the Christian onto-anthropology with the idiosyncratic identity of the poetess.

Keywords:

princess Jelena Serska (“Jefimija the Nun”), intertextuality, threnody, identity

Slavko Petaković
Faculty of Philology
University of Belgrade

Cvijeta Zuzorić – the Light of the Renaissance Dubrovnik

Based on intermediate testimonies, it is known that Cvijeta Zuzoric inspired many Renaissance poets from Dubrovnik and Italy. According to the perceptions of her contemporaries, she was the embodiment of physical beauty and spiritual perfection. At the same time, she gave a unique tone to the intellectual circles of Dubrovnik in the 16th century. As a result, a special cult of Cvijeta Zuzoric, which outgrew her individuality and made her into a Renaissance symbol of this region, was formed after some time.

Keywords:

Cvijeta Zuzoric, a poetess, Renaissance, old Dubrovnik

Dubravka Đurić
Singidunum University
Belgrade

A New Theoretical Framework for Interpreting Danica Marković’s Poetry in the Discourse of Serbian Literary History

My intention in this paper is to contextualize Danica Marković as a women poet who acts within the dominantly male poetry formation. I define Serbian modernism as a small peripheral literary culture that tends to develop the autonomy of literary field, which was the symptom of modernization and nationalization of a peripheral national literary field. I will point to feminist interpretation of her poetry in the texts written by Biljana Dojčinović and Magdalena Koch, as well as to the interpretation of Radomir Konstantinović. My thesis will be that Danica Marković created a female lyrical „I“ by using the strategies and tactics of male modernist poetry culture in which she participated.

Keywords:

modern, male poetry culture, periferial literary system, gender, female modernism

Snežana Kalinić
Faculty of Philology,
University of Belgrade

„Impure Desires“, „Passed Blossoms“ and „Closed Verlaine“: the Intimistic Elements of Danica Marković’s Poetry

The essay analyzes genre syncretism of Danica Marković’s poetry and recognizes several intimistic forms in her poems. In addition, it questions the usual definition of her poems as confessional and autobiographical verses and draws attention to the importance of diary patterns in her poetry. Bearing in mind her liberated female subjectivity, as well as her rebellious attitude toward the social prejudices of patriarchal culture, the text interprets the intimism of her verses from the gender studies perspective.

Keywords:

autobiography, confession, diary, feminism, intimistic poetry.

Jelena Milinković
Faculty of Philology
University of Belgrade

Love as a Performative Act in the Stories of Leposava Mijušković

The paper analyzes the short stories of Leposava Mijušković. It reveals their place in the context of Serbian literature and analyzes the reception of her work during her life and after her death. The applied narrative methods such as stream of consciousness technique, fragmentarity of text, discontinuous comprehension of time, and subjectivist perspectives and interiorization of storytelling, locate these short stories in the context of early Serbian modernism, which implies a break with the realist narrative. Content analysis of the stories defines love as their thematic framework, and on that basis these stories are included in the discourse of romantic literature. It reveals their belonging to the intimate genres, characteristic for women's literature in the early twentieth century, and recognizes genre affiliation to Foucault’s understanding of confession, which, in addition to romantic themes, includes autobiographical foundation and analytical narratives. The analysis of the main characters shows generative and performative moments of their gender identity.

Keywords:

modernism, intimate genre, romantic discourse, confession, melancholy, psychoanalysis

Nina Sirković
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Construction,
University of Split, Croatia

Women's Voices in the Novel: Development of Heroine in Bildungsroman

The purpose of this paper is to establish the differences between the male and female variants of Bildungsroman, as well as to follow the development of the female ones, from its beginning to the 20th century. As a result of great historical, social and cultural changes in society, as well as of the modernist movement, this kind of novel experienced significant changes. Women novelists became even more aware of their awakening to limitations, which are still determined by a patriarchal society.

Keywords:

female Bildungsroman, an awakening to limitations, modernism, oppression.

Slavica Garonja Radovanac

The Novel Nove by Jelena Dimitrijević аs Paradigm of Tragic Rebellion in an Oriental Society

The paper is focused on Jelena Dimitrijević's novel Nove (1912) and the women’s issue, that is, the place of women in the oriental society at the turn of the 20th century. Through the main character, girl Fatma, educated on European role models that were based on the traditions of Enlightenment and sentimentalism, the author has made an insight into the position of woman in the closed societies. She also depicts the beginning of the rebellion of young and learned women against the strictly organised patriarchal society of the oriental type. Their self-consciousness is accompanied by personal sacrifices. Jelena Dimitrijević also presented a general overview of the period before the Young-Turk revolution (1908).

