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Ayi Kwei Armah’s "Two Thousand Seasons" and "Osiris Rising" as Pan-African Epics

Author(s): Divine Che Neba,Daniel Nkemleke / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The neocolonial theory formulated by Frantz Fanon ("Wretched of the Earth") continues to serve as an inspiration to most postcolonial writers, including Ayi Kwei Armah (b. 1939 in Ghana). Writers invested in this doctrine continue to inspire post-independent youths, who for many decades have been misled into believing that an upward trend in development in Africa is “a long day’s journey into the night”. Known for his extremely high visionary symbolism, poetic drive, and firm Pan-African vision, Armah, besides his engagement with the neocolonial theory, has taken another leap into dredging up the Egyptian regeneration myth of Osiris and Isis and other related myths in "Two Thousand Seasons" (1973) and "Osiris Rising: A Novel of Africa Past, Present and Future" (1995) as tools for reconstructing what has been fragmented by slavery, colonialism, and neocolonialism. Most of the characters in his writing are placed on an epic journey to liberate the Africa he envisions and they give hope to the new generations in the context of the immediate developmental needs of the continent.

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The Utopia of an Ideal Community

Author(s): Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

This chapter focuses on the depiction of Atlantis in James Gurney’s "Dinotopia: The World Beneath" (1995). The island of Dinotopia is populated by humans and dinosaurs, who live together peacefully. Dinotopia originates from the sunken kingdom of Poseidos whose fate is inspired by the Atlantis myth. Furthermore, the Atlantis myth is connected with the history of Ancient Egypt, the Sumerians, Old China, and Classical Antiquity, thus creating a meta-myth. Moreover, the time frame of this meta-myth is extended into the past and the potential future by encompassing the Mesozoic era – the period of the dinosaurs – as well as references to advanced alien societies in outer space. The hybrid conceptual blending of these diverse cultural and mythical concepts provides a utopian social system. The peaceful cohabitation of dinosaurs and humans and the refusal of colonialism, suppression, and intolerance set up an exemplary and timeless model by transferring the Atlantis myth from a given historical moment to our present time.

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Mystery, Childhood and Meaning in Ursula Dubosarsky’s "The Golden Day"

Author(s): Elizabeth Hale / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Exploring the impact of classical intertextuality and historical references in literature for adolescent girls, this chapter focuses on "The Golden Day" by Australian author Ursula Dubosarsky. It considers how aspects of Australian and classical historical, mythological, and literary intertextuality contribute to presentation of young adult subjectivity and maturation in adolescent girlhood. Analysing the novel reveals how aspects of gothic, of mystery, of loss, of war, and of love, sex, art, and fantasy combine in a literary portrayal of adolescent girlhood and coming of age in 1960s Australia.

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When Is a Robot a Human?

Author(s): Babette Puetz / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

This chapter discusses the role of hope in Bernard Beckett’s New Zealand young adult novel "Genesis" (2006). It looks at how the author employs allusions to ancient myth and philosophy (Plato) to place the topic in a wider context, in particular to shed light on the notion of false hope. Mainly, this chapter focuses on the novel’s protagonist Anax’s (false) hope, as expressed in her uncritical belief in her state’s ideology. It also explores the crucial part which myth plays in creating this false hope and how hope, in combination with myth, is employed by the author to give readers the misleading impression that Anax is human, rather than a robot. "Genesis’s" allusions to ancient myths help its readers place Anax’s and Adam’s (a human character) views and actions into a wider context and understand how hope, as an emotion which is central to our humanity, has always been a decisive motivator for human decision-making (both on the personal and on the state level) and for cultural progress, and will still be in the future.

