Katica Kulavkova - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Katica Kulavkova
PEASA , 2024
In hermeneutics, to understand and then to interpret a narrative text implies identifying its mar... more In hermeneutics, to understand and then to interpret a narrative text implies identifying its markers of ambiguity-its riddles and enigmas-which are interconnected like a cobweb. In this article, the researcher develops a literary hermeneutic model for interpreting any literary narrative text, based on the conceptual arsenal of literary hermeneutics and narratology. The model is called 'divinatory', since it is inspired by Friedrich Schleiermacher's idea for 'divinatory hermeneutics' and Roland Barthes' 'hermeneutic code', and it is applied on a very enigmatic short story by Julio Cortázar. The theoretical premise of the article also argues for the benefits of studying the complex systems of literary identities in literary texts and of re-establishing hermeneutics of literature as a 'hermeneutics of literary identities'. Due to its unique ambiguity, Cortázar's famous short story "Las babas del diablo" has numerous interpretations and too many title translations: after Michelangelo Antonioni's movie, it is known as "Blow-Up" in English, but also "The Devil's Drool", "The Devil's Cobweb", "The Cobweb/Kiss of St. Michael's Summer", and "The Thread of the Virgin" in other languages. Therefore, its unriddling divinatory interpretation provides an excellent initial interpretative model for any fictional narrative text. By analyzing the hermeneutically encoded aspects of its main narrative factors-the story and its discourse, narrator/s and focalization, narrative time and space, as well as intertextual connections-this interpretation finds that the short story's search for the identities of its subjects and events is, in fact, a search for the hermeneutic identity of meaning.
Slavia Meridionalis : Studia Slavica et Balcanica - Warszawa , 2008
Четири обрасци на преобразбеност Four patterns of transformation Author(s): Katica Kulavkova S... more Четири обрасци на преобразбеност
Four patterns of transformation
Author(s): Katica Kulavkova
Subject(s): Cultural Essay, Political Essay, Societal Essay
Published by: Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Summary/Abstract: Transformation is a shared ground for humanity, and therefore it establishes itself as a dominant topic for cultural hermeneutics. This essay makes a typology of dominant models of transformation, through the example of cultural and linguistic practices of the Macedonians and other Balkan peoples. There are four distinct patterns in the scheme: 1. the pattern of non-aesthetic transformations, carved in archaic linguistic signs and the rituals of holy sacrifice; 2. the pattern of aesthetic, symbolic transformations (scenic, theatrical, literary, filmic), whose semiotics is closely tied to artistic conventions; 3. the pattern of enigmatic, diabolic and divine transformations of half-gods, gods and the devil; and, 4. the pattern of institutionalized, violent, punishment and educational transformations, executed in the form of familial, collective and state-institutional measures.
Identities, Jun 1, 2004
I re~e Isak: eve ogan i drva, no kade e `rtvenoto jagne?" 1 Vo taa pesna go tolkuvav, na poetski ... more I re~e Isak: eve ogan i drva, no kade e `rtvenoto jagne?" 1 Vo taa pesna go tolkuvav, na poetski na~in, obidot na Gospoda da ja testira vernosta na Avraam kon nego, 2 stavaj}i go vo situacija da bira me|u Nego-Bog i svoeto ~edo, sin mu Isak. Gospod Bog go stava Avraam vo groteskna situacija da se otka`e od svojot sin, da se otka`e od najmiloto, i pove}e od toa, da go sotre najmiloto, da go usmrti, da mu nanese smrt, da go ubie, da go spali, pod forma na (obredno?) `rtvuvawe. Pri~inata za takvata `rtva e kapricioznata `elba na Gospod Bog da ja isku{a vernosta na Avraam sprema nego, vrhovniot tatko, bo`jiot zakon. Avraam, za da doka`e deka vernosta sprema Boga e pogolema i pova`na od qubovta sprema sopstvenoto ~edo, i so mnogu strav od Boga, trgnuva na ma~niot pat kon zemjata Morija, {umata na isku{enieto, no}nata mora na ~ove{tvoto, 3 kade {to ja podgotvuva kladata na koja{to treba da go polo`i, namesto jagne ili kako jagne, svojot sin Isak, i da mu nanese smrt. Choosing between Two Evils Several years ago, around 1998, I wrote a poem entitled 'Temptation', with a motto taken over from the Old Testament, the First Book of Moses (Genesis) 22:7: "My Father: and he said, Here am I my son. And he said, Behold the fi re and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" 1 In that poem I poetically interpreted God's attempt to test Abraham's loyalty 2 by putting him in a position to choose between Him-God and his own child, his son Isaac. God Almighty puts Abraham in a grotesque position to give up his son, to forsake his dearest and, which is more, to destroy his dearest, to put him to death, slay him, kill him and burn him with the excuse of (ritual?) sacrifi ce. The reason for such a sacrifi ce is God Almighty's capricious wish to test Abraham's loyalty to Him, the supreme father, to the law of God. To prove that his loyalty to God is greater and more important than his love for his own child, god-fearing Abraham sets forth on an agonising journey to the land of Moriah, to the woods of temptation, the nightmare of humankind, 3 where he builds the pyre upon which to lay his own son instead of a lamb or like a lamb, and put him to death.
