Lze po roce 1989 psát transkulturní déjiny jihoslovanských literatur?
Is it Possible to Write a Transcultural History of South Slavic Literatures after 1989?

Author(s): Miroslav Kouba
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Comparative Study of Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Софийски университет »Св. Климент Охридски«
Keywords: transculturalism; South Slavic literatures; history of literature; national and cultural identity; national narrative; interpretative models
Summary/Abstract: The post-1989 transformations offered an opportunity to reassess the view of literary history, especially that of ethnically and culturally mixed environments, which since the 19th century had been interpretatively based on a consistently strengthened ethnocentrism. Inspired by a broadly understood transculturalism, one can ask whether and how this concept could be applied to the South Slavic context and its inherently multi-ethnic character. At the same time, it is necessary to take into consideration the different profiles of the literary-historical developments in each of these geocultural environments, especially in the earlier period. The elimination of experienced ethnocentrisms, at least on a theoretical level, could open up a broader dialogue with the different cultural or confessional communities that shape the immanent Balkan heterogeneity. The paper attempts to dwell on the possibility for a new conceptualization of transculturalism: while in the West it reflects the failures of the previously promoted multiculturalism, in the countries of South-Eastern Europe it could function as a stimulus for a new interpretation of the history of literature, especially in the conditions of the regained democracy of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Another key issue the article deals with is the change in the periodization of the history of South Slavic literatures, which the use of transculturalist approaches necessarily entails.

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