FRACTURING IDENTITY AND TRAUMA OF NOT BELONGING IN THE NOVEL ZELENO BUSENJE Cover Image

IDENTITARNI LOM I TRAUMA NEPRIPADANJA U ROMANU ZELENO BUSENJE
FRACTURING IDENTITY AND TRAUMA OF NOT BELONGING IN THE NOVEL ZELENO BUSENJE

Author(s): Vildana Pečenković
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Psychology, Ethnohistory, Bosnian Literature
Published by: Bosansko filološko društvo
Keywords: Austro-Hungarian Empire; identity; trauma; resistance; city

Summary/Abstract: One of the turning points in the history of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the occupation by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the turn of two civilizations, the Orient and the Occident, is the framework for the first Bosniak novel, Zeleno busenje by Edhem Mulabdic, who unfolds a story of a collective trauma, but also of an individual tragedy caused by historical events on a larger scale. The story of Zeleno busenje starts at the moment when the occupation and disruption of the idyllic image of the world begins. It is precisely this decisive moment in the novel that triggers a dynamic force which turns on mechanisms of identity re/construction. Ahmet’s struggle for identity is a struggle for space as a constituent of identity, and the colonial practices confirm that defining space and its mapping has always been a form of demonstrating power. This paper examines the hierarchy of values of the elements involved in the construction of the narrative identity of the main character and ways of establishing a new topography of the world where the ambience of cognitive confrontation becomes rebellion, resistance and defence of the homeland.

  • Issue Year: 3/2016
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 128-141
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Bosnian
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