European Scientific Journal, ESJ, Jun 30, 2018
In line with the theories of variability, fluctuation and instability of ethno-cultural identitie... more In line with the theories of variability, fluctuation and instability of ethno-cultural identities, this paper deals with some sensitive issues surrounding the creation of new (sub-ethnic and sub-cultural) microidentities within one nation, in this case within the Macedonian nation. The research focuses on the initiative for declaring one part of the Macedonian nation, the Macedonians of Islamic religion, to be a separate ethnic group in 2011. It analyses the regional and historical background from which this initiative originated, mostly as an echo of the multicultural strategies and policies in the European and international context. It shows how the unstable politics destabilized the already fragile and fluctuating identity of this group toward an identity of resistance or even heresy, inspite of having preserved their primary Slavic linguistic and cultural identity. The paper argues that the Macedonians of Islamic religion are a part of the Macedonian social, cultural and religious reality and should therefore be recognized as a specific cultural-religious community within the Macedonian national entity. This issue is seen as very important in the present context, since the Macedonian identity is preasured and relativized itself. The paper underlines that the Macedonian national identity is inclusive, layered, more general and complex than its religious factor. Therefore this researcher proposes inclusive state policies for all Macedonians regardless of religious affiliation, inclusive civilizational strategies with inter-connective spiritual values (inter-religious palimpsests and symbiosis) and inclusive state secular strategies as protection against religious radicalisms, atavisms and conflicts.
Gorgias Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2010
European Scientific Journal, ESJ, Sep 30, 2019
Ethnic and religious conversion is deeply engraved in the history and memory of the Macedonian pe... more Ethnic and religious conversion is deeply engraved in the history and memory of the Macedonian people, yet it remains a painful taboo subject. The paper is interested in the treatment of this topic in the New Macedonian Novel, which brought this problem from the collective unconscious into the public dialogue and shed light on its reoccurrence today. The analysis focuses on the novel The Book of Heavens (2000) by Krste Chachanski since it is equally representative of the topic of conversion to Islam in the Ottoman past, the poetics of the New Macedonian Novel, and the Macedonian dialogic and liminal identity. The Book of Heavens is set at the end of the 18th century in mountainous Macedonia, the forsaken Balkan periphery of the Ottoman Empire. It is centred around Adnan Pasha, the bi-religious and bi-cultural Janissary from Macedonia, his internal turmoil, and his quest for becoming the ethical warrior of his wilful choosing. The novel is a meta-historical and multi-voiced parable of dialogism and liminality in the context of human cognition, identity, and culture. But it is also a mythopoetic and magical realist saga for the ethical warrior, for the Macedonian tragically split and persecuted identity, for the syncretic civilisational borders and peripheries, and for protecting the palimpsest memory of human culture. The literaryhermeneutical analysis of conversion in this paper is inevitably a form of cultural and methodological syncretism. Self-plurality psychology and the linguistic, semiotic, and cultural philosophies of Bakhtin, Lotman, Ricoeur, and Eco are used in the analysis.
Slavia Meridionalis, 2018
The sacral function of language, literature and the Bible in the context of Borislav Pekić’s nove... more The sacral function of language, literature and the Bible in the context of Borislav Pekić’s novel The Time of Miracles This essay promotes the thesis about mythogenesis as a form of cosmogenesis. It also addresses the sacral function of language in literature and in the Bible. It follows an approach according to which Biblical myths are constantly re-created (Lk. 11; Jn. 9) and their archetypal schemata – actualized. Specifically, the paper demonstrates that through the actualization of the mythical narratives from the Bible, the universal archetype of the Miracle (mystery, secrecy) is essentially actualized. This interpretation is made on the basis of two illuminative fragments from the novel The Time of Miracles (1965) by the contemporary Serbian writer Borislav Pekić (1930–1992).Borislav Pekić reads the coded language of the mytho-biblical mysterious vision of reality with meticulous, historical, social, political, and psychological attention, and yet, instead of submitting it t...
