Philological Studies

„LIQUID FEAR“ IN THE NOVEL RABIES BY BORISLAV PEKIĆ IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COVID-19 WORLD PANDEMIC

Kristina Dimovska — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic has presented new ways of perceiving reality which automatically reflected on how we understand, read and think about certain works of art and works of fiction. Such an example is the novel Rabies (1985) by Borislav Pekić which, in this paper, is interpreted through Bauman’s concept of “liquid fear” (2018). In this way, we are trying to show that fiction has somewhat involuntarily “predicted” the COVID-19 world pandemic. This does not mean that Rabies should be read as a prophecy of what started in 2019 but rather as a proof that fiction sometimes has its roots in reality (it is inspired by true events). Fiction, more often than not, presents a reflection of past experiences that can be recognized even in today’s contemporary world. Thus, the paper examines the main hypothesis that the “liquid fear” present in the novel “Rabies” can be seen as equivalent of the “liquid fear” with which we deal on a daily basis ever since the beginning of the COVID-19 world pandemic.

We used the general methods of analysis and synthesis, in order to present those aspects of the novel that are important for the understanding of the fictitious epidemic in the novel, and the comparative method, which juxtaposes fiction and reality. Through the conclusion of the paper, we should understand how the descriptions of the epidemic in the novel affect our perception and understanding of the current world pandemic and how the described events in the novel serve as a valid reflection of certain aspects of our approach towards the COVID-19 pandemic.

VINAVER'S NJEGOŠ: THE FIGURE OF A UTOPISTIC HERO FROM 1921

Dragan Đorđević — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 17:16:51 +0100

The paper analyzes the expressionist portrait of Peter II Petrović Njegoš, which Stanislav Vinaver presented in the essay “Njegoš and the Evil Wizards” (Gromobran svemira, 1921). In order to understand this particular vision of the romantic poet, the immediate historical proximity of Crnjanski's Njegoš from 1919 (the poem “Njegoš”, Lyrics of Ithaka), then his Njegoš from 1925 (the essay “Reflections on Njegoš”), and finally Andrić's Njegoš in the essay “Njegoš as a tragic hero of Kosovo thought” (1935). As the neglected texts of previous Njegosology, today, at a time when Njegoš's character and work have become a singular Balkan apple of discord, they show another way of understanding, and that is the way of utopian thinking.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MAN AND NATURE IN TRADITION AND IN THE FILM NARRATIVE

Katerina Petrovska Kuzmanova — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 17:30:02 +0100

The focus of the research is the attitude towards tradition and its influence on the relation that man establishes with his environment. Taking the research of the media representation of the traditions related to the Epiphany holiday as a starting point, we look at the possibility of influencing man's attitude towards nature through artistic expression. In the text, I refer to the film "God exists, her name is Petrunia", which I consider to be receptive to analysis because, although it is based on a real event, it develops its own story that raises a number of current social issues related both to the past and the present that we live in. Such a setting of the film narrative allows for different interpretation concerning the issues related to the relationship between man and his environment. In the text, the analysis is based on the theoretical possibilities provided by the different research and interpretationconcepts based on the ethno/eco-cultural perspective.

THE SEMIOTIC LANGUAGE OF SIGNS AND SYMBOLS IN VISUAL FOLKLORE NARRATIVES – ANALYZES AND OBSERVATIONS

Jasminka Ristovska Pilickova — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 17:38:25 +0100

This paper looks whether the key terms of the representational - syntactic and pragmatic categories can also be applied in the study of traditional visual narratives, as a sign system with certain symbolic messages. We believe that the answer to this question fully corresponds to the basic postulates and methods of semiology, as a science of the study of signs and the symbols and the mutual relations that they establish, i.e. bearers of the sign and the signified (designatuma/ denotatuma), where each individual object can imply certain signs. In the context of this, we showcase several examples of embroidery, a selection from Macedonian folk costumes, which we believe correspond visually and semiologically with Jung's mandalas. They are presented in this text as images with certain symbolic values, which speaks in favor of the power of the collective memory of a nation, group or community that consciously or subconsciously integrated its spiritual, aesthetic and cultural values into its collective consciousness. This phenomenon indicates that this is an archaic cultural matrix, close to the ontological, universal values of man in a wider cultural, temporal and areal context. Hence, we consider that the polystadiality of folklore, which contains different layers of mythology, history and tradition of a given community, is not only characteristic of different literary-narrative folklore forms, but is also applicable in the study of "visual narratives" (decorative patterns, motifs and ornaments), represented in the traditional material culture of peoples around the world.