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Hungry and Hopeful

Author(s): Helen Lovatt / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

A girl holds the key to the future of humanity: she has to choose between sacrificing herself and creating a new human race. In one version she is Iphigenia, in another Pandora. Mike Carey (or M.R. Carey) has now produced three versions of this story, all of which follow the child character Melanie through horrific trauma, which she navigates with the help of Greek myth. The first was a short story called "Iphigenia in Aulis", which appeared in an anthology of dark fantasy school stories, called "Apple for the Creature". This then developed into both a novel and a film script, both with the title "Girl with All the Gifts", referring to the myth of Pandora that takes over from Iphigenia. None of these are written for children, but they play with the conventions and expectations of children’s literature, especially the short story with its school setting. They feature strong focalisation, simple words, a child protagonist, and a child’s perspective. But Melanie is not just a child. All three stories also feature strong language, violence, and intensely adult themes. The novel and film were particularly successful among young adult audiences. The myths first emerge in the school-room, where Melanie falls in love both with them and with her teacher. They shape her identity as she struggles to understand her place in the world. Is she human or monster? Should she sacrifice herself and her kind, or carry out a generational coup? Greek myth, it seems, has quite a repertoire of characters who fear children at the same time as exploiting, even consuming them. This coming-of-age story shows a child setting the past in dialogue with the future in order to address some very big questions about what it means to be human and what it means to hope.

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"Percy Jackson" and Israeli Fan Fiction

Author(s): Lisa Maurice / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Adaptations and rewriting of existing works have been around as long as the works themselves have existed; in the words of Lev Grossman, “When Virgil wrote "The Aeneid", he didn’t invent Aeneas; Aeneas was a minor character in Homer’s "Odyssey" whose unauthorized further adventures Virgil decided to chronicle”. The Internet, however, has given new shape and life to a specific type of such reinterpretation, namely fan fiction. One of the most popular genres for fan fiction is fantasy, as amateur authors reinvent, rewrite and recast events and characters of their favourite novels. Series such as J.K. Rowling’s "Harry Potter" and Stephanie Meyer’s "Twilight" have given rise to a vast and ever growing number of fan fictions. Most interestingly for our purposes, Rick Riordan’s "Percy Jackson" books and their subsequent film versions, which were enormously popular in Israel, have given rise to a large body of such fiction. This paper provides an overview of fan fiction and its importance, and then examines "Percy Jackson" fan fiction in general, before honing in on such fan fiction in Israel, discussing how and why young Israeli fan-fiction writers have used the Percy Jackson series as inspiration for their own writing and exploring how this interpretation of Greek mythology enables them to engage with their own contemporary society.

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Images of Hope

Author(s): Katerina Volioti / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

In this chapter, I discuss the text and illustrations in books of classical myth for children aged four and above. I place two books about the Olympians and Dionysos in the context of Modern Greece and examine the degree of Greekness in the illustrations by comparing them to ancient works of art, folklore elements, and contemporary material culture. I argue that the gods’ comfortable and carefree lifestyle could be a parody of (upper) middle-class living in the Western world. The gods may look modern, but they do not serve as credible models of happiness. Classical myth is cast back in the realm of a fantasy world, giving hope to young and adult audiences as fiction and entertainment. Readers may find additional hope as they develop a sense of belonging to a global community, sharing but also criticizing a consumerist lifestyle.

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Growing Up Manga Style

Author(s): Ayelet Peer / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Is Olympus our paradise or our cage which we must ruin? In children’s and young adults’ literature, growing up narratives or coming-of-age stories occupy a considerable part of the genre. The young hero is faced with difficult challenges, some of them life-threatening, which he must overcome in order to save others and be saved him- or herself. In order to become truly an adult, he or she must also find his or her way – alone, or with the help of friends. The crystallization of our hero’s character is constantly refined (and redefined) through his or her relations with the surroundings – measuring up to his or her rivals – as well as through interaction with his or her friends. This literary trope is very common in the Japanese medium of manga, especially the one aimed at young boys (shōnen manga). The prepubescent hero often finds himself alone (orphaned or as a cast-aside in a dysfunctional family) and he must prove his worth by gaining strength and, along the way, growing up. In this paper, I shall review how "Arion", an adolescent boy, the alleged son of Poseidon, is fighting his inner and outer demons on his own, in his quest to save his mother in Yoshikazu Yasuhiko 1980’s manga, "Arion". In the story, Olympus is a symbol of power, corruption, a broken promise. Our hero must break free from Olympus in order to form his own identity.

