Interkulturalnost BR.6

Magazine for stiMulation and affirMation of intercultural coMMunication / octoBer 2013 / no. 06

Aleksandra Perović

issn 2217-4893

ìñtèrkùltùràlnòst

ISSN 2217-4893

ìñtèrkùltùràlnòst Magazine for stimulation and affirmation of intercultural communication / OCTOBER 2013 / NO. 06

3

4

INTERCULTURALITY Magazine for stimulation and affirmation of intercultural communication Publisher: Institute for culture of Vojvodina, Vojvode Putnika 2, Novi Sad, phone no. +381 21 4754148, 4754128, zkvrazvoj@nscable.net President and Chief Executive Officer: Vladimir Kopicl Editor-in-Chief: Aleksandra Đurić Bosnić, M.Phil.

Assistant Editors: Dušan Marinković, Ph.D, Novi Sad / Ivana Živančević Sekeruš, Ph.D, Novi Sad / Željko Vučković, Ph.D, Sombor / Aleksandra Jovićević, Ph.D, Belgrade, Rome / Dragana Beleslijin, M.Phil, Novi Sad / Dragan Jelenković, M.F.A, Pančevo, Belgrade / Ira Prodanov, Ph.D, Novi Sad, Andrej Mirčev, Ph.D, Osijek, Rijeka / Vera Kopicl, Novi Sad / Miroslav Keveždi, MA, Novi Sad Contributing Authors: Franja Petrinović, Novi Sad / Sava Stepanov, Novi Sad / Ivana Vujić, Belgrade / Saša Brajović, Ph.D, Belgrade / Nicolae Manolescu, Ph.D, Bucharest / Serge Pey, Paris / Majda Adlešić, M.Phil, Novi Sad / Tanja Kragujević, Belgrade / Nada Savković, Ph.D, Novi Sad / Damir Smiljanić, Ph.D, Novi Sad / Tomislav Kargačin, Novi Sad / Boris Labudović, M.Phil, Novi Sad / Ivana Inđin, Novi Sad / Radmila Gikić Petrović, Ph.D, Novi Sad / Aleksandra Izgarjan, Ph.D, Novi Sad / Aleksandra Kolaković M.Phil, Beograd / Aleksandra Đurić Milovanović Ph.D, Beograd Council: Jasna Jovanov, Ph.D. / Gojko Tešić, Ph.D. / Vasa Pavković, M.Phil. / Milena Dragićević Šešić, Ph.D. / Gordana Stokić Simončić, Ph.D. / Predrag Mutavdžić, Ph.D. / Nikola Grdinić, Ph.D. / Vladislava Gordić Petković, Ph.D. / Milorad Belančić / Mladen Marinkov, M.F.A. / Mikloš Biro, Ph.D. / Lidija Merenik, Ph.D. / Kornelija Farago, Ph.D. / Svenka Savić, Ph.D. / Svetislav Jovanov, Ph.D. / Milan Uzelac, Ph.D. / Janoš Banjai, Ph.D. / Ljiljana Pešikan Ljuštanović, Ph.D. / Žolt Lazar, Ph.D. / Zoran Đerić, Ph.D. / Zoran Kinđić, Ph.D. / Dragan Koković, Ph.D. / Dragan Žunić, Ph.D. / Milenko Perović, Ph.D. / Ildiko Erdei, Ph.D. / Dinko Gruhonjić M.Phil. / Nedim Sejdinović / Dubravka Valić Nedeljković Ph.D. International Council: Nebojša Radić, Cambridge, England / Ivana Milojević, Ph.D, Sunshine Coast, Australia / Dragan Kujundžić, Ph.D, Gainesville, Florida, USA / Branislav Radeljić, Ph.D, London, England / Nataša Bakić Mirić, Ph.D, Almaty, Kazakhstan / Samuel Babatunde Moruwawon, Ph.D, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria / Marharyta Fabrykant, Ph.D, Minsk, Belarus / Nina Živančević, Ph.D, Paris, France / Nataša Urošević, Ph.D, Pula, Croatia / A. K. Jayesh, M.Phil, Hyderabad, India / Dušan Bijelić, Ph.D, Portland / SAD, Maria Koundoura, Ph.D, Boston, SAD / Tomislav Longinović, Madison, USA / Jerry Chidozie Chukwuokolo Ph.D, Abakaliki, Nigeria Coordinator of the International Council: Dragan Kujundžić, Ph.D Legal Affairs: Olivera Marinkov PR Manager: Milica Razumenić Proofreading: Language&Translation Centre Translated by: Language&Translation Centre Technical Editor: Dunja Šašić International Cooperation: Ileana Ursu, Meral Tarar Tutuš Visual Identity: Dragan Jelenković Photography Director: Vladimir Pavić Layout: Pavle Halupa Editorial Photographers: Matt Lief Anderson, Cody Cobb, Aleksandra Perović, Katherine Squier, Nemanja Knežević Printed by: “Stojkov Printing House”, Laze Nančića 34–36, Novi Sad Copyright: The Institute for culture of Vojvodina, 2012.

Circulation: 300 The magazine is sponsored by the Provincial Secretariat for Culture and Public Information of AP Vojvodina Interculturality was categorized as a scientific publication of national importance (M52) in 2013 by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development - Serbia and the National Council for Science and Technological Development.