PHILOSOPHY OF POETRY: NOTHINGNESS/NOT-BEING AS A PHILOSOPIC CATEGORY IN MALLARME AND SHOPOV

Suzana V. Spasovska — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 18:00:09 +0100

The study problematizes some questions of the philosophy of poetry, a new sub-discipline in the hermeneutic-phenomenological exploring of poetic texts, which has a philosophical background. In this case, we have focused on the relations between philosophers and their poets, Sartre and Mallarme in French literature, and Stardelov and Shopov in Macedonian literature. Subsequently, we try to compare two philosophical terms in their work and draw some parallels, not only between the philosophers and authors but also to their poetics.

BITOLA IN THE DAYS OF THE ILINDEN UPRISING IN THE MEMORIES OF CAREVNA MILADINOVA-ALEKSIEVA

Liljana Gushevska, Natasha Kotlar-Trajkova — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 18:15:41 +0100

Carevna Miladinova-Aleksieva was a teacher and writer who holds a significant place in Macedonian literary and cultural history of the second half of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th century. This article analyzes her recollections of the Ilinden Uprising (1903) recorded in two texts that were included in the book Epoch, Land and People, which was edited and posthumously published by her son Vladislav Alexiev. These documents are very interesting because they represent a personal, subjective view of one of the most notable events in Macedonian history, as well as the author’s experience as a contemporary of the events. They contain her memories conveyed with a degree of dramatic intensity and expressed with a lot of emotions. These chronicles do not insist on any strict factography, and even contain certain inaccuracies in that regard. Thus, the author depicts the atmosphere in the city of Bitola, where she resides in the period before and during the uprising, and speaks enthusiastically about the courage and sacrifice of both the insurgents and the people, as well as about the mass involvement in the uprising and the determination of the common people to fight for their freedom at the cost of their own lives. Despite the devastating consequences of the suppressed uprising, she emphasizes the indomitability of the people's spirit and expresses her desire for Ilinden 1903 to never be forgotten.

THE REALISM OF HISTORY, THE REALISM OF FICTION

Marija Gjorgjieva-Dimova — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 18:31:08 +0100

In the theoretical conceptions of the historical novel, elaborated by Elizabeth Wesseling, Brian McHale, Viktor Zmegach, three stages are ascertained through which this genre passes (traditional or realistic, modernist and postmodernist historical novel), identified through the prism of its relationship to history/historiography and through the narrative and structural manifestations of that relationship in the novel. Starting from these theoretical premises, the aim of the paper is to interpret three Macedonian novels, seen as paradigmatic for the phase of the realist historical novel: Tole Pasha and Shakjir Vojvoda by Stale Popov and The Salonica Assassins by Jovan Boshkovski. The main focus of interpretation is placed on two levels: on the novelistic relationship to history/historiography and on the structural manifestations of the relationship between literature and history.

CURSES IN MACEDONIAN FOLKLORE PROSE

Маrija Pandeva — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 18:39:11 +0100

In Macedonian folklore, curses have an important place. They have been subject of review in different researches, where they are considered as simple forms and from different aspects. However the fact is that they are often found as an integral part both of legends and myths, as well as in folk tales, not only in dialogical forms but also in indirect speech. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that curses are a reflection of the folk psychology and the mentality of the people and appear as a driving force of the narrative. Therefore, the object of our interest are the syntactic peculiarities of curses in Macedonian folk tales, above all the most common structures in which the wish of the participants in the communication is shown, which is most often expressed with a da-construction, in the Macedonian language also known as: subjunctive, optative-subjunctive, conjunctive (Минова-Ѓуркова 2000: 75).

HISTORICAL MEMORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPRESS THEODORA AS A BASIS FOR INSPIRING REFLECTION IN LITERARY CREATIVE DISCOURSE

Marija Brndevska — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 18:45:43 +0100

This paper comparatively traces the transmission from the chronographic records in the Secret History, left by the Byzantine chronicler of the 6th century, Procopius of Caesarea, to the literary-creative discourse in the instance of writing the novels Theodora and The Purple Robe by the English author Stella Duffy. The goal is to interpret the character of the Byzantine empress Theodora mainly through a gender perspective. Research shows that this empress, through her individualism, clear mind, courage and obvious leadership abilities, managed to ascend from the margins of society to sitting on the throne next to the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.

This is exactly how this Byzantine empress has been preserved in the historical memory, representative and inspiring enough to be reflected in the literary - creative discourse of the author Stella Duffy. In the paper, we will make a detailed observation of the reign of this Byzantine empress, whose character incorporates real leadership attributes, atypical for the period in which she lived, while on the other hand, we also perceive and analyze the germs of feminist theory in that very same character.

