"AUTOBIOGRAFSKI UGOVOR" RATNOG PISMA S POTPISOM ALENKE MIRKOVIĆ I GROZDANE CVITAN
“AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CONTRACT” OF THE WARTIME WRITING WITH THE SIGNATURE OF ALENKA MIRKOVIĆ AND GROZDANA CVITAN

Summary/Abstract: This paper deals with the relationship of the wartime literature and the autobiographical discourse in the fictional and non-fictional texts written by two contemporary Croatian authoresses, Alenka Mirković and Grozdana Cvitan. From the receptional point of view, when the autobiographical discourse connects with the wartime themes, the importance of the social status of the author is substituted by the socially important topics, and the question of “who has the right to the story of his own life” (Velčić 1991) turns into a question of “what is a socially relevant theme?” Prevalence of topics that are important to collective memory in wartime literature is almost self-explanatory; this kind of topic is selected by Alenka Mirković in her Vukovar war chronicle 97.6 Mhz. Glasom protiv topova. Mala ratna kronika ((11996, 22011). While the novel written by Alenka Mirković meets the reader’s expectations by offering “autobiographical contract” (Ph. Lejeune) in which the name on the cover guarantees the identity of the author and the narrator, in short stories written by Grozdana Cvitan, Psi rata i druge bestije (2007), a war reality becomes awider framework of literary (self)reflection with an absence of documentarity. Although in her war stories there is no classic autobiographical contract (since there is no correspondence between the name of the author and narrator), the character of the narrator who listens leaving the others to become the main protagonists, guarantees an authentic cover for mediation of autobiographical testimony.

• Details
• Contents