Dialogica. Revistă de studii culturale și literatură
Mythical and historical memory are two sides of the same reality. Folk legends remind us that the... more Mythical and historical memory are two sides of the same reality. Folk legends remind us that there are great tragedies behind great epic heroes and mythic deeds/images. Hidden behind the monumental cultural, literary and artistic legacy lies shocking ritual violence with its deep logos. Sacred and profane violence have many variants and should thus be interpreted with great attention (semantic, semiotic, historical, cultural). The question of the economy of violence is of prime interest because of the wide array of personifications of violence: necessary, moderate, excessive, limitless, absolute, intentional and unintentional. The figure of the scapegoat changes, but not its role in the ritual of violence. The mythical memory of the Macedonians is sensitive and has the capacity to mystify and demystify historical stories. The Macedonian oral literature has preserved numerous legends, stories and poems which evoke the motif of sacrifice, both in its archaic ritualistic form (walling...
The Image of the Turk in Europe from the Declaration of the Republic in 1923 to the 1990s, 2010
Slavia Meridionalis
The Narcissism of Minor Differences in the Context of Post-Imperial Macedonian NeighbouringThe co... more The Narcissism of Minor Differences in the Context of Post-Imperial Macedonian NeighbouringThe conflicting relations among neighbouring nations in the Balkans may very accurately be explained by S. Freud’s theory of the Narcissism of Minor Differences. Related identities among nations and the bordering zones between countries have always been and continue to be a generator of racial, national, religious and cultural tensions. Whenever the discourse of identities is radicalized, cultural and political hegemony comes to life: identities are ranked according to worth; borders are changed according to national identity; methods of physical and metaphysical violence are used; shared places of memory are appropriated, and those not shared are negated. Perception is in crisis and, as a result, promotes a kind of conflictual mutual misrecognition. This text aims to demystify such installations of hegemony in the (North) Macedonian neighbouring region, and to articulate some principles of a ...
Slavia Meridionalis
Panoptic Vision of the World: Can a State of Emergency Become a Regular One?The object of interpr... more Panoptic Vision of the World: Can a State of Emergency Become a Regular One?The object of interpretation of this text is several social aspects of the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic which have equivocal and contradictory meanings: state of emergency/crisis, emergency measures, civil and human rights/restrictions to human rights, freedom/limitation of freedom. The basic interpretative and conceptual tools used are the terms ‘panopticon’ and ‘panopticism’, whose archetypal patterns point to systematic and systemic damage to the universal human rights to freedom and privacy. This damage occurs by legalizing the surveillance and control of citizens, thus becoming more akin to radical surveillance. The pandemic is seen as an excuse to renew the panoptic vision of the world. The contemporary pandemic surveillance of citizens dissolves the boundaries between the real and the virtual and creates new boundaries of freedom on several levels: movement, speech, work, communication, existence. ...
Bezbednosni dijalozi, 2021
In this paper, the author interprets the political aspects of cultural hegemonism. Firstly, a the... more In this paper, the author interprets the political aspects of cultural hegemonism. Firstly, a theoretical differentiation is made between the cultural and the political hegemonism, and then, a discussion is opened about the occurrences of cultural annexation. The practical instances of cultural hegemonism, upon which political interests are being reflected, are taken from the Balkan region. Chronologically, the initial forms of Balkan cultural hegemonism observed here are from the second half of the 19 th century, while also taking into account their later implications in the 21 st century. Particular attention is focused on the 'Macedonian case'. The code of 19 th-century Balkan cultural hegemonism was visibly activated at the beginning of the 21 st century, while it was latently trailing through the entire 20 th century. The author argues that cultural hegemonism is a historical phenomenon, governed by general historical principles and laws, so it may be foreseeable and replaced by better solutions.
