Sarajevo Notebook
Eurozine
2010-05-05
Summary of Sarajevo Notebook 27-28 (2010)
The topic of issue no. 27/28 is "Transition and Culture". Major authors and thinkers from this part of the world have shared with us their views of the transition process and where culture belongs in that process.
Political circumstances -- the break-up of ex-Yugoslavia and the fall of the Berlin Wall -- brought about a number of socio-cultural changes. The process of transition in this part of the world has cut off its peoples spiritually from the country they once shared. This and other accompanying phenomena have been addressed by Enver Kazaz, Andrea Zlatar, Boris Buden, Zlatko Pakovic, Srdan Vucinic, Borislav Mikulic, Davor Beganovic, Mihajlo Pantic, Anisa Avdagic, Alma Denic-Grabic and others.
In FIRST PERSON, Beqe Cufaj notes the cultural alienation among these peoples, better acquainted with the Western literary and cultural scene that with that of their neighbours, which is in fact a kind of revolt and reprisal against recent political events. This has also been accompanied by a process of seeing the "other" and "different" as a minority, in stereotypical terms.
In the DIARY, one of Bosnia and Herzegovina's leading writers, Alma Lazarevska, shares the experience gained during her two-and-a-half-month stay in America.
DIALOGUE, led by Zeljko Ivankovic and Veselko Koroman, brings to our attention the poet's life and literary work. Veselko Koroman is one of Bosnia and Herzegovina's greatest poets of twentieth century.
Poems by Lidija Dimkovska feature in "MANUFACTURE. As Elizabeta Seleva observes, "Ms Dimkovska has a powerful, radical and spare poetical expression that many poets, regardless of gender, might envy."
Along with Ms Dimkovska and Adisa Basic, who writes about her journey by Worldexpress, this column also features the lyrical musings of writer and poet Faruk Sehic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Una, nature and war, and an excerpt from a novel by Zoran Feric, Walt Disney's Mousetrap. Also in MANUFACTURE is the poetry of Agim Apoloni from Kosovo, Fahrudin Kujundzic from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iskra Doneva from Macedonia, and Miodrag Raicevic. The short stories and novelettes in this issue have been written by Namik Kabil and Neven Usumovic. Janika Ruter has written an exhaustive literary theory essay on the relationship between photograph and text in Alexander Hemon's novel The Lazarus Project. Rusmir Mahmutcehajic analyzes Hasanaginica from the perspective of the perennial philosophy.
MY CHOICE gives us the opportunity to read poems by Boris A. Novak.
For the first time, this issue of Sarajevske sveske features a new column, IN(VISIBLE) which will present the literary works of writers belonging to so-called national minorities in this region, dealing in this issue with the work of the Italian national community.
Predrag Matvejevic, Tanja Petrovic, Riccardo Nicolosi and Dzevad Karahasan wrote essays for the BALKANS column.
THE DOCUMENTS in this issue also present a detailed text by Maria Dabrowska-Partyka on Sarajevske sveske. A professor of Slavistics in Cracow, Poland, she has analyzed Sarajevske sveske from issue 1 to issue 18, attempting to discover whether SS is a possible alternative in the southern Slav region.
The poetry of the Irish poet Chris Agee features in PASSPORT and PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST presents the work of the Macedonian painter Dragan Petkovic (1952-2004).