Colloquia Comparativa Litterarum публикува проучвания по Сравнително литературознание. Акцентите са върху Европейските литератури, в частност върху балканистична проблематика, главно за периода от XVIII век до днес.
Софийски университет "Св. Климент Охридски", Факултет по славянски филологии
This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. CC BY-NC includes the following elements: BY: credit must be given to the creator. NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
Literaturni ili kulturologichni sravnenia?
Roads and Trails of the Europeanism in the Balkans. In honor of the 50th anniversary since the Institute for Balkan Studies & Center of Thracology foundation.
(c) Copyright 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Vladimir Trendafilov. The Uses of the British Mentor: Charles Dickens’s Reception in Bulgaria.
TÖTÖSY de ZEPETNEK, Steven, and Tutun MUKHERJEE (Ed.). Companion to Comparative Literature, World Literatures, and Comparative Cultural Studies. New Delhi, Cambridge University Press India Pvt. Ltd., 2013, 528 p.
Cultures migratoires et pratiques sociales
Cultures migratoires et pratiques sociales/Migrating Cultures and Social Practicies.
Статията тръгва от съвременната политическа ситуация във Великобритания, от съпротивата срещу приемането на имигранти от бившите „източноевропейски“ страни. Ситуацията изглежда странно позната; оказва се, че отказът да възприемеш „другия“ като свой има прецедент в един от най-ранните пътеписи за България, написани от английски пътешественици. Представен е сравнително подробно и самият пътепис: Residence in Bulgaria; or Notes on the resources and administration of Turkey: The Condition and character, manners, custom, and language of the Christian and Mussulman populations, with reference to the Eastern Question; негови автори са Станислас Сейнт Клер, пенсиониран капитан, и Чарлс Брофи. Втората част на статията прави типологическа съпоставка на културната ситуация с едно явление от началото на XXI век: романи върху комунистическото минало на България, създадени и публикувани най-напред в чужбина от български писатели имигранти. Изводите са направени с методологията на съвременните постколониални изследвания.
Les contes folkloriques dans la dramaturgie symboliste
The paper examines the selection, structuring and dramatic rendition of the fairy tale plots in the Francophone and the Slavic symbolist dramas, to point out their typological resemblances and inner richness. The study finds out that rewriting the magic stories and their syncretic approach characterize both theatres and mark out their similitudes. However, the Francophone symbolists attempt to intensify the universal and mystical meaning of the folktales. On the other hand, the Slavic authors insert some national and parodic trends in their plays, strengthen the art synthesis and anticipate, in that way, the dramatic experiments in the European vanguards.
Parcourue par des sollicitations idéologico-identitaires parfois lancinantes, Trieste a vécu les tensions européennes en cherchant un équilibre impossible entre le cosmopolitisme (austro-hongrois) et l’affirmation des cultures nationales. Nous souhaitons considérer le rôle de la littérature « triestina » de périphérie, avec une application du paradigme centre/marge ; à savoir, le rôle de la littérature des minorités ethniques, notamment celui de la production littéraire de la minorité slovène. L’œuvre de Boris Pahor va nous aider à particulariser le sujet de cet essai, qui vise à saisir « le fait différentiel » exprimant la singularité de l’approche comparatiste.
The museum and its usages in two Balkan novels
This article examines the possible concept of the museum in literature – a ‘museum’ not only like a metaphor but also like a specific type of novel. This is an attempt to trace the possible meetings (or usages) of two Balkan novels – Dubravka Ugrešić`s historical museum and Elif Shafak’s literary harem. The focus of the study is on the never-ending quest and the search for human multifacetedness and human completeness. In her autobiographical novel Black Milk: On Writing, Motherhood and the Harem Within Elif Shafak is trying to ‘arrange’ her own literary museum. She was able to gather in her ‘collection’ women writers like Zelda Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath, Sevgi Soysal, Halide Edib, Ayn Rand, etc. In The Museum of Unconditional Surrender Dubravka Ugrešić was able to collect, preserve and show (without apparent connection between them) the fragments/photographs/books of her own biography as a kind of ‘museum’ novel.