Dialogica , Aug 30, 2022
Interpretative syncretism, as a coalition of critical methods (a trans-method), combines selected... more Interpretative syncretism, as a coalition of critical methods (a trans-method), combines selected elements of several paradigms: poetic, stylistic, linguistic, cultural, mythical, historical, psychological, philosophical, and hermeneutical. It is not an ambitious synthesis, nor pure eclecticism, but rather an act of creative freedom. The following reading of the poem “Prince Marko’s Church” by the Macedonian poet Blaže Koneski (1921–1993) could be seen as an optional pattern of syncretic interpretation because of several reasons: the poem has dramatic and liturgical structure suitable to express both personal and collective memory; its narrativity is intertextually linked to the Macedonian historical and folk legend of King (or Prince) Marko (“Krale Marko”); the very act of understanding the poem is an act of therapy; its associations are linked to the biblical narrative of the “Weeping of Rachel”; it evokes a lot of ethical dilemmas concerning death and God, sin and forgiveness, confession and catharsis and, ultimately, the very sense of creation, i.e. the creation of good and evil. This is the ambivalent phenomenon coexisting in synchronicity. The Macedonian language even has a specific word uniting these antithetic meanings – “evilgood” (zlodobro). The economy of evil demystifies the genesis of the biggest human trauma and stigma: doing evil under the pretext of good. “Evilgood” is not only a cultural legacy, but also reality. To sacrifice the Other is not only a mythical image, but an “eternal present”. To interpret a poem sometimes means to look for the sense of absurdity
Korea Industrial Relations Association(Kira), Jun 1, 2012
Slavia Meridionalis, 2012
Enforced linguistic conversion: translation of the Macedonian toponyms in the 20th century The... more Enforced linguistic conversion: translation of the Macedonian toponyms in the 20th century
The article deals with the issue of forced conversion of Macedonian toponyms, considered as a form of linguistic and cultural dislocation or luxation (the Latin luxatio originating from luxus – dislocated). The toponyms are not just eminently linguistic but also a part of civilization’s memory of nations and of humankind, and that is why they are protected by international regulations. The act of translating toponyms from one language to another, within the frames of culturally and ethnically marked space, is undeniable violence against the cultural heritage. A change of a toponym, its forced translation into another language is, according to these legal acts, a crime against culture. For a toponym is a true reflection of historical facts and historical memories. Toponyms can be transcribed onto a different alphabet, letter‑by‑letter (transliteration), but should not be translated, especially not on the territory which is their civilization’s cradle, where they are practiced and inherited. Violent conversion of toponyms is an introduction to conversion of historical narratives and modern ethno‑cultural identities. History shows that there are violent forms of linguistic, cultural, religious and ethnic dislocations. The example of radical dislocation of Macedonian toponyms is probably one of the few in modern history. It has been taking place over an almost entire century – from the 1920s to the 21st century’s first decade. Macedonian toponyms, for centuries present on the territory of ethnic Macedonia (for which there is indisputable evidence), are being dislocated from their original linguistic/cultural context within several national entities: the Greek, Albanian and – paradoxically – Macedonian states. Such violent translation of toponyms is not devoid of geopolitical consequences.
The conversions of Macedonian toponyms are just a step towards a systematic negation of the Macedonian linguistic and cultural identity, and with that, they deny the right of Macedonian people for their own national country, for every negation lies under the intention of re‑interpreting and retouching the historical reality.
Identities, Jun 1, 2004
I re~e Isak: eve ogan i drva, no kade e `rtvenoto jagne?" 1 Vo taa pesna go tolkuvav, na poetski ... more I re~e Isak: eve ogan i drva, no kade e `rtvenoto jagne?" 1 Vo taa pesna go tolkuvav, na poetski na~in, obidot na Gospoda da ja testira vernosta na Avraam kon nego, 2 stavaj}i go vo situacija da bira me|u Nego-Bog i svoeto ~edo, sin mu Isak. Gospod Bog go stava Avraam vo groteskna situacija da se otka`e od svojot sin, da se otka`e od najmiloto, i pove}e od toa, da go sotre najmiloto, da go usmrti, da mu nanese smrt, da go ubie, da go spali, pod forma na (obredno?) `rtvuvawe. Pri~inata za takvata `rtva e kapricioznata `elba na Gospod Bog da ja isku{a vernosta na Avraam sprema nego, vrhovniot tatko, bo`jiot zakon. Avraam, za da doka`e deka vernosta sprema Boga e pogolema i pova`na od qubovta sprema sopstvenoto ~edo, i so mnogu strav od Boga, trgnuva na ma~niot pat kon zemjata Morija, {umata na isku{enieto, no}nata mora na ~ove{tvoto, 3 kade {to ja podgotvuva kladata na koja{to treba da go polo`i, namesto jagne ili kako jagne, svojot sin Isak, i da mu nanese smrt. Choosing between Two Evils Several years ago, around 1998, I wrote a poem entitled 'Temptation', with a motto taken over from the Old Testament, the First Book of Moses (Genesis) 22:7: "My Father: and he said, Here am I my son. And he said, Behold the fi re and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" 1 In that poem I poetically interpreted God's attempt to test Abraham's loyalty 2 by putting him in a position to choose between Him-God and his own child, his son Isaac. God Almighty puts Abraham in a grotesque position to give up his son, to forsake his dearest and, which is more, to destroy his dearest, to put him to death, slay him, kill him and burn him with the excuse of (ritual?) sacrifi ce. The reason for such a sacrifi ce is God Almighty's capricious wish to test Abraham's loyalty to Him, the supreme father, to the law of God. To prove that his loyalty to God is greater and more important than his love for his own child, god-fearing Abraham sets forth on an agonising journey to the land of Moriah, to the woods of temptation, the nightmare of humankind, 3 where he builds the pyre upon which to lay his own son instead of a lamb or like a lamb, and put him to death.
