"СЕКС-АПЕЛ" У МЕЂУРАТНОМ БЕОГРАДУ: РОДНО ЧИТАЊЕ "ТЕРАЗИЈА" БОШКА ТОКИНА
“SEX APPEAL” IN INTERWAR BELGRADE: A GENDER READING OF "TERAZIJE" BY BOŠKO TOKIN

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to study gender identities in the novel Terazije by Boško Tokin, which is considered by some literary critics to be the first modern novel of the Serbian literature. In his story of interwar Belgrade, Tokin depicts a world in which traditional morality and customs have been replaced by the amorality of the new age, in which each individual is left to themselves and their conscience, and there are no social penalties for great sinners. At the beginning of the work, we gave an overview of the reception of this novel, starting from the first reviews in the contemporary press, through lack of interest for the most of the twentieth century, to the renewed interest in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In the part of the work dedicated to the analysis of the novel, we first reflected on the formation of the character of the modern woman, shown through the marriage of Đorđe and Olga, but also her subsequent moral downfall. After that, we analyzed Đorđe’s relationship with the maid Zuza and interpreted the space of Palilula as an expressionist locus amoenis in which a man gains freedom from a woman. Olivera Jovićević, wife of MP Sima, as the character of a sexually frustrated woman, offered another look at a woman of the new age, who will still experience her most complete incarnation in Zora Bogosavljević, whose relationship with the bon vivant Strahinja represents an apology of free love. This, however, stands in sharp contrast to Zora’s tragic ending, which shows a split in Tokin’s approach to this character. The final part of the work is dedicated to cross-dresser Rista/Rikica, one of the earliest characters of homosexuals in the Serbian literature. These characters depict Toxin’s complex and often contradictory attitude towards issues of gender, sexuality, and morality and attract the modern reader with their modernity.

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