Thomas Mann dealt with the topic of Europe on several levels: literary, theoretically and in the course of time. In his novel The Magic Mountain, the – symbolically speaking – “sick Europe” is meeting in a Swiss sanatorium. André Gide, who is like Thomas Mann a European in spirit, commented on Mann’s essay “Achtung, Europa!” (1936) with these words: “Mann reste […] un humaniste dans le sens le plus plein du mot.” Hans-Magnus Enzensberger – poet and critical observer of European developments – counters this humanistic idea of Europe with a new concept in, among other texts, “Eurozentrismus wider Willen” and Ach Europa (Europe, Europe: Forays Into a Continent), which can be considered a mixture of essay and literary travelogue. Enzensberger opposes the political and economic attempts at harmonization imposed from Brussels and emphasizes the cultural distinctions of each individual European country. Linked to this commitment to alterity is a postmodern concept, which at the same time questions the grown humanistic discourse on Europe.
Progrès techniques et métamorphoses des espaces européens au XIXe siècle
L’article s’attache à deux aspects particuliers concernant les métamorphoses de l’espace en Europe au cours du XIXe siècle: celui de l’espace urbain nocturne sous l’empire des nouvelles techniques d’éclairage, ensuite la conscience de la globalisation des espaces culturels qui est en train de naître à l’exemple de Théophile Gautier qui en attribue la cause au développement des moyens de communication.
Major histories, minor literatures, and world author
In his article "Major Histories, Minor Literatures, and World Authors" Theo D'haen discusses how the idea of world literature has made a remarkable comeback in literary studies. A major feature of this revival has been increased attention from a "world perspective" to literatures until recently little studied beyond disciplinary boundaries, particularly so some "major" literatures such as Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and various Indian-language literatures. As such, these literatures have come to join what has usually been thought of as "European" world literature. What this move, however to be welcomed in itself, obscures is the even further peripheralization of a number of "smaller" literatures, amongst them many European ones. Thus world literature in its newly emerging guise is merely upping the ante for such minor literatures, or, alternatively, reshaping such literatures in the image and interest of the few "major" literatures which are deemed worthy of inclusion in the "new" world literature.
Electronic journals, prestige, and the economics of academic journal publishing
In their article "Electronic Journals, Prestige, and the Economics of Academic Journal Publishing," Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and Joshua Jia discuss the current state of the academic journal publishing industry. The current state of the industry is an oligopoly based on a double appropriation model where academics produce work at no cost only to have publishers earn significant profit margins by selling the work back to academics. Publishers are able to do this given the price inelasticity and weak bargaining power of their main consumer, university libraries. Publishers' ability to increase prices is also supported by what the authors term the "prestige multiplier effect" and the "prestige crowd-out effect," which refers to the tendency for libraries to cut small publishers as large publishers raise prices because large publishers are more prestigious. To date, the usage of electronic journals has not changed this general model. Tötösy de Zepetnek and Jia argue that in order to progress towards a more equitable model of knowledge management, allowing for the dissemination of knowledge globally and against the "colonialism of knowledge," a change in attitude and practices is required not only by publishers but also by academics. Once perceptions change and electronic journals obtain prestige, the publishing of scholarship electronically will replace or at least parallel the prestige of print journals.
The paper opens by briefly outlining the development of women’s literature in the ex–East European countries since 1989. Then it turns to feminist literary theory, tracking two different periods of its reception by and adaptation to literary criticism in post-communist academic research. The concepts of women’s generations and women’s literary canon, vital for the Western tradition of gynocriticism, are closely analyzed in relation to their relevance to present-day women’s literature in post-communist culture. The paper closes by outlining a threefold model of the perspective from which to speak of women’s literature embedded in, or in counter-stance to, the traditional literary canon.
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
This article deals with the widespread assumption that a significant collection of texts known as the Bible is inherently ‘deceptive’. That is, the Bible does not – it is assumed – say what was ‘really’ going on in the ancient world. The truth, therefore, must be found by going behind or beneath the text (the spatial metaphors should be noted). Here the real story may be found through archaeology or by reading the text against itself. This approach may be described as a modernist ‘depth model’, in which the surface attempts to conceal the truth, while the truth itself must be found by going around the surface text. This remains a dominant approach in biblical criticism. However, it cannot be understood without earlier and indeed, in some quarters, current assumptions concerning the realist nature of the text. In this case, the text reflects in a reasonably trustworthy fashion the context of the text, if not the ideological assumptions and positions of the putative authors. Modernist ‘depth models’ may then be seen as attempts to respond to realist assumptions. A third moment is what could be called postmodern: in this case, the distance between surface and depth is challenged, so that the various possibilities become equal contestants for the dominant position. This entails a shift away from the assumption of a singular truth of the text, characteristic of both realist and modernist assumptions, to the understanding of multiple truth claims – not as relative but as absolutes that permit other absolutes. The argument emphasises that these approaches should be seen as dialectically related to one another, rather than as mutually exclusive approaches.