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"Et in" (Disney) "Arcadia ego"

Author(s): Anna Mik / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

"Fantasia" by Walt Disney Productions might be perceived as a true marriage of the so-called high and low culture – in this case classical music and children’s animation. Although those two blend and it is hard to distinguish what is for children and what for adults, this movie certainly might be perceived as a true masterpiece combining various motifs, both from popular culture and art. Among them stand out motifs received from Antiquity – full of hopes for the world to come – serving also as a metaphor for cosmic and social isolation.In the 1940s, war was obviously one of the major everyday topics, and this also is reflected in "Fantasia" – even if not literally. The fight takes place somewhere else – at the foot of the Mountain Olympus – where centaurs have been trapped in an oppressive social cage. Chauvinism, racism, and general social conflict are still there, very often criticized, but never reformulated. In the article I investigate where to find the mythical hope, an important factor in creating children’s perception and sensitivity in a world constantly faced with intolerance.

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Between Hope and Destiny in the Young Adult Television Series "Once Upon a Time", Season 5, Episodes 12–21 (2016)

Author(s): Elżbieta Olechowska / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

"Once Upon a Time" (2011–2018), a seven-season-long television series inspired by fairy tales, especially those from the Disney library, includes ten episodes that dig deeper into the past, reaching the world of Greek mythology, also in its Disneyan variety. Heroes and villains armed with hope struggle for a better future against their destiny and longstanding stereotyped image. The motif of fate – less as an implacable and unavoidable Fatum, and more as the uplifting sense of destiny – is accompanied by the concept of hope, essential for maintaining the interest and viewing pleasure of young audiences.

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Kotick the Saviour

Author(s): Jerzy Axer / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Rudyard Kipling’s short story "The White Seal", published in 1893 and incorporated into his "Jungle Book" a year later, is amenable to multiple interpretations. Today, the dominating approach to this story is influenced by criticism of postcolonial literature. The author offers a different insight by considering an underexploited layer of the text. He proposes to unravel the web of mythological/religious references and radical ecological demands – a web that determines the story’s originality and makes its animal protagonist, Kotick the White Seal, a bearer of hope for the readers also in our times.

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All Is (Not) Lost

Author(s): Krzysztof Rybak / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The article is a case study of "Bezsenność Jutki" [Jutka’s Insomnia] by the Polish author Dorota Comrzyńska-Nogala (2012). The eponymous character is imprisoned in the Łódź ghetto, where the only way to forget about the horror of the Holocaust is by listening to her grandfather’s bedtime stories, including the Cretan myth about Daedalus, the Minotaur, Theseus, and Ariadne. Drawing on bibliotherapy, I argue that these stories serve as therapeutic tools for Jutka and give her hope for a better future. Simultaneously, "Bezsenność Jutki" may be seen as a book granting the young readers hope, despite representing the Holocaust and atrocities of WWII.

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Orphic Resonances of Love and Loss in David Almond’s "A Song for Ella Grey"

Author(s): Owen Hodkinson / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

David Almond’s "A Song for Ella Grey" (2014) is a thoroughly modern young adult novel, which explores the loves (familial, romantic, friendly, and “complicated”) and the losses of a group of ordinary-seeming seventeen-year-old school pupils in the north of England, by weaving the myth of a returned, young-again Orpheus into their lives. The narrator Claire is the best friend of Ella Grey, who dies unexpectedly after being bitten by adders (Britain’s only venomous snake – but not venomous enough to kill humans) shortly after a makeshift “marriage” to Orpheus conducted on the beach by their friends. Claire and her friends learn much about love and loss through their shared experiences throughout the novel, while their learning about literature at school provides one frame of reference for making their very individual and localised stories (complete with Tyneside dialect as well as scenery) universal. Claire and other characters question the relevance of “ancient” stories to their real lives, thus inviting the reader to pose similar questions. In a metaliterary manner, Claire, as narrator, also problematises the novel’s integration of ancient myths that “have no place” in the modern world, and that cannot be explained in that world’s terms; as a character, she questions whether the events she described could really have taken place, only to dismiss such doubts – but again, the reader is invited to ask the same questions, and to wonder whether it was simply “the madness of being young, the madness of knowing love for the first time”.