Keywords:

Women’s issue, Orient, Europe, rebellion, Jelena Dimitrijević

Zorica Bečanović NIkolić
Faculty of Philology
University of Belgrade

Paradoxes of Hybridity, Orientalism (Balkanism) and the Subaltern Status of Women in Jelena Dimitrijević’s Novel The New Women

This article argues that postcolonial concepts of hybridity, Orientalism and the subaltern can provide a hermeneutic starting point for interpretation of Jelena Dimitrijevic’s novel The New Women, a Serbian modernist female fiction representing life of women in the affluent Ottoman circles in Thessalonica at the end of the 19th, the beginning of the 20th century. Half of the article is a theoretical introduction into three concepts and their wider theoretical implications. The other half deals with the novel itself and all its inherent paradoxes, aspiring to show Jelena Dimitrijevic’s proto-theoretical awareness of these problems avant la lettre, long before they were conceptualized by Edward Said, Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Both the theoretical introduction and the interpretation touch upon the problem of Maria Todorova’s concept of Balkanism as well.

Keywords:

Jelena Dimitrijević, hybridity, Orientalism, Balkanism, the subaltern

Magdalena Koch
Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza, Poznań

Is Constantin Brunner right? Gender or Universal Approach to Women Writers in Isidora Sekulić's Essays

This paper discusses the essays by Isidora Sekulić from the point of view of gender studies. The first part explains the reasons for the essay being an ideal form of women’s participation in culture and why Isidora Sekulić often used it when referring to foreign and domestic female writers. What the genre under scrutiny allowed to its user was formal and thematic independence, strengthening the voice of a female author as well as the expression of her intellectual beliefs. The next part of the paper presents Isidora Sekulić’s essay written in 1911: Is Constantin Brunner right? and her polemic with the claims of German philosopher C. Brunner regarding the inferiority of woman’s mind. Finally, the paper presents Sekulić’s essays devoted to the European women writers, such as Virginia Woolf, Selma Lagerlőf and François Sagan, and Serbian female writers (Danica D. Hristić, Danica Marković, Jelena Dimitrijević, Jelisaveta Ibrovac, Milica Janković, Vida J. Radović, Smilja Đaković, Milica Kosić Selem). On this basis, Isidora Sekulić’s evolution from a universal to a strongly gender-oriented attitude is presented.

Keywords:

essay, gender approach, feminism, Isidora Sekulić, women's literature

Biljana Dojčinović
Faculty of Philology
University of Belgrade

“Do We Live Only in the Present?” About Jelica Belović Bernadzikowska’s Effort to Create Women’s Cultural Community

The text is about Jelica Belović Bernadzikowska, a writer, ethnographer and teacher, and about her work on self-affirmation and the affirmation of her contemporaries. Bernadzikowska’s effort to describe and present the work of Serbian women in the cultural domain is seen in the light of the specific notion of culture she uses in her monograph on textile art (1907) and connected to the work and reception of her contemporaries who were presented in the almanac Serbian Woman (1913).

Keywords:

Jelica Belović Bernadzikowska, embroidery, textile, culture, women writers.

Ivana Pantelić
Institute of Contemporary History, Belgrade

Some Aspects of Women’s Position in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

This text deals with some issues related to women’s emancipation in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Here we wish to present how first feminist societies were established, and what their role in the society was. We also gave an overview on the legal system and women’s position in it. The First feminist organization was established in 1919 in Belgrade, and after that in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo. One of the main goals for Yugoslav feminists was the issue of getting suffrage for women. But these feminists did not have much success because of the many obstacles they had to face, one of them being the fact that a unique legal system had not been established in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Keywords:

Feminism, Women societies, emancipation, Kingdom of Yugoslavia

Slobodanka Peković
Institute for Literature and Arts, Belgrade

Clothing as an Expression of Women Writers' Individuality and Women's Journals as Advisers and Arbiters of Clothing

The way three Serbian female writers (Milica Stojadinović, Jelena Dimitrijević and Isidora Sekulić) treated clothing, and the way in which the women’s magazines at the beginning of 20th century wrote about dresses or hats, tell а lot about social status, and cultural and social qualification. Clothing displays dependence and slavery, but also a release, it articulates sex differences, and most of all, it is the reflection of individuality and a personal attempt to mark one’s place in society.

Keywords:

Clothing аnd individuality, Jelena Dimitrijević, Isidora Sekulić, women’s magazines

Ana Kolarić
Faculty of Philology
University of Belgrade

“Woman, Housewife, Mother. Entire universe is based on those three words”: Analysis of the Women’s Journal Žena / Woman (1911-1921)

The nineteenth century in Europe was marked by the strong women’s movement which was focused on women’s suffrage and political equality. Although most of the movement’s participants and supporters shared the same main goals, their priorities varied among countries, nations and communities. As participants in the national liberation movement, Serbian women believed that their emancipation and achievement of political equality were in the national interest. Using as a reference point several classic works of feminist scholarship, this essay explored various discourses related to the women’s emancipation, “women’s question” and “women’s rights” as they were represented in the women’s journal Žena / Woman. By so doing, the essay tried to show how certain historical and geopolitical contexts affect women’s struggle for equal political rights. Moreover, it emphasized the importance of archival research for establishing and better understanding of the history of Serbian feminist movement.

Keywords:

emancipation of women, “relational” and “individualist” feminism, nation formation, women’s magazines.