5

6

cõntéñts

èdítõr's ñòtê Aleksandra Đurić Bosnić, The Mission of Interculturalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës Damir Smiljanić, The Inclusion of the Third A Short Contribution to the Cultural Logic . . 14 Boris Labudović, Habermas or Luhman: The Public qua Measure of Communication . . . . . 22 Milorad Đurić, Ideological Dimensions of Anti-Globalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Sergej Beuk, Intercultural Theology: The Problem of Christian Identity and Contemporary Missiology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Hristina Mikić, Cultural Industries and the Diversity of Cultural Expressions: International Institutional Framework and the Current Conditions in Serbia . . . . 60 Svenka Savić, Veronika Mitro, Education for gender - Equal Society of Female Students in Serbia . . 88 Miroslav Keveždi, National Councils of National Minorities in Serbia and Their Activity in the Culture Field since 2009 to This Day – An Overview of the Most Important Scientific and Expert Papers, Analyses and Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Svetislav Jovanov, A Tragic Conflict in Goethe’s Egmont . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Vladislava Gordić Petković, From the Wife of Bath to Generation X: Gender Identity and Character Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Senka Gavranov, On a Construct Hunt: Destruction and Reconstruction of Gender in Kathy Acker’s Empire of the Senseless . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Dragana V. Beleslijin, Types of Male Characters in Judita Šalgo’s Poetry and Prose . . . . 168 Jasna Jovanov, Constantin Brancusi: Flight of the Divine Machinist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Vera Kopicl, Deconstruction of Gender Stereotypes in Video Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 Mixhait Pollozhani, The Image Censorship in Albanian Soc-Realistic Painting . . . . . . . . . . . 214 Aleksandra Đurić Bosnić, The Ideological Speech of Culture: Circulus Vitiosus . . . . . . . . 226 pêrspëctîvés Nenad Daković, On the Historic Task of Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Dušan Marinković, Werner Sombart and the spirit of capitalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Nina Živančević, Women and War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 Mikloš Biro, psychological Aspects of Reconciliation: the Example of serbs and albanians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 Sava Stepanov, The Initiatives of Milan Konjović in Serbian Painting in the 20th Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Dragan Kujundžić, Ghost Scriptum, or, Nothing to Play With . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 diãlôgüés Samuel Weber on Benjamin’s -aBilities (Interview conducted by Arne De Boever and Alex Murray) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288 cóõrdínätês Samuel Weber, Clouds: On a Possible Relation of Terror and Terrorism to Aesthetics . . 306 Ljiljana Pešikan Ljuštanović, The Joy of Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328 Nataša Bakić-Mirić, An Integrated Approach to Intercultural Communication . . . . . . . 332 Slobodan Vasić, Inquiring women, Feminist and Muslim identities: Post-Socialist Contexts in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 Pavel Gatajancu, “Europa” Magazine, Novi Sad and its Interculturality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342 Sonja Jankov, Film and Video in Vojvodina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346 Instructions for Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348

7

èdítõr's ñòtê

Aleksandra Đurić Bosnić

The Mission of Interculturalism

The most concise and probably the most adequate explication of the mission of the Interculturality magazine would go like this: Interculturality is an attempt at subtle theoretical intervention in the space of contemporary social practice, established or only presaged models of communication, thinking and acting. Somewhere among hypertrophically ecstatic, often superficial global communications and trends, regardless of our wishes or affinities, there is, completely immersed into reality, a luxuriant, unpredictable potential for the Different. As opposed to univocality, closedness, absolute determination and the paranoid escape from diversity, in other words, as opposed to the philosophy of a completed world, there lies a hidden, but also found, like in every lucidly constructed labyrinth, kaleidoscopic brewing of fictional provinces and metropolises that includes simultaneous mapping and discovering of the world of otherness. The common denominator of current definitions of the term ‘interculturality’ points at the definition of such terms as intercultural understanding, intercultural confrontations, intercultural circumstances, processes, states, possibilities of permeation, influences and recognition, cultural contacts without misunderstandings and conflicts... Theoretical determinations of the term ‘interculturality’ often point at its semantic framework: in this context, the prefix ‘inter’ is taken as an indicator of the contact and coexistence of cultures as the varieties that always require certain knowledge of oneself and the understanding of alterity.

Therefore, if we accept the formulation according to which intercultural communication is capable of opening new space, and intercultural competence means the ability to create this new inter-space by means of openness, empathy and tolerance, then the mission of the Interculturality is a creative engagement, a continuous action in terms of being tuned for the cancellation of closedness and finiteness of stigmatizing banalities and given patterns, being tuned for the recognition of mental megalopolises within us and around us, as a recognition and always exciting discovery of the novelty, both in ourselves and in others.

8

èdítõr's ñòtê

The Interculturality magazine was started in March 2011 as a part of the project after which it was named, carried out by the Institute for Culture of Vojvodina, with the aim of promoting interculturality as a fact of the contemporary world, and communication of the different as a privilege, since every violence directed at the existence is at the same time directed at the meaning, and its necessary premises are the absence of dialogue and the inability of the feeling for anything that is other and different.

At the turn of the 21st century we no longer discuss only tolerance, but rather the creative communication of cultures, as a space for achieving planetary closeness. Since we accept the fact that interculturality is the logical global order, intercultural communication will always emerge as a very conscious and articulated, personal or collective choice. In the field of the creation of this awareness or consciousness tuned for openness and dialogue, science and art share certain competences and responsibilities. In those terms, the scientific magazine Interculturality was envisioned as one of the potential signs on the road to that state of socialness that sees any kind of closeness and stigmatization as banality, and is based on the idea that the world is a place where there are no others who would be unwanted or foreign.

Finally, the INTERCULTURALITY is published in today’s Vojvodina because we believe in the creative order without any forms of narrowing the meaning, the world and the existence. The mission of the Interculturality was hinted at in its very first issue, but only the lasting existence will be its proof. Since communication is always also a metaphysical category, inconvenient for being closed and placed into a finite sign, we believe that the possibilities for our research will be inexhaustible and unpredictable in their diversity.

You are looking at the 6th issue of the Interculturality magazine. We would like to express our gratitude to all the members of the international community who gave us their trust and, together with us, took part in the creation of this project, making the mission of encouraging the intercultural communication possible locally, regionally, globally...

9

10

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës 11

f o t o

M a t t

L i e f

A n d e r s o n

m a t t l i e f a n d e r s o n @ g m a i l . c o m s t r a n a :

8 ,

9 ,

1 1 ,

3 4 ,

3 5 ,

4 7 ,

8 5

12

13

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 130.2

Damir Smiljanić

University of Novi Sad, Serbia Faculty of Philosophy

The Inclusion of the Third A Short Contribution to the Cultural Logic Summary: In this article the author considers the consequences that the inclusion of the figure of the Third could have for the cultural logic. As examples, we will use the concrete figures of stranger, love triangle, transgender. It will be shown what kind of structural changes in human interrelations (especially the conflicting ones) have been caused by the Third Person, and in which way the cultural and social theory has to deal with the relevance of this figure.

Key words: the figure of the Third, cultural logic, Georg Simmel, formal sociology, stranger, conflict, ménage à trois, transgender

Thomas S. Kuhn, the famous American philosopher of science, once suggested the formula called the paradigm shift for describing the structural changes that take place in the history of sciences.1 Even though his intention was to shed new light on the dialectics of continuity and discontinuity using the development of natural sciences as an example, the consequence of his rather original (or, at least, provoking) approach was that the above mentioned formula could be applied to an even greater extent to the sciences that have not yet acquired the status of ‘exact’ ones, and it is uncertain if they ever will. Namely, the human, social, historical or cultural sciences are even more subject to paradigm shifts than the natural ones. This can be seen on the example of sociology: it assumes a completely different form depending on whether its paradigm is the society as a whole of all individuals, or an individual as a social atom. Furthermore, it cannot be ruled out that one science is dominated by more paradigms at the same time.2 The paradigm shift can also 1 Compare to Kuhn 1962.