How to compensate for the loss of beauty?
L’article examine des nouvelles et des romans du Sud-est européen, où on observe un premier moment de perte de la beauté en faveur de la perception scientifique: «L’Ordonnance Dimo» de Gheorghi P. Stamatov (1869-1942), «Parasites» de Barbu Delavrancea (1858-1918), «Riches et pauvres» de Grigorios Xénopoulos (1867-1951), en les comparant avec «Nana» d’Emile Zola (1840-1902). Les thèmes et sujets similaires (la division de classes, l’intérêt porté aux pauvres, l'hérédité, la pathologie, symbolisés par l’argent, la maladie, la mort) donnent les arguments pour faire ressortir l'existence d’un «circuit des valeurs européennes» dans un périmètre beaucoup plus large que celui des littératures occidentales. Grâce aux idées du Naturalisme littéraire, la perception matérialiste de la vie, scientifiquement légitimée au XIXe siècle, obtient la faculté de critère crédible de valeur littéraire. En termes de technique littéraire, on est face à une position objective du narrateur, adoptée par des écrivains (au détriment du Beau, considéré jusqu’alors comme valeur esthétique intrinsèque et indispensable à l’art). Dans cet article est appliqué le modèle triangulaire, introduit par l’auteur, qui suppose se référer constamment aux phénomènes communs pour les littératures européennes et ne pas emmurer les littératures Sud-est européennes dans des parallèles entre elles.
perception matérialiste comme critère de valeur littéraire
modèle triangulaire en Littérature comparée
La Corse et la Roumanie demeurent gardiennes d’un monde ancestral et pastoral à travers leurs contes et leurs légendes monnayant, de même, une imagination magique et opérationnelle en esthétique de narration, voire littéraire. De cette façon, leurs cultures populaires réinvestissent la figure de Salomon des grimoires dans le contexte de la magie pastorale avec les personnages tels que Salamone corse, le magicien raté et Solomonar roumain, le maître de l’orage. Le lait et le produit laitier, en l’occurrence le brocciu, fromage traditionnel corse, s’y présentent en objet d’une quête dans un contexte mythico-rituel. Alors deux questions s’imposent : pourquoi une telle quête et pourquoi Salomon l’incarne ? Pour essayer d’en apporter la réponse ou les réponses, la comparaison se présente en méthode-clé pour cette étude interculturelle et interdisciplinaire où la littérature croise l’anthropolo gie.
(c) Copyright Olena Picciocchi 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The article examines the special role of the journey - spiritual and physical, in three novels by immigrant authors from the Balkans: Paris-Athens by Vassilis Alexakis, Hotel Europe by Dumitru Tsepeneag and Murder in Byzantium by Julia Kristeva. Represented is the idea that, by leaving his motherland, the immigrant could never attach himself the same way to any place and be fully accepted in the new community. Thus, his constant movement appears as a peculiar reaction to this specific ‘uprooting’ and becomes a way of life and thinking – i.e. a modern ‘nomadism’.
La réception de F. G. Lorca à l’école littéraire de Thessalonique
L’école poétique littéraire de Thessalonique, considérée par bien de critiques néohellènes une simple tendance, joua un rôle très important pour la réception de la notion du modernisme à la littérature néogrecque, puisque c’est dans les revues littéraires de cette cité qu’ont été traduits, en grec, les écrivains modernistes, en particulier prosateurs (V. Woolf, M. Proust, J. Joyce). Peu de recherches ont été faites pour le domaine de la poésie, où l’œuvre de F. G. Lorca eut un impact très important aux diverses tendances poétiques de ce groupe de poètes thessaloniciens, gauchistes ou idéalistes. Or, cet article vise à étudier cette influence sur le devenir poétique de certains poètes de Thessalonique.
Le journal à la recherche de la beauté transcendante
This article begins with a reading of a diary which is not explicitly “literary”; namely, the diary of the theologian Father Alexander Schmemann; it continues with A Writer’s Diary by Fyodor Dostoevsky and ends with the “diary of a country priest” from the novel of the same name by the French author Georges Bernanos. Under what conditions, to what extent and from what angle can we compare the journals of a renowned theologian, a well-known novelist like Dostoevsky and an anonymous novel character? The three texts turn out to be united by the search for an interface between everyday life and transcendent reality, as well as by the fact that in all three cases this interface is found through the revelation of “transcendent beauty” (as beauty simultaneously being and not being part of this world). The texts also have in common the fact that beauty was discovered in each case through an experience that marked the existence of the diarists and gave them strength to follow their life paths to the end.