PEASA , 2024
In hermeneutics, to understand and then to interpret a narrative text implies identifying its mar... more In hermeneutics, to understand and then to interpret a narrative text implies identifying its markers of ambiguity-its riddles and enigmas-which are interconnected like a cobweb. In this article, the researcher develops a literary hermeneutic model for interpreting any literary narrative text, based on the conceptual arsenal of literary hermeneutics and narratology. The model is called 'divinatory', since it is inspired by Friedrich Schleiermacher's idea for 'divinatory hermeneutics' and Roland Barthes' 'hermeneutic code', and it is applied on a very enigmatic short story by Julio Cortázar. The theoretical premise of the article also argues for the benefits of studying the complex systems of literary identities in literary texts and of re-establishing hermeneutics of literature as a 'hermeneutics of literary identities'. Due to its unique ambiguity, Cortázar's famous short story "Las babas del diablo" has numerous interpretations and too many title translations: after Michelangelo Antonioni's movie, it is known as "Blow-Up" in English, but also "The Devil's Drool", "The Devil's Cobweb", "The Cobweb/Kiss of St. Michael's Summer", and "The Thread of the Virgin" in other languages. Therefore, its unriddling divinatory interpretation provides an excellent initial interpretative model for any fictional narrative text. By analyzing the hermeneutically encoded aspects of its main narrative factors-the story and its discourse, narrator/s and focalization, narrative time and space, as well as intertextual connections-this interpretation finds that the short story's search for the identities of its subjects and events is, in fact, a search for the hermeneutic identity of meaning.
Slavia Meridionalis : Studia Slavica et Balcanica - Warszawa , 2008
Четири обрасци на преобразбеност Four patterns of transformation Author(s): Katica Kulavkova S... more Четири обрасци на преобразбеност
Four patterns of transformation
Author(s): Katica Kulavkova
Subject(s): Cultural Essay, Political Essay, Societal Essay
Published by: Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Summary/Abstract: Transformation is a shared ground for humanity, and therefore it establishes itself as a dominant topic for cultural hermeneutics. This essay makes a typology of dominant models of transformation, through the example of cultural and linguistic practices of the Macedonians and other Balkan peoples. There are four distinct patterns in the scheme: 1. the pattern of non-aesthetic transformations, carved in archaic linguistic signs and the rituals of holy sacrifice; 2. the pattern of aesthetic, symbolic transformations (scenic, theatrical, literary, filmic), whose semiotics is closely tied to artistic conventions; 3. the pattern of enigmatic, diabolic and divine transformations of half-gods, gods and the devil; and, 4. the pattern of institutionalized, violent, punishment and educational transformations, executed in the form of familial, collective and state-institutional measures.
Identities, Jun 1, 2004
I re~e Isak: eve ogan i drva, no kade e `rtvenoto jagne?" 1 Vo taa pesna go tolkuvav, na poetski ... more I re~e Isak: eve ogan i drva, no kade e `rtvenoto jagne?" 1 Vo taa pesna go tolkuvav, na poetski na~in, obidot na Gospoda da ja testira vernosta na Avraam kon nego, 2 stavaj}i go vo situacija da bira me|u Nego-Bog i svoeto ~edo, sin mu Isak. Gospod Bog go stava Avraam vo groteskna situacija da se otka`e od svojot sin, da se otka`e od najmiloto, i pove}e od toa, da go sotre najmiloto, da go usmrti, da mu nanese smrt, da go ubie, da go spali, pod forma na (obredno?) `rtvuvawe. Pri~inata za takvata `rtva e kapricioznata `elba na Gospod Bog da ja isku{a vernosta na Avraam sprema nego, vrhovniot tatko, bo`jiot zakon. Avraam, za da doka`e deka vernosta sprema Boga e pogolema i pova`na od qubovta sprema sopstvenoto ~edo, i so mnogu strav od Boga, trgnuva na ma~niot pat kon zemjata Morija, {umata na isku{enieto, no}nata mora na ~ove{tvoto, 3 kade {to ja podgotvuva kladata na koja{to treba da go polo`i, namesto jagne ili kako jagne, svojot sin Isak, i da mu nanese smrt. Choosing between Two Evils Several years ago, around 1998, I wrote a poem entitled 'Temptation', with a motto taken over from the Old Testament, the First Book of Moses (Genesis) 22:7: "My Father: and he said, Here am I my son. And he said, Behold the fi re and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" 1 In that poem I poetically interpreted God's attempt to test Abraham's loyalty 2 by putting him in a position to choose between Him-God and his own child, his son Isaac. God Almighty puts Abraham in a grotesque position to give up his son, to forsake his dearest and, which is more, to destroy his dearest, to put him to death, slay him, kill him and burn him with the excuse of (ritual?) sacrifi ce. The reason for such a sacrifi ce is God Almighty's capricious wish to test Abraham's loyalty to Him, the supreme father, to the law of God. To prove that his loyalty to God is greater and more important than his love for his own child, god-fearing Abraham sets forth on an agonising journey to the land of Moriah, to the woods of temptation, the nightmare of humankind, 3 where he builds the pyre upon which to lay his own son instead of a lamb or like a lamb, and put him to death.