2 One could even talk of the multiparadigmatic format of human sciences.

14

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

be demonstrated using the example of a certain type of sociological thinking about the problem: in this sense, Niklas Luhmann postulates a turn from the paradigm of wholeness and parts towards the paradigm of system and environment or, in other words, a difference between identity and difference (in short: from reference to self-reference) as a key factor for the Systems Theory as a sociological discipline.3 The effect of the narrative regarding the paradigm change or shift can be purely descriptive, meaning that the history of a certain scientific discipline is actually reconstructed as a change in one style of thinking within that discipline, as it was once suggested by the Polish microbiologist Ludwik Fleck, the forerunner of the idea of paradigm in the field of the Philosophy of Science.4 However, subconsciously, the narrative about the alleged paradigm shift can also reflect a wish to change something in that field, a projection of a change that has still not taken place, but is foreshadowed by certain tendencies of the epoch. The idea that pointing at a certain change is already a contribution to science is a very attractive one. Who would not like to be a harbinger of a significant scientific change! First of all, in the contemporary philosophy, the observation of a current situation and the anticipation of a new (desired) one were mixed in a specific way, which is reflected by a whole semantics. In that respect, the so-called linguistic turn had been dominant here for a long time, until the intellectual scene got tired of it and resumed its pursuit of new upturns and turmoils, which recently gave rise to the story of the alleged pragmatic turn, or iconic turn. However, the question remains to which extent we are dealing with radical, pragmatic changes, and to which with an immoderate projecting of personal desires into the observed object, which is often a consequence of the sensationalism of our times, from which not even science is spared.

In other words, regardless of the danger of the narrative of changes and shifts becoming a fruitless intellectual fashion, one cannot deny that one such discourse (a word that can be applied here) could be an indicator of real changes. With this danger in mind, but at the same time recognizing the potential indicative power of ‘pragmatic discourse’, in the following pages I would like to make an observation of a certain potential paradigm shift that allegedly took place in the field of cultural sciences. I will illustrate this on the example of the current intellectual situation in Germany, where there has recently been talk of a new cultural-scientific paradigm: the figure of the Third.5 (I will write this term with a capital letter to demonstrate its importance, similar to the custom of writing the term Other with a capital letter in the philosophical context).

3 For comparison, please refer to his main work, Social Systems: Luhmann 1995.

4 His main work is The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, published in 1935. See Fleck 1979.

5 The German cultural-scientific collection of articles The Figure of the Third could become paradigmatic in this respect. Please refer to Eßlinger/Schlechtriemen/Schweitzer/Zons 2010.

15

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Since there is supposed to be a radical turn – from I to the Other or the Third – my speculations will remain in the domain of principles. As logic is used for dealing with principles in the scientific domain, my reflections were envisioned as a contribution to what might be called cultural logic (logic for cultural sciences). From Neo-Kantianism to Jürgen Habermas, the basis for building cultural sciences had been a much contemplated topic. To that effect, a methodological distinction between explaining and understanding was proposed, the hermeneutical approach was forced, or a hybrid concept (such as the one of communicative action) was constructed to denote the specific subject of social sciences. On the horizon of that logic, the relationship of two individuals (Ego and Alter [Ego]) was used as the paradigmatic model of human communication. In that sense, the logic was already conceived of as having a dual nature. However, it turns out that this logic should be subjected to revision, keeping in mind the fact that the inclusion of the third person into the communication between Ego and Alter leads to additional intensification and complexification of interpersonal communication. It is only the addition of the Third that makes the communication and, by extension, the interaction, rich enough for a social-cultural reflection.

If we wanted to play with words – even though it is not a mere wordplay – we could say that the cultural logic should insist on the inclusion of the Third rather than its exclusion.

Of course, the Law of the Excluded Middle was used by Aristotle to rule out the possibility that, besides one notion and its opposite, there also be a third option. The dialectical logic intervened against that, introducing synthesis besides thesis and antithesis. The Third, in the sense in which we are using this term, is neither the superfluous third element of formal logic – an element that does not add to the interaction anything that had not already been added by Ego and Alter – nor the dialectic concept of synthesis, which is supposed to give meaning to the communication between the one and the other one. Its inclusion into the interaction between Ego and Alter has a structural impact on their relationship: both the Self and the Other need to take a stand regarding the Third and, taking into account its presence (or, sometimes, absence!), define, and maybe even redefine their relationship. To illustrate this, we can use the change in the life of a married couple brought about by the birth of a child, or by a lover’s potential rival in the relationship ménage à trois. Including the Third means more than merely adding up three persons – it means changing the structural composition of dual interaction, and the beginning of complex networking of individuals, whose outcome remains uncertain. This always involves a certain risk – but without risk there would be no dynamics in the interpersonal relations.

One of the first thinkers to point out the structural role of the Third in generating new interactive relations was the German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel. One of the chapters of his Sociology (1908)6 explores, on almost one hundred pages, the issue of quantitative determination of social groups or, more precisely, the importance that the number of members has for the group. One of the main Simmel’s hypotheses in that con6 See Simmel 1992.

16

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

text is the argument about the dynamics that the third person brings into the relationship of two persons, about the additional differentiation of that relationship. The relationships are intensified: as A and B get into a closer relationship with the third person C, their relationship can change. They can grow closer, but the result is often the opposite (in the above mentioned example of a child as the Third, the child can either add stability to the marriage, or imperil it). Simmel gives several special figures of the Third: the mediator, one who mediates in a conflict, and who must be neutral and impartial; the so-called ‘laughing Third’ (lat. Tertius gaudens) – it is enough to remember the proverb about the third person laughing while two are fighting, to understand what Simmel wanted to say with this figure; then, the Third who, according to the principle divide et impera, tries to damage the relationship between two individuals for his/her own benefit.