Sartre’s theory of temporality in Being and Nothingness in Anglo-American academic discourse
The study “Sartre’s Theory of Temporality in Being and Nothingness in Anglo-American Academic Discourse” presents in some detail Sartre’s ideas of time in his magnum opus Being and Nothingness (L’Être et le néant, 1943). The topic is dictated by the fact that these ideas have not been fully discussed by original philosophical literature in Anglo-American academia (English translations from French are not considered). The essay details three topics. The first, introductory part outlines the way Sartre’s theory of temporality in Being and Nothingness has or, rather, has not been fully analyzed in the specialized and popular philosophical literature in English. The overview covers some 65 titles on Sartre, existentialism, and phenomenology. The second section delineates Sartre’s theory of temporality in Being and Nothingness. The final part speaks of Sartre’s ideas of time in his literary criticism, namely, in his essay “On The Sound and the Fury: Time in the Work of Faulkner.”
Laurence Sterne’s ‘Noseology’ and the making of Gogol’s the nose
It has become a tradition to use the succession of Gogol’s short novel The Nose from Laurence Sterne’s Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy as a key to its interpretation, and to identify its kinship to the ‘noseology’ in 1820s’ and 1830s’ Russian literature and the peculiar type of Russian Sternianism, which originated as a result of the novel’s reception in Russia. In this research perspective, set originally by V. V. Vinogradov, so much work has been completed that its potential seems to have been exhausted. Nevertheless, certain vagueness and several logical gaps have been identified in the established visions about Sterne’s influence on Gogol. The task of the present study is to bridge these inadequacies and to clarify the mechanisms that helped transform Sterne’s ‘noseology’ into the puzzling world of Gogol’s The Nose. The examination conducted in this paper demonstrates that the essential link between the whimsical logic of Gogol’s short novel, and especially the paradoxical substantiation of the theme of the nose in it, on the one hand, and Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy, on the other, is manifested as re-actualization of an entire network of motifs that were established by the source novel and were reproduced in specific ways both in The Nose and in Gogol’s other works. As a result of this process, strange associative groupings that seem to have been deprived of meaning were set firmly as fixed configurations. A characteristic of the specific mechanism manifested in Gogol’s autotextuality is the fact that the cluster of interconnected images and notions issuing from Sterne’s novel was repeated again by means of varying combinations of elements. Each of these single derivative substantiations is incomplete with regard to the paradigm, and though inexhaustible and scattered throughout various texts by Gogol, they still remain recognizable parts of a common constellation, whose prototype was created by Sterne.
En 1860 Ivan Tourguéniev prononce une conférence intitulée « Hamlet et Don Quichotte ». Dans ce texte Tourguéniev traite de la conception de l’homme et du monde qui se dégage de la pièce anglaise et du roman espagnol. Il a relevé aussi que les deux auteurs, leurs deux œuvres sont quasi contemporains. Mais l’interprétation philosophique et morale qu’il propose renvoie à la Russie tsariste et aux problèmes des réformes sous Alexandre II. Il existe, par exemple, un lien assez net entre la conférence et le roman Pères et enfants.Pourtant Hamlet et Don Quichotte nous rappellent surtout la fortune européenne de ces deux mythes, tout particulièrement l’opéra Hamlet (1868) d’Ambroise Thomas et le Don Quichotte (1910) de Massenet. Ils invitent aussi à ne pas oublier que, à l’époque du maniérisme et du baroque, Hamlet et Quichotte s’accompagnaient encore d’un troisième héros : le Dr. Faust que Marlowe a légué, après beaucoup de relais, au compositeur Gounod pour son célèbre Faust (1859). Tout ceci renvoie au salon des Viardot, amis intimes de Tourguéniev. Il est probable que dans son commentaire des héros maniéristes et baroques Tourguéniev s’est inspiré également des travaux de Sismondi et de Louis Viardot. En d’autres termes, multiples sont les liens qui rapprochent l’Ouest et la Russie, la littérature et l’histoire de l’opéra français.