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Muğla-Menteşe İlçesi’ne Mübadillerin İskânı Meselesi (1923-1930)

Author(s): Seher Akça / Language(s): Turkish Publication Year: 0

Cumhuriyet döneminde Balkanlardan Anadolu’ya birçok göç yaşanmıştır. Bu göçlerin en yoğun yaşandığı yıllar mübadele dönemi olmuştur. Bu mübadele döneminde Anadolu’dan Yunanistan’a 1.200.000 kişi giderken Balkanlardan Anadolu’ya da 400.000 kişi gelmiştir. Bu gelenlerin 4.968 kişisi Muğla İline ve bunun da 459 kişisi Menteşe İlçesi’ne iskân edilmiştir. Bu mübadillerin iskânı sırasında sorun yaşanmaması için dönemin hükümet önce İmar ve İskân Vekâleti kurmuş ve vekâlet de her il ve ilçede İmar ve İskân Komisyonları oluşturmuştur. Muğla’da da Vali’nin başkanlığında bir komisyon kurulmuştur. Bu komisyonun; yerleşim yerlerini tespit etme, sağlık sorunlarını çözme, taşınma işini düzenleme ve ev, arsa, zeytinlik gibi malların dağıtımını adaletli bir şekilde yapma gibi görevleri vardı. Mübadele olayının bazı avantajları ve dezavantajları olmuştur. Muğla-Menteşe İlçesi’ne Rodos Adası Kavala, Drama, Tikveş gibi yerlerde tarımla uğraşan kişiler gelmiş ve bu da bölge tarımının gelişmesine katkı sağlamıştır. Ancak, gidenler Menteşe İlçesi’nde zanaat ve ticaret ile uğraşan kişiler olduğu için bu da bölgede ticaret ve zanaat faaliyetlerini olumsuz etkilenmesine neden olmuştur.

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Bir Cenaze ve Cülus Töreni Bağlamında İki Osmanlı Sultanı: V. Mehmed ve VI. Mehmed

Author(s): Senem GÖNENÇ / Language(s): Turkish Publication Year: 0

On 27 April 1909, Sultan Abdulhamid II was dethroned from the Ottoman throne and his brother Reshad Efendi ascended to the throne as “Sultan Mehmed V”. After his nine-year reign, Sultan Mehmed V died after a short illness on 3 July 1918. His successor, his 57-year-old brother, Vahideddin Efendi, ascended to the Ottoman throne as “Sultan Mehmed VI”. Thus, the last and new heir to the throne became Abdulmejid Efendi. In this study, the developments that took place in the reign of Sultan Mehmed V and his death, the events of Sultan Mehmed VI’s accession to the throne and his abdication, and what was written about the Ottoman Sultans Mehmed V, Mehmed VI and Crown Prince Abdulmejid Efendi in the events mentioned was discussed. The main sources of this historical research based on document analysis are the Austro-Hungarian press. As a result of the research, it was seen that Sultan Mehmed V and the new Crown Prince Abdulmejid Efendi were mentioned with positive character traits, and the accession of the new Sultan Mehmed VI to the throne was praised in the newspapers that were the subject of this study. However, after the abolition of the sultanate on 1 November 1922, it was seen that there were no positive opinions about Sultan Mehmed VI, who was dethroned, and he was referred to as a ruler who could not meet the expectations.