With his research into the forms of socialization, Simmel made a contribution to the constitution of a specific research area, named formal sociology.7 He thus established a new way of thinking in sociology and cultural sciences (or, at least, prepared the path for it) – a way that proved to be extremely fruitful in the exploration of social and cultural problems. It is enough to mention the Figurational Sociology by Norbert Elias, the Systems Theory by Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann, or the Actor-Network Theory by Bruno Latour, all of which dominate the sociological debate of today. The process of civilization can be described as a certain historical figuration within which one can reconstruct the interdependencies between the Self and the Other in such a way that, by the actions of the Third, the outer coercion is transformed (sublimated) into self-coercion, leading to the cultivation of a knight as a typical medieval figure, and also to the rise of the court (feudal) society. A potential pitfall of ‘monadological’ thinking, which is partially given in the Systems Theory8, has in the recent years seen certain attempts at overcoming it by new thought models such as the one of the (social) network. The network does not consist of a dyad (relation between two elements or agents), but emerges from the connection of two agents with the third one, and that one with the others, etc, which in the end results in a complex configuration of relations. This trend can be noticed in media sciences, certain economic theories or the Theory of Science (known as the Actor-Network Theory). In any case, the basic unit of this type of connections between people is a triad rather than a dyad, and the figure of the Third is therefore attractive as a differentiation mechanism not only for social, but for theoretical structures as well.

7 This is unusual for someone who also wrote essays on various topics, such as the aesthetics of the handle or the psychology of jewelry. But that shows that the formal-theoretical way of thinking and the essayist way of writing are not mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, this model of writing has been lost in the postmodern age, because of the radical ‘essayism’ that is being forced.

8 The theorem of double contingency was decisive here, starting from the fact of double uncertainty about the outcome of the communication on the part of both (!) partners, Ego and Alter, which has some consequences for the self-reflection – the Third has been left out here, and maybe it is him/her who should be integrated into elementary social interaction.

17

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

His speculations on the ‘triangular’ character of social interactions (one could even talk of a ‘communication triangle’ as a quasi-logical figure) acquired additional attractiveness due to the fact that Simmel was able to find concrete examples of abstract thinking types. In his Sociology, the excourse about the stranger is a remarkable example of this.9 The stranger is defined as one who comes today and stays tomorrow. This means that he is defined topologically – as one who goes from one place to another, and stays there. The stranger is always a stranger in relation to the local population. Of course, from a perspective of one community or one society, the stranger has a (complete or partial) function of the Other. But there are also situations in which the stranger incorporates the Third – first of all, the situations in which two groups or two individuals are in a conflicting relationship.

(It is not a coincidence that Simmel was also interested in the sociology of conflicts. In fact, one chapter of his Sociology is dedicated to the issue of conflict). Depending on his/her motivation or on the objective constellation of relations, in a conflicting situation the stranger can play the role of the Third in various ways. He/she can be an outsider, someone who is outside the events and therefore does not want to get involved into the conflict. However, it is because of this neutrality that he/she can be involved into the conflict as a mediator or even as a judge, if both sides agree. He/she can also be an additional rival, joining one of the sides to help in the battle against the other one; in case of victory, this can bring him/her certain benefits. But he/she can also be the Tertius gaudens: one who uses a well-developed strategy to trick both sides and secure the largest benefit for himself/herself.

This last case – maybe the most interesting one – can be illustrated by fictional examples that could really happen. Such examples have the status of thought experiments, and are also significant for the cultural logic. This motive has also been used in the works of popular culture. One of the first authors to use it was the American crime story writer Dashiell Hammett, in his 1929 novel Red Harvest. Furthermore, Akira Kurosawa, in his 1961 film Yōjimbō, as well as the Western variant of this film made by Sergio Leone, entitled For a Fistful of Dollars [Per un Pugno di Dollari] in 1964.10 In these examples the plot is almost identical, only the context is different. The protagonist of the Hammett’s novel is a nameless (!) detective who manages to cheat two gangs fighting for primacy in the city of Personville. In Kurosawa’s film, instead of the detective, there is a wandering samurai, who also first seeks affiliation with one clan, and then the other one, while in the Italian Western, a secretive stranger in a Mexican village craftily changes sides in order to cheat two large families – the American Baxters and the Mexican Rojos. In all three cases, the stranger enters the conflict of two gangs or clans, and is forced to play a double role. And despite all the hardships, the Third triumphs in all three cases. The fact that he sometimes 9 See Simmel 1992, 764–771.

10 To complete this list, we can also mention the 1996 film The Last Man Standing by Walter Hill – half Western, half crime story – which deliberately continues the film tradition of the ‘inclusion of the Third’.

In temporal terms, the plot of this film is the closest to the context of the Hammett’s work.

18

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

does not have a name only proves the anonymity of the category of the Third: his reference (the thing he refers to) is not important, but his function (to configure relations) is crucial.

In structural terms, the inclusion of the Third leads to the intensification of social relations, which can happen in different ways: the relations can become even more tense if the stranger gets involved into the conflict and sides with one of the rivals, or it can be alleviated, if the stranger wants to achieve reconciliation. They can also be resolved, if he successfully plays his role of the mediator (or even a judge). Of course, conflicts do not have to be the only field where the change of ‘quality’, brought about by the arrival of the Third, is especially obvious, but it is symptomatic that conflicting relations are the best environment for discerning the role of the Third in the differentiation of social relations. This might be due to the fact that a conflict in itself represents an indicator of structural changes in a society.

As a further example of conflicting situations in which the figure of the Third is present, we could mention amorous relations between three persons. The motive of ‘love triangle’, often used in literature, where it often represents the rivalry of two men because of their love for the same woman – even though two women can get into a conflict over one lover. The motive of love rivalry is especially present in the Romantic literature. This triangular constellation was so fascinating because of the shift of perceiving and practicing the love itself, as described by Luhmann in his classical (we can call it that) study of love as passion.11 Romance no longer insists on the separation of love and marriage, or friendship and sexuality, as opposed to the intimacy code dominant in the previous centuries, where love as passion (passionate love) and the marriage as institutionalized form of love constituted two opposite poles.

An example for this can be found in the story Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, published in 181112, whose protagonist, a knight called Huldbrand, is the Third torn between his love for a nymph called Undine, and the young duchess Bertalda. He first marries Undine, and then Bertalda – but both marriages end in failure. Passionate love for a magical being does not tolerate the institutional coercion, while the marital love is destined to fail if it stems only from pragmatism, excluding passion. Such constellation of relations has to end in a way so common to the Romanticism: death. Banished, Undine kills Huldbrand with a kiss, as is demanded by the customs of her world. Unlike in the previous example, in this case the Third is a loser.

When it comes to amorous relations, in the contemporary social context, the category of the ‘third’ gender is becoming increasingly dominant, and can be used for exploring the relations between genders. The fact that transsexuals do not belong exclusively to either the male or the female gender raises some questions related to the gender as a social construct. They are often the ‘invisible Thirds’, as they usually hide from the public, or the public keeps them out of sight. The coercion of one-sided identification with one gender, 11 Compare to Luhmann 1986.