A GARIBALDINE SOLDIER’S THOUGHTS ON SERBIAN LANGUAGE

Miloš Pržić — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 19:13:56 +0100

THE QUESTION OF UPBRINGING AND EDUCATION IN BLAŽ LORKOVIĆ'S NOVEL ISPOVIJESTI

Ivona Smolčić — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 19:20:44 +0100

In addition to all their other efforts, the national revivalists tried to bring awareness of the importance of upbringing and education in terms of forming a young citizenship, aware of their affiliation. Many literary works speak of this, and one of them is „Confessions“ (1868) by Blaz Lorkovic, being the first Croatian episodic novel. It is a title that has been systematically ignored by older critics for a long time. The more recent studies advocate for its importance, considering it to be the best Romanesque text before Senoa's appearance on the literary scene. Its significance in terms of the achievement of successful psychologization of the hero that was achieved by the epistolary form was particularly explored. This paper aims to show that the key for one of the possible interpretations of Lorkovic's novel is in the upbringing. In that way we could perceive all the efforts of the Croatian revivalists in terms of creating critical masses that have resisted procreation. This is a prerequisite for the purpose of upbringing and education, which the author clearly advocates, and which, except in school settings, must be done and accomplished at home. In this regard, the leading role is attributed to women and mothers, with their role in affirmation of upbringing for values. Considering the connection between the moral and the social climax, one understands that an intentional moral upbringing is one of the preconditions for constituting nations.

POSTMODERN INTERHUMAN RELATIONS, MANIPULATIVE POWER GAMES AND ETHICAL NORMS IN THE NOVEL "DYSSOMNIAS" BY IGOR STANOJOSKI

Jasmina Mojsieva - Gusheva — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 19:31:31 +0100

This paper presents one possible reading of Igor Stanojoski's novel "Dyssomnias" interpreted through Bauman's fluid interpersonal relations and the ethical norms of the postmodern age. It is a novel in which the narrator's personal family drama is intertwined with the collective drama of the revolutionary protests on Maidan Square in 2013 in Ukraine, as well as with the conditions in Macedonian society, fake democracy, psychological warfare, and fake news,

and the influence of the new forms of propaganda on the psychological state of the individual.

The starting point for the interpretation of the novel is the critical views of Malcolm Waters on globalization and the global village where the interests of powerful transnational structures can be easily incorporated and realized through various manipulations The paper also uses the recommendations of the psychologist Claude Steiner for recognizing and exposing the manipulations of the two involved parties in the global conflicts and their transmission through the working style of of individual media personalities, which then also affects their private love life.

Through a detailed analysis of the two parts of the novel, which have as their motto statements from the collection of short stories "War Doesn’t Have a Female Face" by the Nobel laureate Svetlana Aleksievich, the paper concludes that in the postmodern globalized society, in order to achieve the goals of the globalizers, people are often subject to manipulations that have a negative impact on ethics and interpersonal relations. Subsequently, we are still far from the end of unification, which shall be preceded by long exhausting military conflicts involving all resources of humanity.

WITOLD GOMBROWICZʼS DIARY. EXILE AS MODUS VIVENDI

Milica Sofinkić — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 19:50:10 +0100

This paper examines autobiographical writing in the context of modern theories and research, using Witold Gombrowiczʼs Diary as an example. Specifically, it analyzes the degree to which the Diary leans towards autofiction, or the fusion of autobiography and fiction, and the extent to which it remains rooted in reality. Gombrowiczʼs Diary covers the period between 1953 and 1966, and is characterized by a mixture of self-reflection and autopoetics. Although the author draws from his own experiences and real events, he also explores the limits of the diary as a literary genre by fictionalizing it. While Gombrowiczʼs use of the diary form places him within the tradition of autobiographical discourse, his thematic focus on the experience of exile aligns him with the literature of exile. Through his Diary, Gombrowicz seeks to articulate the fundamental existential state of being in exile during a specific period of his life. The aim of this paper is to examine the concept of otherness in Gombrowicz's magnum opus, respecting the authorʼs determination to communicate his experience in a formally non-literary text. In doing so, several questions are raised: Is the narrator of the autobiographical prose identical to the author? To what extent does literariness feature in the text, as compared to the presence of an aesthetic component in the sense of Russian Formalism? How is the supposed binary opposition of domestic and foreign reconciled?

PROMOTERS OF THE ORAL FOLKLORE FROM AEGEAN MACEDONIA IN MODERN MACEDONIAN HISTORY

Nataša Didenko — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The aim of this paper is to represent the life and work of those researchers – born in Aegean Macedonia, which have made a significant contribution in modern Macedonian history to the preservation of oral folklore from the Aegean part of Macedonia. Through the methods of historical, analytical and comparative research, we gain knowledge of their abilities and skills, which made and highlighted them as fruitful researchers of folklore. With their research ventures, on one hand they took the first step to preserve this folklore wealth, which until then was beyond the reach of Macedonian folklore and cultural history. On the other hand, they preserved it from oblivion.

LIFE IS ELSEWHERE?