European Scientific Journal, ESJ, Jun 30, 2018
In line with the theories of variability, fluctuation and instability of ethno-cultural identitie... more In line with the theories of variability, fluctuation and instability of ethno-cultural identities, this paper deals with some sensitive issues surrounding the creation of new (sub-ethnic and sub-cultural) microidentities within one nation, in this case within the Macedonian nation. The research focuses on the initiative for declaring one part of the Macedonian nation, the Macedonians of Islamic religion, to be a separate ethnic group in 2011. It analyses the regional and historical background from which this initiative originated, mostly as an echo of the multicultural strategies and policies in the European and international context. It shows how the unstable politics destabilized the already fragile and fluctuating identity of this group toward an identity of resistance or even heresy, inspite of having preserved their primary Slavic linguistic and cultural identity. The paper argues that the Macedonians of Islamic religion are a part of the Macedonian social, cultural and religious reality and should therefore be recognized as a specific cultural-religious community within the Macedonian national entity. This issue is seen as very important in the present context, since the Macedonian identity is preasured and relativized itself. The paper underlines that the Macedonian national identity is inclusive, layered, more general and complex than its religious factor. Therefore this researcher proposes inclusive state policies for all Macedonians regardless of religious affiliation, inclusive civilizational strategies with inter-connective spiritual values (inter-religious palimpsests and symbiosis) and inclusive state secular strategies as protection against religious radicalisms, atavisms and conflicts.
Gorgias Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2010
European Scientific Journal, ESJ, Sep 30, 2019
Ethnic and religious conversion is deeply engraved in the history and memory of the Macedonian pe... more Ethnic and religious conversion is deeply engraved in the history and memory of the Macedonian people, yet it remains a painful taboo subject. The paper is interested in the treatment of this topic in the New Macedonian Novel, which brought this problem from the collective unconscious into the public dialogue and shed light on its reoccurrence today. The analysis focuses on the novel The Book of Heavens (2000) by Krste Chachanski since it is equally representative of the topic of conversion to Islam in the Ottoman past, the poetics of the New Macedonian Novel, and the Macedonian dialogic and liminal identity. The Book of Heavens is set at the end of the 18th century in mountainous Macedonia, the forsaken Balkan periphery of the Ottoman Empire. It is centred around Adnan Pasha, the bi-religious and bi-cultural Janissary from Macedonia, his internal turmoil, and his quest for becoming the ethical warrior of his wilful choosing. The novel is a meta-historical and multi-voiced parable of dialogism and liminality in the context of human cognition, identity, and culture. But it is also a mythopoetic and magical realist saga for the ethical warrior, for the Macedonian tragically split and persecuted identity, for the syncretic civilisational borders and peripheries, and for protecting the palimpsest memory of human culture. The literaryhermeneutical analysis of conversion in this paper is inevitably a form of cultural and methodological syncretism. Self-plurality psychology and the linguistic, semiotic, and cultural philosophies of Bakhtin, Lotman, Ricoeur, and Eco are used in the analysis.
Slavia Meridionalis, 2018
The sacral function of language, literature and the Bible in the context of Borislav Pekić’s nove... more The sacral function of language, literature and the Bible in the context of Borislav Pekić’s novel The Time of Miracles This essay promotes the thesis about mythogenesis as a form of cosmogenesis. It also addresses the sacral function of language in literature and in the Bible. It follows an approach according to which Biblical myths are constantly re-created (Lk. 11; Jn. 9) and their archetypal schemata – actualized. Specifically, the paper demonstrates that through the actualization of the mythical narratives from the Bible, the universal archetype of the Miracle (mystery, secrecy) is essentially actualized. This interpretation is made on the basis of two illuminative fragments from the novel The Time of Miracles (1965) by the contemporary Serbian writer Borislav Pekić (1930–1992).Borislav Pekić reads the coded language of the mytho-biblical mysterious vision of reality with meticulous, historical, social, political, and psychological attention, and yet, instead of submitting it t...