12 See Fouqué 1998.

19

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

still dominant in the European society (the Serbian society is a different story, as is well known by anyone who has followed the happenings of October 10th 2010 when the adherents of the Pride Parade were attacked by non-like-minded hooligans), can be considered as a kind of ostensible (if not real) violence. That is not the only mechanism of social identification or socialization that is being challenged more and more, as can be seen from the contemporary tendencies to recognize marital relationships between homosexuals, as well as to provide all the border cases and the cases diverging from the still dominant heterosexual relationship model (so-called queer-oriented individuals and groups) with equal chances for development and emancipation in the society. A profile of research on gender ‘anomalies’ has thus emerged (Queer Studies) with the aim of showing that this is essentially nothing abnormal, but rather a set of discriminating social constructs that need to be overcome. The emancipation of the Third as a separate gender category will not endanger the distinction of the two ‘recognized’ genders, as might be feared by some short-sighted critics of the Queer Studies; on the contrary, it will only enrich the image of a man as a being not fixed on just one modality of existence. The man is, by his nature, a transformer, a being that changes the forms of its existence and for whom it is not normal to exist in only one way. The figure of the Third might serve as an impetus for anthropology to change its image of the human being.

Several figures of the Third, which have been briefly presented here, show that the cultural sciences must gradually become accustomed to the transition from the binary to the tertiary way of thinking, if they want to make a contribution to the better understanding of modern society. The existential pathos of the narrative about the Other must be replaced with the social pragmatics of the narrative about the Third. Likewise, the naïveté of the ‘myth’ about the directness, that was supposed to guarantee the access to the Other, could not possibly survive due to the complications brought by the third person into the relationship between Ego and Alter – complications that should not be avoided, but rather faced by the theoretician of interpersonal relations. In both the theoretical and the practical terms, the category of the Third is important for the exploration of social interactions. Firstly, it is a theoretical innovation: human relationships are perceived differently if viewed from the perspective of the Third or, more precisely, if the perspective of the Third is included into the scientific discourse about the relationship of two individuals or two groups.13 The scientific view should become accustomed to the inclusion of the Third (not only as a third person, but generally as a third entity) so that the horizon of scientific reasoning could continue to be broadened. Even the fiction of the Third can have heuristic significance for science. Secondly, the figure of the Third is an emancipatory category – it can be used for pointing out the injustice in a society, suffered by all who have been excluded from the dual interaction of binary discourse. Establishing the Third could 13 After all, does the theoretician of society or culture not automatically assume the position of the Third when he explores the relations between two individuals?

20

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

be a contribution to the improvement of interpersonal relations, since his/her inclusion into the communication, as an equal player and partner, can help us to feel the respect for others. The tertiary logic, therefore, comes with a tertiary ethics: the theoretical respect for the Third can contribute to having greater respect for others in practice. But regardless of all the positive consequences that the inclusion of the Third can have for the exploration of social relations that make up one or several cultures, one should not exaggerate with the enthusiasm that has recently been accompanying the narrative about the Third. In other words, the triangulation of relations should not be talked up as the ‘Holy Trinity’. Science should never end up fetishizing a certain number. This is why certain methodological caution is needed, so that the figure of the Third does not become an obstacle for scientific insight, but encourages it instead.

LITERATURE 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Eßlinger, Eva; Tobias Schlechtriemen; Doris Schweitzer; Alexander Zons (ed.): Die Figur des Dritten.

Ein kulturwissenschaftliches Paradigma, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2010.

Fleck, Ludwik: The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

Fouqué, Friedrich de la Motte: Undine, Stuttgart, Reclam Verlag, 1998.

Kuhn, Thomas S.: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 1962.

Luhmann, Niklas: Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1986.

Luhmann Niklas: Social Systems, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995.

Simmel, Georg: Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung (Gesamtausgabe Bd. 11), Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp Verlag, 1992.

metaphilosoph@aol.com

21

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 316 Luhmann N. UDC 1 Habermas J. UDC 316.774

Boris Labudović

Communication Direction Center, Novi Sad Serbia

Habermas or Luhmann: The Public qua Measure of Communication Summary: The paper sheds some light on the way Niklas Luhmann (18271998) theoretically approaches mass media and the public, and compares his key observations with the paradigm of Jürgen Habermas.

Key words: Niklas Luhmann, Jürgen Habermas, public, mass media, system, communication

If there is no interculturalism without reciprocity, exchange, interaction, desegregation, interdependence and solidarity, then there is no interculturalism without the public.

For the most part, technical terms used in communicology in Serbia today come from English and German languages, and that seems natural enough if one takes into account the long tradition of studies in the field of communication, mass media and public opinion in these countries. The importance of publicity and public relation practices had been acknowledged almost at the same time in Germany and in the USA; moreover, in both countries, penetrating and well-developed studies in the field have been pursued. Some of the most important theories in the area of communication, media efficiency and public opinion were developed by German intellectuals who, having been forced to leave their country after the Nazis had gained power, immigrated to the USA, and, of course, by those who willy-nilly colaborated with them. Without underestimating in any way the contribution of other scientific communities, we may say that Germany and the USA laid the foundations for contemporary approach to studying mass media and the public sphere.

For these reasons we shall first explore the meaning of the terms ‘audience’ and ‘the public’ in English and German, and after that turn to the semiotic aspects of the words in Serbian.

The words audience and public (both adjective and noun) have many meanings in the English language. Firstly, the noun audience means the act or state of listening, then 22

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

formal hearing or interview, an opportunity of being heard (as in the expression “ being given an audience with”), and secondly, a group of listeners or spectators; a reading or hearing public, a group of fans or devotees and the like. The word is of Latin origin: audientia (from audire - to listen to) and under the influence of French and Middle English comes into the vocabulary of contemporary English with the typical use of referring to a group of people receiving, grasping something communicated publicly as spectators or hearers regardless of whether they are located at one particular place or disseminated all over some territory as spectators of TV programs, or those listening to the radio, or those attending a concert, or being present at a political rally. The term connotes that people are recipients rather than participants in the process of communication; it suggests that the masses (an aggregate) are passive rather than active. It was not until the nineties that John Fiske introduced the verb audiencing, suggesting a somewhat more active role of the audience in communication (this can, for example, be interpreted analogously to the theory of benefits and pleasures).