Suzana Kos — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 20:01:38 +0100

The article analyses the specific concept of the ‘place with a mystery’ developed in the works of Daniela Hodrová and applies it to the novels of contemporary Czech authors, Josef Pánek, Matĕj Hořava, and Anna Cima. The aim of the article is to establish the connection between the novels in terms of the shift in meaning and the symbolism of the ‘places with a mystery’, which may be the foundations of the new existentialist branch of contemporary Czech fiction.

COLOUR NAMING DIVERSITY IN DESCRIPTIONS BY YOUNGER SCHOOL CHILDREN

Katarina Aladrović Slovaček, Marija Vresk — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 20:09:38 +0100

In the phase of language acquisition process that starts when a child reaches the first year of age and lasts until the third year when a child has gained command over the basics of the mother tongue, nouns and verbs are the most important parts of speech that children use in the process of communication. Language acquisition will depend on a number of factors: a child's gender, the number of children in the family, a child's environment, the media they consume, the way older members of the family speak to the child, attending kindergarten, parents' education and the organic idiom that a child is exposed to. At that early age a child names everything that surrounds them thus gaining knowledge about the world around them. Colours are a part of a child's world and after naming things and people, the child starts acquiring the names of primary colours. In the same way, if a child is learning a foreign language, one of the first words to be learned are the names of the colours so the content of numerous cartoons intended for nursery school children is connected with colours. With time, a child expands their vocabulary acquiring new words, listening to stories and especially fairy tales that are rich with various adjectives and colour names in denotative and connotative meanings. It is interesting that children often use colours to describe people, exterior and interior space both in speaking and writing. Even though their knowledge about colours increases with age, in the active lexis there are very often only basic colours: blue, red, yellow, brown, black, white and green. Therefore, it is the goal of this research to examine how younger school children (7 to10-year- olds) use colours in their descriptions of people, exterior and interior space. The research was made in the form of an experiment taking place in the Croatian language (mother tongue) lesson during which the students had to activate the lexemes connected with colours using texts about colours and language play. After that, the students wrote compositions in which active use of colours in written expression was tested. The research confirmed the expectation that students use up to five basic colours in their speech and a small number of different adjectives which implies that younger school children's vocabulary size is getting smaller despite numerous spoken language impulses that children today receive.

PICIGIN: LANGUAGE OF A GAME AND A GAME OF LANGUAGE

Ivana Čagalj — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 20:39:27 +0100

The paper presents the results of field research of intragroup communication and language practices of members of one of the most recognizable Split subcultures – picigin players. The fundamental research question is whether a specific intra-group code was created within the urban vernacular of the city of Split under conditions of long-term intensive contact in a predominantly male circle – in the form of a special sociolect or only a communicative style, i.e. in what way language practice contributes to the formation of the identity of the researched group. The material collected by surveying and interviewing members of this community is analyzed from a narrower linguistic aspect, but also interpreted in a broader (socio)linguistic context. The collected language units with broader intra-group usage, mainly lexemes and idioms, including onymes, are categorized in terms of meaning, and the most frequent word formation processes and associated metaphorical concepts are specified as well. The paper also discusses the attitudes of picigin players towards different language varieties of the city of Split, as well as some gender aspects of their intragroup communication and the role of humor in shaping and expressing their social identity.

THE ENDURING INTERPRETATIVE PROVOCATIVENESS OF MILOŠ CRNJANSKI: CONTINUITY AND CHALLENGES

Jana Aleksić — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 09:18:42 +0100

A SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION IN THE MACEDONIAN LITERARY HISTORY

Ivan Antonovski — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 09:24:15 +0100

LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN IN THE LAND OF TRANSLATION

Jovana Ivetić — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 09:30:19 +0100

CONTEMPORARY TEACHING OF LITERATURE AND THE PROBLEM OF THE GRADUATION ESSAY

Darko Ilin — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0100

THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BELGRADE DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL LINGUISTICS: CONFERENCE AND THEMATIC COLLECTION OF PAPERS BELGRADE LINGUISTIC DAYS (BeLiDa 1)

Virna Karlić — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 09:44:34 +0100

MODERNISM AND AVANT-GARDE IN THE YUGOSLAV CONTEXT

Tijana Matijević — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 09:49:15 +0100

BILJANA RISTOVSKA-JOSIFOVSKA, “THE PAPRADISHTE-ORESHE MIJAK CULTURAL CHARITY SOCIETY” (Skopje, Institute of National History, 2023)

Dragica Popovska — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 09:55:11 +0100

ON THE DICTIONARIES OF THE INSTITUTE FOR MACEDONIAN LANGUAGE

Lidija Tanturovska — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 10:01:22 +0100

The purpose of this paper is to present part of the lexicographical work of the Institute for the Macedonian Language "Krste Misirkov" – Skopje, on the occasion of its jubilee – 70 years since its foundation. The starting point is the Dictionary of the Macedonian language with Serbocroatian[1] interpretations, which was and remains more than a dictionary.

[1] During the period of the SFRY's existence, the official language was Serbocroatian.