Les affinités entre les littératures européennes
Le concept d’affinité est pensé ici comme susceptible de remplacer la notion périmée d’influence ou une notion plus récente, mais non moins problématique, celle de réception, chacune impliquant l'idée d'une connexion. Le terme affinité rompt le cercle vicieux des contacts directs ou indirects entre littératures. Ce concept est différent de même des comparaisons typologiques, car les affinités inter-littéraires ne sont pas obligatoirement conditionnées par l’étape de développement social de chacun des contextes. Les Etudes culturelles qui essayent de nos jours de couvrir agressivement le domaine des sciences humaines, ne correspondent pas non plus à nos efforts, car ce genre d’études dilue la spécificité littéraire dans des messages idéologiques (postcoloniaux, liés aux minorités et contestataires). L'approche consiste ici à juxtaposer des romans traitant des questions contemporaines de la première moitié du XXe siècle en Europe, y compris le thème de la ville moderne, la femme indépendante, le manque de cognoscibilité de l'Autre, des thèmes nouveaux qui correspondent à des questions démographiques, psychanalytiques et philosophiques de cette époque. Les romans de Colette, Camil Petrescu et Yana Yazova, respectivement de la littérature française, roumaine et bulgare, serviront d'exemples à cet égard. La comparaison non conventionnelle nous a montré l'hésitation comme un principe constructif général des trois romans.
Pars pro toto. Proceedings of the Literature Session of the 11th CONGRESS OF SOUTH-EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES
roman européen psychologique de la première moitié du XXe siècle
l’hésitation comme principe constructif du texte
La chute du communisme signifie, entre autres, la liberté d'expression. Les écrivains contemporains s'attaquent à des sujets qui étaient tabous ou censurés sous le communisme, et ils dépeignent une réalité immédiate qui reflète la société au jour le jour. Un élément important est la représentation de la maladie dans les œuvres écrites après 1989, à savoir d'une perspective qui accorde une grande attention au corps. Les maladies telles que le SIDA ou la syphilis terrifient les gens, même s'ils sont traitables et gardés sous contrôle. À partir de l'idée principale de Susan Sontag dans son essai Illness as Metaphor, on se propose d'explorer le rôle que la maladie joue dans la société contemporaine dans deux romans récents : Cruciada copiilor de Florina Ilis et Lizoanca la 11 ani de Doina Ruşti. La société post-communiste roumaine évite toujours de parler de ces maladies car elles sont considérées taboues. Cette façon d’éviter la réalité frustre, très fréquemment, les personnes touchées par la maladie. Dans les romans sur lesquels on discute dans l'article on peut observer la relation entre la maladie et le symbolisme qu'elle porte dans la société post-communiste, et cela parle des problèmes auxquels se heurtent les gens au quotidien. Ainsi, on va montrer pourquoi la maladie est un élément important dans la réalité décrite dans les romans susmentionnés, et on va également souligner comment la maladie dans les deux romans devient plus qu'une métaphore. Elle montre aussi les arrangements institutionnels ou structurels dans la société.
Dans les limites de cette analyse, la littérature roumaine et la littérature bulgare – pris comme exemples des littératures balkaniques – font l’objet d’une étude comparative avec des exemples de la littérature française. Le cadre thématique du mythe de la création biblique et en particulier la figure d'Ève nous donnent l'opportunité d'y identifier des perspectives communes. Depuis l'Expulsion du Jardin d'Éden, l'humanité suit le chemin pré-ordonné de la mortalité. Néanmoins, le récit biblique ne se termine pas par la chute de l'homme. La naissance du Sauveur expie le péché de désobéissance de la première femme et la Vierge Marie devient la Nouvelle Ève, mère des vivants. Les représentations modernes d'Ève changent le décor de l’action et à la place du temps sacré se situe la réalité matérielle où le caractère se construit avec hésitation dans la phase du salut. La Nouvelle Ève littéraire prend parfois les caractéristiques d'une fugitive et d'une meurtrière. C'est à partir de l'ensemble des ouvrages étudiés ici (de Tchavdar Moutafov, d’Anna Kamenova, de Liviu Rebreanu et de Mircea Eliade) que nous distinguons plusieurs messages contemporains du roman européen. Les écrivains de la littérature.
Itinéraires européens dans la géographie littéraire bulgare
Au début du XXe siècle Paris est la vraie patrie de l’art, la capitale intellectuelle européenne et la scène de l’art de vivre. Parmi les nombreux artistes et écrivains étrangers qui se donnent rendez-vous en ce lieu, les Bulgares formaient une importante colonie. Pour ces jeunes artistes débarquant dans la capitale française, elle est alors synonyme de fête et de liberté. L’attrait de Paris, le cosmopolitisme parisien, la place particulière dont jouit la Ville Lumière dans l’imaginaire bulgare, joue le rôle d’un catalyseur pour leur talent créateur. Au travers de leurs errances, ils servent de pont entre l’Orient et l’Occident d’une Europe depuis toujours à la fois unie et tiraillée entre ses centres et ses périphéries. Fascinés, éblouis, hypnotisés aussi bien par la brillance de Paris que par sа décadence, les écrivains bulgares vivent une quête de leur identité – scripturale, existentielle, humaine – dont l’article présent se propose de poursuivre les dédales.