Dialogica. Revistă de studii culturale și literatură
Mythical and historical memory are two sides of the same reality. Folk legends remind us that the... more Mythical and historical memory are two sides of the same reality. Folk legends remind us that there are great tragedies behind great epic heroes and mythic deeds/images. Hidden behind the monumental cultural, literary and artistic legacy lies shocking ritual violence with its deep logos. Sacred and profane violence have many variants and should thus be interpreted with great attention (semantic, semiotic, historical, cultural). The question of the economy of violence is of prime interest because of the wide array of personifications of violence: necessary, moderate, excessive, limitless, absolute, intentional and unintentional. The figure of the scapegoat changes, but not its role in the ritual of violence. The mythical memory of the Macedonians is sensitive and has the capacity to mystify and demystify historical stories. The Macedonian oral literature has preserved numerous legends, stories and poems which evoke the motif of sacrifice, both in its archaic ritualistic form (walling...
The Image of the Turk in Europe from the Declaration of the Republic in 1923 to the 1990s, 2010
Slavia Meridionalis
The Narcissism of Minor Differences in the Context of Post-Imperial Macedonian NeighbouringThe co... more The Narcissism of Minor Differences in the Context of Post-Imperial Macedonian NeighbouringThe conflicting relations among neighbouring nations in the Balkans may very accurately be explained by S. Freud’s theory of the Narcissism of Minor Differences. Related identities among nations and the bordering zones between countries have always been and continue to be a generator of racial, national, religious and cultural tensions. Whenever the discourse of identities is radicalized, cultural and political hegemony comes to life: identities are ranked according to worth; borders are changed according to national identity; methods of physical and metaphysical violence are used; shared places of memory are appropriated, and those not shared are negated. Perception is in crisis and, as a result, promotes a kind of conflictual mutual misrecognition. This text aims to demystify such installations of hegemony in the (North) Macedonian neighbouring region, and to articulate some principles of a ...
Slavia Meridionalis
Panoptic Vision of the World: Can a State of Emergency Become a Regular One?The object of interpr... more Panoptic Vision of the World: Can a State of Emergency Become a Regular One?The object of interpretation of this text is several social aspects of the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic which have equivocal and contradictory meanings: state of emergency/crisis, emergency measures, civil and human rights/restrictions to human rights, freedom/limitation of freedom. The basic interpretative and conceptual tools used are the terms ‘panopticon’ and ‘panopticism’, whose archetypal patterns point to systematic and systemic damage to the universal human rights to freedom and privacy. This damage occurs by legalizing the surveillance and control of citizens, thus becoming more akin to radical surveillance. The pandemic is seen as an excuse to renew the panoptic vision of the world. The contemporary pandemic surveillance of citizens dissolves the boundaries between the real and the virtual and creates new boundaries of freedom on several levels: movement, speech, work, communication, existence. ...
Bezbednosni dijalozi, 2021
In this paper, the author interprets the political aspects of cultural hegemonism. Firstly, a the... more In this paper, the author interprets the political aspects of cultural hegemonism. Firstly, a theoretical differentiation is made between the cultural and the political hegemonism, and then, a discussion is opened about the occurrences of cultural annexation. The practical instances of cultural hegemonism, upon which political interests are being reflected, are taken from the Balkan region. Chronologically, the initial forms of Balkan cultural hegemonism observed here are from the second half of the 19 th century, while also taking into account their later implications in the 21 st century. Particular attention is focused on the 'Macedonian case'. The code of 19 th-century Balkan cultural hegemonism was visibly activated at the beginning of the 21 st century, while it was latently trailing through the entire 20 th century. The author argues that cultural hegemonism is a historical phenomenon, governed by general historical principles and laws, so it may be foreseeable and replaced by better solutions.