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Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası ve Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası Programları Üzerine Bir Karşılaştırma

Author(s): Volkan Aksoy / Language(s): Turkish Publication Year: 0

After the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918, the patriots, who did not want to leave the fate of the country to the Allied Powers and minorities under their protection, started their resistance, starting from Western Anatolia. In line with the same goals, the patriots, who went to Samsun under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, united and organized the fires of independence, ensured the liberation of the homeland and established a new national state instead of the Ottoman State. After this stage, Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his friends thought that with the victory of the Battle of Dumlupinar, the duties of the Association for Defence of Rights ended, that the term "Defense of Rights" could no longer express its meaning in the War of Independence, and emphasized that a new name and a new program was needed in the new period. M. Kemal Pasha had the opportunity to explain his goals to the public during his country tours. In the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, on April 1, 1923, it came to the agenda to hold elections and it was accepted to hold a new election. After the election decision was taken in the parliament, on April 8, 1923, M. Kemal Pasha published a declaration as the Head of the Anatolian and Rumelian Defense of Rights Association. Consisting of 9 Umdes, this declaration formed the basis of the People's Party (CHP). On the other hand, it is possible to extend the origins of the Progressive Republican Party (TCF), as the first opposition party of the Republic, to the disagreements that arose within the People's Party after the proclamation of the Republic in October 1923. The proclamation of the Republic when a group of prominent party members was not present in Ankara caused some reactions. The fact that his former colleagues thought that they were pushed back by the relatively new cadres supported by Mustafa Kemal was also influential in the establishment of the new party. Thus, two parties took their place in Turkish political life with two programs. Our aim in this study is to examine and evaluate the principles put forward by both the Republican People's Party and the Progressive Republican Party and the criticisms they mutually brought to their programs.

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ZAŠTO VOJSKOVOĐU SVETOZARA BOROJEVIĆA OD BOJNE TREBA ZADRŽATI U SJEĆANJU

Author(s): Mira Kolar-Dimitrijević / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

Field Marshal Svetozar Boroević (Borojević) von Bojna (Umetići, 13 Dec. 1856 - Klagenfurt, 23 May 1920) was an exceptional personality in Croatiaʼs military history. His exemplary life and wartime career could not, based on the prevalent rules of war of that time, secure him any kind of post-war livelihood, and as a participant on the losing side he endured all of the consequences imposed upon the defeated by the victors, and he found almost no understanding among his fellow nationals. He contacted many in the belief that an honourable life merited honourable treatment, but this was not borne out. The knowledge that all of the previous values had disappeared, and his subsequent fall into hardship and oblivion must have certainly led to his untimely death in 1920. Many years of silence followed thereafter, until 2007, when Boroević, as a Croat of Orthodox faith, was once more spoken of with respect.

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PISMA VOJSKOVOĐE SVETOZARA BOROEVIĆA 1912.–1920.

Author(s): Danijela MARJANIĆ,Milan Pojić / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

The Croatian National Archives hold ten preserved postcards and twenty letters sent by Svetozar Boroević to Slavko and Olga Kvaternik from 1912 to 1920. Boroević wrote in the German language, in Gothic script. The German text is only occasionally peppered with an occasional Croatian word or sentence. For his part, Boroević refrains from writing in Croatian, uncertain in his knowledge, but he nevertheless expressed admiration for those who knew it. Based on their content, the letters can be divided into two groups. The first group consists of letters written from 1912 to the beginning of 1918, in which “soldierly” and political themes predominate. Boroević, as a high Austro-Hungarian officer, very freely expressed his criticism of his superiors and his political convictions, which can be characterized as “treasonous.” The second group of letters consists of those written after the fall of the Monarchy, in which Boroević’s existential problems are dominant. The famed marshal, together with his wife, was brought to a state of utter uncertainty: cheated, his status was unresolved, as he was expelled from his homeland but had non-permanent residence in Austria, living under trying financial conditions. The entire situation was additionally exacerbated by a family tragedy: the death of his only child, his son. In the new state, in which he was suspect as an imperial military leader, he vainly attempted to demonstrate his view “as a Croat and his influence to contribute to the South Slavs during the war”. Disheartened, he wrote: “I no longer yearn to return to Croatia at all […] I shall never file a request to return and I would be entirely satisfied if they were to leave me in peace to enjoy my retirement where I see fit”. In the last preserved letter dated 23 May 1920, exactly one month before his death, Boroević wrote: “[…] I wonder if Laginja is still ban. […] I will take this last step and ask Laginja, as the highest representative of my homeland, to intervene in Belgrade for my pension. If this produces no results, then I can take no responsibility for what may follow. […] I can not allow such treatment of myself to continue”.