The paper displays and analyses the characteristics of the writing of two authors from the Balkans who immigrated to France in the 1960s and 1970s – Vassilis Alexakis (of Greek descent) and Dumitru Tsepeneag (of Romanian descent). The study traces their critical reception in both France and the lost motherland and outlines certain peculiar features of the immigrant mentality and the complicated self-perception of the immigrants in the context of the dual reality of their existence. It also addresses the causes of the inability of the writers themselves and their literary characters to belong fully to one cultural heritage, and the identity issues that arise from this fact.
Le topos européen dans le nouveau roman macédonien
Le topos européen dans les romans macédoniens les plus récents est accepté comme domicile. Les jeunes auteurs macédoniens considèrent l'Europe comme leur propre maison. Le fait qu'ils vivent en dehors des frontières de l'Union européenne, c'est-à-dire hors de l'Ouest européen qui était pendant longtemps le centre culturel implicite du monde, ne les rend pas moins européens. Originaires de Macédoine, le centre culturel d'autrefois pour lequel l'Europe occidentale faisait partie de la périphérie, les écrivains comme Goce Smilevski et Olivera Kjorveziroska actualisent “le topos euro-occidental” d'une manière à première vue périphérique, latérale, mais d'ailleurs essentielle. Ils poussent l'attention vers la partie sombre de la culture euro-occidentale, vers les contenus que l'historiographie officielle a tendance de cacher. Ils rappellent que l'Etre de l'Europe ne reconnaît pas de frontières et que la littérature dépasse les frontières institutionnelles, conceptuelles et de valeur. Libérés de la stigmatisation européenne (morale fausse, mémoire inconsciente, traumatismes coloniales), les écrivains macédoniens reflètent des parties de l'Ombre européenne (l'inconscient collectif, l'archive historique pleine de taches noirs). Il n'y a pas de grandes civilisations sans visage sombre. C'est la loi de la Lumière, de l'Humanisme et de la Civilisation. Elle est comme ça l’Europe : constituée d'ouest et de nord, mais aussi d’est et de sud ; liminale et interculturelle. En assimilant, elle devient elle-même assimilée.
The motif of travelling in Greek poetry in the interwar period
The cosmopolitan travelling of Greek poetry begins with the emblematic work of Cavafy Ithaka (1910). However ‘travelling’ will vary its meaning in the following decades and will become the turning point for realizing the despair and the irreversible loss of the ideal by the so-called generation of the 1930s whose sense of tragic doom will cement the topos of the ‘lost native land’ in Greek literature. In its wanderings during the interwar period Greek poesy shows us ‘travelling’ (act equal to separation from/acquisition of new space and time) as sadness, but also as an adventure and infinity (N. Kavvadias); as an action, that is pointless (The City, C. Cavafy), and yet obtains absolute dimensions as a bearer of knowledge and wisdom (Ithaka, C. Cavafy), while in the end in G. Seferis’s verses the voyage reaches its total disembodiment, but also its transformation into something new – into an individual/ ancestral memory (obviously the only possible island of salvation), into a transcendent immortality of a universal human consciousness.
European and national in Antun Gustav Matoš’s travel notes
The dichotomy European/national and its creative power has marked profoundly A. Matoš’s worldly and artistic credo. Two distinguished features pervade his works and his travel notes: the French and the Croatian, the modern and the home-grown. The latter two tend to unite the Western taste with the Croatian propensity for sedition. Antun Matoš’s long-term aspirations strive for a well-maintained balance of the two. His travel notes feature imagologic constructs – a realm of tableaux of every manifestation of the nation’s life and mentality, of European culture and civilization, of domestic developments and human manners. It is precisely by means of his travel notes that Antun Matoš recreated the mythological perception of his life as a patriotically disposed bohemian and an exile, whose works were created solely for the sake of art and literature; a person who disregarded largely the rest of the world. It is lofty artistic ideals that make all disharmonies in life disappear. The dynamic relationship between European and national served as a catalyst for the mixed feelings, typical of his works. Their emblematic presence made them ascend as a categorical imperative, which determined the vitality of his creative capacity, and turned them into a basic guideline for his writings.