Bibliographies

Svetlana Tomin
Faculty of Philosophy,
University of Novi Sad

Bibliography of the Works on Jelena Balšić (between 1366 and 1371–1443)

This bibliography includes articles, studies and books that are dedicated to an important figure of the fifteenth-century Serbian culture – a ruler and writer Helen Balšić. The novels, plays and other non-scientific writings dealing with her life are also listed. Editions of her works – letters, contract with Venice, ktitor inscription and testament – are noted as well. Even the texts in which she is only mentioned are taken into account. The order is chronological.

Keywords:

Bibliography, Serbia, fifteenth century, woman ruler, epistolography

Gordana Đoković
Faculty of Philology
University of Belgrade

Mina Karadžić Vukomanović (1828-1894), A Selective Bibliography

After a short introductory bibliographic citation, the work gives biographical data on Mina Karadžić-Vukomanović and especially on her literary production. The largest part of the work is her selective bibliography which is divided into three different sections: Mina Karadžić-Vukomanović Works, Works About Mina Karadžić-Vukomanović and Non-Book Materials.

Keywords:

bibliography, Mina Karadžić-Vukomanović

Dragana Grujić
Faculty of Philology,
University of Belgrade

Bibliography of Srpkinja

In addition to a brief introductory study, this paper presents a list of articles published in an illustrated publication Srpkinja: njezin život i rad, njezin kulturni razvitak i njezina narodna umjetnost do danas, which was published in Sarajevo in 1913 by prominent Serbian female writers of the time.

Keywords:

Srpkinja, Jelica Belović-Bernadžikovska, Zora Prica, Maga Magazinović, Darinka Bulja

Interview

In Search of Women Authors

An interview with Suzan van Dijk

by Biljana Dojčinović and Magdalena Koch

Reviews

Žarka Svirčev
Faculty of Philology,
University of Belgrade

Toward the History of Serbian Women’s Writing

Жена у српској књижевности / Славица Гароња Радованац. – Нови Сад : Дневник, 2010 (Нови Сад : Дневник). – 404 стр. ; 21 цм. – (Едиција Легат ; књ. 7) ISBN 978-86-7966-032-9

Jelena Jović
Faculty of Philology,
University of Belgrade

Serbian Modernist Femina

„Када сазремо као култура...”: Стваралаштво српских списатељица на почетку XX века: канон – жанр – род = „...Kiedy dojrzejemy jako kultura...“ Twórczość pisarek serbskich na początku XX wieku: kanon – genre – gender / Magdalena Koch. – Acta Universitas Wratislaviensis No 2958. – Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2007 – 318 стр. ISBN 9788322928424

Milan Miljković
Institute for literature and art
Belgrade

Gender Will Be Written by Everyone

Teorije i politike roda: Rodni identiteti u književnostima i kulturama jugoistočne Evrope = Theories and Politics of Gender: Gender Identities in Literatures and Cultures of South-Eastern Europe / Tatjana Rosić, ur.; Marija Grujić – Godišnjak XXII, Serija C: Teorijska istraživanja, knj. 12 – Beograd: Institut za književnost i umetnost, 2008 (Beograd : Čigoja štampa). – IV, 446 str. ISBN 978-86-7095-145-7

Bogusław Bakuła
Adam Mickiewicz University
Poznań

Тhe Body and/of Slavic theory

Slavica CLIII. Wielkie tematy kultury w literaturach słowiańskich 9. Ciało. Agnieszka Matusiak, Ilona Gwóźdź-Szewczenko, Magdalena Koch, Ewa Komisaruk, Julia Rysicz, Anna Ursulenko (red.). ISBN: 978-83-229-3199-8. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, Wrocław 2011, ss. 816.

Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner
Leiden University
Leiden, the Netherlands

The Playful Epistemology of Digital Representation

Speclab: Digital Aesthetics and Projects in Speculative Computing / Johanna Drucker. – Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2009. 241 p. ISBN-13:978-0-226-16508-0.

Events

International female networks

Belgrade Workshop of COST Action IS 0901, Women Writers in History

From April 14th until April 16th Faculty of Philology (University of Belgrade) hosted the Workshop of COST Action IS 0901, Women Writers in History, entitled International Female Networks. The MC meeting, which preceded the event, was held on April 13th at the same Faculty. 25 experts from various European universities and institutes, as well as the members of Serbian research project Knjiženstvo - theory and history of women`s writing in Serbian up to 1915, took part in the workshop.

International Female Networks: Belgrade Workshop of COST Action IS 0901, Women Writers in History

From April 14th until April 16th Faculty of Philology (University of Belgrade) hosted the Workshop of COST Action IS 0901, Women Writers in History, entitled International Female Networks. The MC meeting, which preceded the event, was held on April 13th at the same Faculty. 30 experts from various European universities and institutes, as well as the members of Serbian research project Knjiženstvo - theory and history of women`s writing in Serbian up to 1915 took part in the workshop.

Notes on Contributors