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SVETOZAR BOROJEVIĆ: O RATU PROTIV ITALIJE

Author(s): Željko Holjevac / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

The author briefly reviews the pamphlet written by Svetozar Borojević with the title “On the War Against Italy”, which was published in Ljubljana in 1923, translated by Lt. Col. Mile J. Kasumović, in editions in both the Latin and Cyrillic scripts. It had a foreword written by Hugo Werk under the pseudonym Adriaticus. In it, Borojević refuted the claims made in the daily command of the Italian military’s supreme commander, Marshal Diaz on 4 November 1918, i.e., only a day after the signing of the truce with the already fallen Austria-Hungary, that the Italian army, although weaker in numbers and supplies, had won the war. He demonstrated that the Italians had five times the number of infantry troops and an artillery that was ten times stronger, but that the western powers still had to save Italy from complete collapse during the war. The Ljubljana edition of “On the War Against Italy” received a positive review in 17 November 1923 edition of the newspaper Agramer Tagblatt, a Zagreb-based German-language periodical, which particularly highlighted this concluding observation made by Borojević: “Italy can back its arguments in all possible ways at the peace conference, but not on the basis of the sanctity of treaties and the success of its arms”.

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OCJENA HRVATSKO-SRPSKE KOALICIJE I SVETOZAR PRIBIĆEVIĆ U DJELU DR. FRANJE TUĐMANA

Author(s): Mato Artuković / Language(s): Croatian Publication Year: 0

Franjo Tuđman had not addressed the genesis of «New Course» politics and the establishment and the political activities of the Croat-Serb Coalition in his works in more detail. He only addressed these topics to the extent that was necessary to elucidate the fundamental problems of the interwar period he was studying. His assessment of the Croat-Serb Coalition, the final outcome of its politics, and its principal exponents is, however, precise, scientific, and fully acceptable from the modern point of view. The Coalition did bring about certain positive changes, but it did not provide a long-standing underpinning for effective Croatian politics. The Croat-Serb Coalition and its orientation caused Croatian politicians not only to be marginalized in Croatia, but also to lose their political importance in the eyes of Vienna and Pest. Serbian politicians, on the other hand, increased in importance in the efforts to maintain Hungarian hegemony over Croatia, becoming completely dominant in the fateful years before the World War I, as well as during the war. As the underlying thesis that the Coalition rested on, the thesis about Croatian-Serbian unity and about Croats and Serbs as «a single people with two names» not only proved to be a utopia, it also proved to be a very negative and detrimental idea in the long term. This «guiding idea of the Serbs and the Croats», which was later expanded into the idea about «a single people with three names», developed into a proper apple of discord, since it served as the basis for the establishment of the Yugoslav state in 1918, and persisted almost throughout the 20th century in the service of the Great-Serbian idea. Svetozar Pribićević played a particularly important role in the affirmation of this idea, having masterfully taken advantage of all the weaknesses of the coalitional political option to put into effect Pašić’s recommendation «to make sure that Serbian, and not Croatian politics is the relevant factor in the Southern Slavic territory» in his capacity of the head of the Coalition and Serbian agent in Croatia. The negative consequences of Pribićević’s politics, formally resting on the idea about «a single people with two names» or «a single people with three names», had a devastating effect even after his condemnation of his own politics.

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