The word public as an adjective in the English language means being open to the knowledge (view) of all (the community), being open, being well-known, important (as in “a public figure”); material, what can be perceived, what concerns the whole nation or state (public law); what matters to the whole community. As a noun it refers to a people as a whole, to a populace, or to a group of people having something in common (some interest, for example) or some characteristic (reading public). This word is also of Latin origin, from publicus, an adjective, meaning belonging to the people, or to the state. The use of the word is very broad, signifying what can be seen, what is prominent, what can be perceived, what belongs to a nation, a community, to a people as a whole, what is open to everyone. As a noun, it refers to a people as a whole, a community at large and then to a specific group of people sharing common interests, concerns, attitudes or needs. The connotations of the word are related to a relatively homogenous collective body, unanimous in actions and attitudes. The plural form, publics, is used rarely, and represents a recent academic attempt to emphasize heterogeneity of certain groups The word has a lot of idiomatic expressions and derivations which can be translated in Serbian with different expressions. For instance, public domain as javna sfera, public enemy as državni neprijatelj, public relations as odnosi s javnošću, public school as državna škola. The expressions publishing and publicity should be mentioned here as well.

In dictionaries, it is hard to find any connection between the word public and participation, deliberation or mobilization, although in academic circles public is essentially treated as rational and active.

For the English word audience in dictionaries we find the expressions anhören, Gehör, Audienz, Zuhörerschaft and Publikum. The most often used word in the context of mass media is Publikum that has the same root as the English word, but has a somewhat different meaning. It is used for designating spectators or hearers taken as a collective body, those who are familiar with the achievements of arts and sciences, who frequent muse23

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

ums, restaurants and cafés. The German communicologists more frequently use the term Rezipient (with the same meaning as in Serbian, both from the Latin recipere – to receive).

The German equivalent of the English term public is Öffentlichkeit. This expression is well-known to students of public opinion from the title of a famous book by Jurgen Habermas – Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit – translated into English as The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, and into Serbian as Javno mnenje. We will analyze the expression javna sfera, which has become adopted in Serbian as a translation of the German Öffentlichkeit, later. The word Öffentlichkeit signifies something that is open, available, accessible to everyone, something that everyone can see or hear. Some compounds carry the same meaning: offentliche Veranstaltung – public assembly or event, or offentliche Wohl – the common good (well-being). This word has a long history in German theorizing, and has gained a relatively strong normative sense with a positive, active connotation, in contrast to the negative one of the word Masse ( the masses, the multitude).

At this point, some clarification considering the words publika and javnost is in order.

The noun publika, as we may find in the newest Veliki rečnik stranih reči i izraza (Klajn i Šipka, 2006), is a word stemming from the Latin publicus and having a wide range of meanings: the group of persons present, spectators, listeners; people with the same interest, taste or attitude, those who follow a certain cultural, artistic or entertaining activities; and even public opinion or the public or general public. Derivations include: publikacija (publication), publicistika (journalism) and publicitet (publicity).

The word javnost has the same form and meaning in Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian(although in Slovenian there is the word občinstvo as well, cognate to the word opština meaning community) etimologically stemming from the Old-Slavonic javiti, meaning to make known or visible; javiti in Serbian means to let someone know, reveal, and inform as well, while in the expression javlja mu se it means to see. In the well-known lexicon Sinonimi i srodne reči srpskohrvatskog jezika (Lalević,1974) we can only find the adjective in its indefinite form javan ( accessible, unhidden, obvious, open, well-known) and the definite form of the adjective javni (of the people, of the state, common, general), while the noun javnost is not explained separately, but cross-referenced to the synonimous narod (folk, people as a whole) and svet ( world).

In Serbian, therefore, the word javnost has a double function. Its first meaning is related to something open, available, visible, unhidden,while the other meaning is related to the community, folk, people at large and specifically to a populace having (potentially) an attitude or making a decision. Thus one might say: nema javnosti bez javnosti – there is no community without general openness. In other words, without a problem, say, being known to a populace, or a subject accessible to everyone, there is no community that would be able to take a stand or have an attitude toward any issue. In colloquial usage the most frequently used synonyms for javnost are narod (people, folk) and nacija (nation) (this is nearer to Allport`s sense of the term than to the notion of active or critical public) and this seems to be the case due to the lingering lack of public (civic) culture, tradition and terminology, which 24

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

is why the public has frequently been equated with the will of people or the attitude of nation (political leaders and demagogues usually make sure that this is generally acknowledged).

When the word is used in the sense of openness, availability, accessibility, it can best be recognized in the familiar democratic expression public and transparent political life, wherein by public the freedom of speech, the transparency of decision making and public control is meant or, succinctly put, the transparent functioning of the institutions is demanded. There is an expression in Serbian – javna tajna (public secret), something that is known to everyone and still remains a secret because it is not publicly expressed.

Therefore, in order for something to be public, it is not enough that it is generally known or acknowledged by everyone, but it must be made public, manifested in the language, uttered. Conversely, whenever the politicians are criticized for making decisions or signing contracts behind closed doors, they would reply that the document or whatever in question is public just because it can be found on the internet site of some ministry or other. What they mean is that public is something at everybody’s disposal, even if no one bothered to exercise the right to look it up. In this sense public is not something declared, nor known to everyone, but something that is simply available.

Sometimes javnost is used to signify an imaginary group of people that occupy a certain territory (novosadska javnost – the public of Novi Sad, srpska javnost – the public of Serbia) and whose hypothetical representative attitude can be statistically accounted for. In other words, the public does not exist without having a potential or actual opinion.

This can be detected in the expressions to javnost neće dozvoliti (the public won’t allow this), javnost nije prihvatila (nešto) (the public didn’t accept something), (nešto je) naišlo na osudu javnosti (it is condemned by the public). This is related to the expression javno mnenje (public opinion). Although some researchers claim that they identify and measure attitudes of the public, that is something rather difficult to prove. For the public does not have an attitude; the public does not have an opinion either, except when it is statistically measured, determined and represented. This is so because the very notion of attitude is rather problematical. Attitudes are studied because they are constitutive of actions and it is not beyond dispute in psychology that human actions are consequences of attitudes. On the contrary, one thing that is certain is that it depends on the context whether a human being will act in accordance with his/her (professed) attitude or not( Rejk i Edkok,1978, Aronson i drugi, 2005). Opinion is an apt expression for `attitudes` we ascribe to the public, because it implies `logically and empirically insufficiently supported thoughts, beliefs or points ofview` (Trebjesanin, 2004). Mainly, opinion can be reduced to taking sides regarding the alternatives offered by the interviewer.

