Trauma, wandering, quest: About the writing pre-debut of Miodrag Bulatović Cover Image

Trauma, włóczęga, poszukiwanie sławy. Wokół predebiutu literackiego Miodraga Bulatovicia
Trauma, wandering, quest: About the writing pre-debut of Miodrag Bulatović

Author(s): Miłosz Bukwalt
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Sociology of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego
Keywords: youth; trauma; murder; father; wandering; autocreation; writing pre-debut

Summary/Abstract: The existence and artistic production of Miodrag Bulatović was marked with traumatic experience from his adolescence. His father’s tragic death had a lasting impact on the writer’s psyche. Therefore, the effects of trauma can be noticed in the social behaviour of the future artist. Leaving his home, deciding to wander instead of settling is an indication of neurotic anxiety and narcissistic desire to achieve fame and gain reputation. In the case of Bulatović, the act of creation had a role of saving, purifying and expression. Writing enabled the artist to express and process the traumatic events from his early youth. The work entitled My Mother (Moja Majka, 1950) should be considered as Bulatović’s writing pre-debut. A discernible absence of the masculine principle meant that the artist turned to the matriarchal and maternal element embodying light, life, shelter and safety. In the examined work, the Woman-Mother — in spite of numerous adversities — was presented as victorious and tenacious in her symbolic quest for the sunny crux of life.It should be emphasised that the analysed text indicates the artistic strategies and solutions typical of the mature techniques used by this Serbian artist. The grotesque and uncontrollable imagination made it possible for the writer to create the image of the reality defined as hell on Earth.

  • Issue Year: 176/2022
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 27-38
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Polish