Dialogica , Aug 30, 2022
Interpretative syncretism, as a coalition of critical methods (a trans-method), combines selected... more Interpretative syncretism, as a coalition of critical methods (a trans-method), combines selected elements of several paradigms: poetic, stylistic, linguistic, cultural, mythical, historical, psychological, philosophical, and hermeneutical. It is not an ambitious synthesis, nor pure eclecticism, but rather an act of creative freedom. The following reading of the poem “Prince Marko’s Church” by the Macedonian poet Blaže Koneski (1921–1993) could be seen as an optional pattern of syncretic interpretation because of several reasons: the poem has dramatic and liturgical structure suitable to express both personal and collective memory; its narrativity is intertextually linked to the Macedonian historical and folk legend of King (or Prince) Marko (“Krale Marko”); the very act of understanding the poem is an act of therapy; its associations are linked to the biblical narrative of the “Weeping of Rachel”; it evokes a lot of ethical dilemmas concerning death and God, sin and forgiveness, confession and catharsis and, ultimately, the very sense of creation, i.e. the creation of good and evil. This is the ambivalent phenomenon coexisting in synchronicity. The Macedonian language even has a specific word uniting these antithetic meanings – “evilgood” (zlodobro). The economy of evil demystifies the genesis of the biggest human trauma and stigma: doing evil under the pretext of good. “Evilgood” is not only a cultural legacy, but also reality. To sacrifice the Other is not only a mythical image, but an “eternal present”. To interpret a poem sometimes means to look for the sense of absurdity
Korea Industrial Relations Association(Kira), Jun 1, 2012
Slavia Meridionalis, 2012
Enforced linguistic conversion: translation of the Macedonian toponyms in the 20th century The... more Enforced linguistic conversion: translation of the Macedonian toponyms in the 20th century
The article deals with the issue of forced conversion of Macedonian toponyms, considered as a form of linguistic and cultural dislocation or luxation (the Latin luxatio originating from luxus – dislocated). The toponyms are not just eminently linguistic but also a part of civilization’s memory of nations and of humankind, and that is why they are protected by international regulations. The act of translating toponyms from one language to another, within the frames of culturally and ethnically marked space, is undeniable violence against the cultural heritage. A change of a toponym, its forced translation into another language is, according to these legal acts, a crime against culture. For a toponym is a true reflection of historical facts and historical memories. Toponyms can be transcribed onto a different alphabet, letter‑by‑letter (transliteration), but should not be translated, especially not on the territory which is their civilization’s cradle, where they are practiced and inherited. Violent conversion of toponyms is an introduction to conversion of historical narratives and modern ethno‑cultural identities. History shows that there are violent forms of linguistic, cultural, religious and ethnic dislocations. The example of radical dislocation of Macedonian toponyms is probably one of the few in modern history. It has been taking place over an almost entire century – from the 1920s to the 21st century’s first decade. Macedonian toponyms, for centuries present on the territory of ethnic Macedonia (for which there is indisputable evidence), are being dislocated from their original linguistic/cultural context within several national entities: the Greek, Albanian and – paradoxically – Macedonian states. Such violent translation of toponyms is not devoid of geopolitical consequences.
The conversions of Macedonian toponyms are just a step towards a systematic negation of the Macedonian linguistic and cultural identity, and with that, they deny the right of Macedonian people for their own national country, for every negation lies under the intention of re‑interpreting and retouching the historical reality.
Identities, Jun 1, 2004
I re~e Isak: eve ogan i drva, no kade e `rtvenoto jagne?" 1 Vo taa pesna go tolkuvav, na poetski ... more I re~e Isak: eve ogan i drva, no kade e `rtvenoto jagne?" 1 Vo taa pesna go tolkuvav, na poetski na~in, obidot na Gospoda da ja testira vernosta na Avraam kon nego, 2 stavaj}i go vo situacija da bira me|u Nego-Bog i svoeto ~edo, sin mu Isak. Gospod Bog go stava Avraam vo groteskna situacija da se otka`e od svojot sin, da se otka`e od najmiloto, i pove}e od toa, da go sotre najmiloto, da go usmrti, da mu nanese smrt, da go ubie, da go spali, pod forma na (obredno?) `rtvuvawe. Pri~inata za takvata `rtva e kapricioznata `elba na Gospod Bog da ja isku{a vernosta na Avraam sprema nego, vrhovniot tatko, bo`jiot zakon. Avraam, za da doka`e deka vernosta sprema Boga e pogolema i pova`na od qubovta sprema sopstvenoto ~edo, i so mnogu strav od Boga, trgnuva na ma~niot pat kon zemjata Morija, {umata na isku{enieto, no}nata mora na ~ove{tvoto, 3 kade {to ja podgotvuva kladata na koja{to treba da go polo`i, namesto jagne ili kako jagne, svojot sin Isak, i da mu nanese smrt. Choosing between Two Evils Several years ago, around 1998, I wrote a poem entitled 'Temptation', with a motto taken over from the Old Testament, the First Book of Moses (Genesis) 22:7: "My Father: and he said, Here am I my son. And he said, Behold the fi re and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" 1 In that poem I poetically interpreted God's attempt to test Abraham's loyalty 2 by putting him in a position to choose between Him-God and his own child, his son Isaac. God Almighty puts Abraham in a grotesque position to give up his son, to forsake his dearest and, which is more, to destroy his dearest, to put him to death, slay him, kill him and burn him with the excuse of (ritual?) sacrifi ce. The reason for such a sacrifi ce is God Almighty's capricious wish to test Abraham's loyalty to Him, the supreme father, to the law of God. To prove that his loyalty to God is greater and more important than his love for his own child, god-fearing Abraham sets forth on an agonising journey to the land of Moriah, to the woods of temptation, the nightmare of humankind, 3 where he builds the pyre upon which to lay his own son instead of a lamb or like a lamb, and put him to death.