The relation between the public and an audience is not clearly defined as either. It is usually assumed that both are imaginary aggregates – groups – of the very same individuls, at some point having the role of the recipient, and the role of the respondent at some other. It is natural to assume that the public first must be an audience in order to become the public, that is, to be able to respond or to express a reaction. But this is not 25

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

the case. The public is a much wider notion than the audience, as has been often pointed out by the researchers of public opinion; it is not unusual that the interviewees either declare themselves insuffciently informed regarding a given question, declare themselves ignorant or even refuse to give a statement – hence they were not part of the audience in any way – and despite this their answers are accepted and included in the opinion poll and thus become an integral part of the general public opinion. Therefore, the public becomes the public even if insufficiently informed. It should be noted, however, that there is an expression – pojaviti se u javnosti (to show up in public) – wherein the public is equated with the audience, since the public here implies the audience in the sense of (physically) witnessing someone’s appearance.

The public is often considered an audience that reacts; that is the case with the expressions such as javnost (je) osudila (the public condemned) or javnost nije dobro prihvatila (the public has not accepted well) in a newspaper article, TV program or whatnot. All the same, one should not assume that those who condemn (the public) are in fact the very same ones that watched the program or read the article (the audience).

Anyway, in Serbia the public is being appealed to much too often, even when nothing is known about its probable response.

By the public, to repeat, we usually mean an abstract, imaginary group of individuals that belong to a certain community; when we say the public we do not mean any person in particular. Except when we use javnosti (in plural); then we refer to the segmented public segmented and we are usually able to name some of the representatives of the kind in question (expert or professional group etc.).

In this paper, by (the) public we will mean accessibility, openness, availability on the one hand, and on the other a community that (potentially) responds, has opinions and beliefs; moreover, we will mean a representation of the opinion. Thus the English expression public relations, literally meaning, javni odnosi, is translated into Serbian as odnosi s javnošću (relations with the public) without losing its original sense.

HABERMAS AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE After these terminological remarks, it is important to devote our attention to Habermas’ notion of public sphere and his theory of the subject. Since the publishing of his book Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit in 1962 (English translation: The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere; Serbian translation: Javno mnenje 1969), the notion has become one of the key concepts in communicology, sociology, politicology and philosophy, in all the disciplines whose area of research and subject of study is concerned with the public.

One could say that this concept is not precisely defined, not even by the author; we claim that this is one of the reasons why different theorists so enthusiastically addressed this issue.

Having considered the structural transformations of the public sphere, Habermas states as a fact that the public sphere is not some timeless aspect of society; on the contrary, there have been different forms of it at different times, of which he mentions the ancient 26

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

(Greek) Olympic Games, the feudal representational public (as a form of representation), eventually arriving at his true subject – the civil bourgeois public. This concept of public is grounded in the private sphere (civil society, family as inner space, literary public, political public and the city itself) on the one hand, and in the public sphere (the state as the sphere of coercion and the court as the arena of nobility) on the other. The bourgeois elite was made up from those who did not govern, and the exercise of public reasoning, that is, the process of self-enlightening, was the province of the literary public. The public essence of the public authorities becomes negated by the political reasoning of private citizens. Habermas’ bourgeois public sphere implies the equality of the participants, rational argument as the highest arbitration, a (public) discourse consisting of problems of common interest and inclusiveness. As the main reasons for declining of the bourgeois public sphere he sees the mediation of the public, and the passive mass media consumption.

It is important to point out here that the term public sphere comprises two connected meaning clusters. The first is related to the public as an actual physical entity and national sovereignty, and the second includes the concept of being public and the openness. The same duality is what we have encountered while analyzing the English word public, the German Öffentlichkeit, and the Serbian javnost (or the Russian glasnost). Why is then the expression public sphere needed at all? It is because the public sphere should include – apart from the features mentioned – the “so called marketplace of ideas, the rationality of open discourse and the true sovereignty of the public” (Murphy, 2005, 1964). The public sphere is not just the public, nor just the condition of equality and general accessibility, but the process and space within which private citizens form the public opinion. Habermas’ conception is in fact a critique of positivist sociology; he reintroduces the reason and rational discourse as core concepts, hence the need for the term public sphere. The English translator rendered the German Öffentlichkeit into English public sphere to avoid words publicness (with the suffix –ness corresponding to the German – keit) or publicity, otherwise Habermas’ concept would be unnecessarily burdened – in the American context – with negative connotations from the commercial industry.

Thus, the public sphere is much more than the public. Two years after his book on transformations of the public sphere, Habermas wrote the entry for the Fischer Lexicon: Staat und Politik (in English: Habermas1974) where he clearly states that all the domains of social life belong to the public sphere in which public opinion can be formed or produced in any conversation among private citizens. The necessary condition is the possibility of the dialogue in the public milieu and the persons participating should neither be motivated by lucrative purposes, nor subjected to legal regulations of the state bureaucracy. In other words, no one should be coerced to participate; no one is a slave of profit.

The public sphere is opposed to clandestine policies; it is the control of the activities of the state; it is the critic and mediator between the state and the civil society.

Habermas constantly revises and improves on his concept of the public sphere. In his important work Between Facts and Norms (Habermas, 1996) by public sphere he means com27

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

munication structure (a systemic expression) immersed in the life-world (Husserl’s term) through conceptually connected network (systemic expression again) of the civil society.

He claims that the public sphere can best be described as a network for communicating bits of information and points of view; besides, through the process, the communication flux becomes filtered and synthesized, gathering into thematically clearly separable units of public opinion. Habermas points out that public opinion should not be confused with the results of opinion polls; it can only be the result of focused and public political debate.

We will now present some critical remarks considering the popularity and significance of Habermas’ conception. To begin with, it should be pointed out that the debate about the public sphere in Germany practically came to an end, the paradigm seems to be exhausted or, simply put, Habermas is “out of trend”. We repeat, next, that the adequate translation of the word Offenlichkeit into English is, as a matter of fact, publicness, or in Serbian javnost. The very word Offenlichkeit has been in use in the German language since the second half of the 18th century, signifying places where citizens were allowed to enter – including court protocols, religious services and academic lectures. The expression public sphere, on the other hand, appeared in 1974 as a translation of the German word.

Habermas’ translators Sara and Frank Lennox quote Peter Hohendahl, an expert for the transcultural aspect of meaning of words, in the footnote, who said that the new term was introduced in order to avoid identification of the public with individuals joined, emphasizing that a separate entity was meant. Habermas was obviously happy with this translation (and the new dimension), for he never noticed “the problem” with the translation. It is interesting to observe that, according to Habermas, historically the public sphere emerged first in England and then in France and Germany; conversely, the expression itself (for the phenomenon) cropped up in Germany first.

Habermas leaves the reader with the impression as though he was the first to write a comprehensive history and theory of the public sphere, but that is not the case. In a recent German study on the subject1, a comprehensive bibliography on more than 50 pages was listed, where one can ascertain that there were lots of books before and after the Habermas’ book appeared. About Habermas as an author relatively little was said: he was mentioned as a historian of the public sphere, the originator of the normative approach and a political analyst. If this is so, why was his concept so much commented on, and why was his theory of the public sphere so popular (even outside Germany)? We will try to answer this question in a quite simple manner.

First of all, the time when the book appeared (1962) is of essence. It was only three years before the German Social-Democratic Party had publicly repudiated the Marxist tradition and adopted a reformist program. Recognized as a representative of the German leftists, Habermas was at first interpreted as a theorist who would introduce the principle of gradual changes with the concept of the public sphere rejecting the 1 Hohendahl, Peter Uwe (ed.) Offentlichkeit – Geschichte eines kritischen Begriffs, Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler

28

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

inevitability of the revolution. True, his theory is not the one demanding political participation, but being a substitute for the participation (it should be emphasized that he came up with his theory of deliberative democracy only later). In order to understand the principle of “conservative modernization” in Germany in the right way, we should recall the deep rooted tradition of intellectual debates without significant political consequences which is still alive in Germany, occupying selected pages in daily and weekly newspapers and magazines which are called Feuilleton (from the French feuillette – leaflet). As Kleinstuber (2001) writes, Jens Jensen, the editor of Die Zeit, a well-known German weekly review in which Habermas usually published his essays and polemical texts, has confessed that the feuilletons are places for utopia being tolerated by the politicians because of the fact that they are written in a rather abstract language that limits the access to the debate to a quite narrow intellectual elite rather than the whole of the public. Habermas’ influence on the German politics and the public stems from these texts, and his personal history of participation follows a great political tradition.

Habermas pulled no punches. His controversies with Heidegger, Popper, Albert, Gadamer, Luhmann and Liotard are classics of German philosophy and intellectual history.

Moreover, Habermas has been a fellow in a prestigious institution – Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt – and was able to present himself as a successor and later as a leader of an important philosophical and sociological tradition – Critical Theory – in spite of his differences with Horkheimer and Adorno, the leading figures of the Institute in that period, regarding his thesis The Structural Transformations of the Public Sphere. He knew how to identify a social problem – alienation, domination – to offer a solution – communicative action – and to present himself as the gate-keeper of the public sphere.

LUHMANN, MASS-MEDIA, AND THE PUBLIC Niklas Luhmann developed his theory in opposition to Habermas’ ideas. Their initial controversies included the notions of time, life-world, contextual dependency, the German Idealism, the concepts of sense, paradox and convergence; however, Habermas never allowed that the book that they wrote together, a collection of their polemical texts, be translated into English.

Habermas has always considered sociology to be a critique of society (and science something very close to moral obligation). By contrast, Luhmann claims that sociology is a self-examination of the society. Luhmann argues that there is room for improvement, but one should withhold moral judgments until gaining scientific insights into the complexities of modern society. Habermas divides the society into system-world and life-world, whereas Luhmann thinks society is but one single system (the global world) which is subdivided into subsystems. Habermas ascribes communicative action to individuals and their intersubjective understanding, whereas Luhmann claims that the social systems themselves consist of communication. According to Habermas, communication is directed at mutual understanding and consensus, while Luhmann thinks that the pur29

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

pose of communication is to understand preferences and differences, that is, to make a comparison of mutual disagreement.

Luhmann thinks that in a functionally differentiated modern society there is no basic, fundamental system. There is no hierarchy; no dominance among the systems, no social system that could essentially characterize society. What is more, systems develop unequally; some of them flourish, some decline and disappear. Different systems at different times have different significance in society. The system of mass-media today can be best described as a “new star among systems”. It came into being with the printing press and achieved a major breakthrough in the second half of the 20th century. Since the public – according to Luhmann – is the currency of communication mediated by mass-media, we will focus on Luhmann’s theses on the mass-media with some help from Hans-Georg Moeller’s interpretation (Moeller, 2006).

To begin with, Luhmann observes that in the world dominated by technology there is a partition between those who create programs and the audience and those who receive the programs, but in contrast to, say, Heidegger or Baudrillard, he does not try to diminish the authenticity of such communication. He says that this can only be the reason for thinking that mass-media communication is of its own kind, made possible by a certain technological advance. It does not require spatial or temporal contact and, to a certain extent, it cannot be controlled (interrupted, contradicted and passed over in silence). In addition, it is not a technological problem because it is not possible to learn anything about its codes, symbols and functions by studying the hardware. Technological operations are not the operations of mass-communication.

If mass-media constitute an autopoietic system, then the system must have its own code. Without operative self-containment there is no autopoiesis of social systems, and without a code-system the system cannot differentiate itself from the environment.

According to Luhmann, the basic code of the media-system is the opposition information\ non-information. The mass-media observe the environment and select or construct information. What they do may be called a selective production of information.

Information is simply everything that the mass-media select, print or broadcast, while non-information is anything that remains unpublished. By information we mean generic information for each and every consumer. Even the restrictions are restricted (there are films for adults only, but those films are for all the adults). We know that the elements of autopoietic systems are not ontologically neutral; their mere use makes them elements of the system. Therefore, information selection is a construction process; something becomes a piece of information just by its selection and functionalization.

The mass-media system turns permanently information into non-information, contingent into redundant; with each move of the system, value ceases to be value (Luhmann, 2000). We do not encounter this phenomenon within other systems; in the legal system, for example, something legal does not become illegal at the very moment it is declared legal.

30

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

The mass-media work fast, faster than other systems. The time is a sign, according to Luhmann, that somewhere there is something happening, and the media make us conscious of that. Some forms of anachronism and repetition are necessary for science, law or education, but from the point of view of the media these are excessive. That is why the media are fast. The very moment it is communicated, a piece of information ceases to be information and must be replaced with another piece. “Fresh money and new information are the two central motives of modern social dynamism ” says Luhmann (2000, 21).

Luhmann does not have doubts whether there is a connection between the media and our perception (experience) of reality. His book – The Reality of Mass-media – begins with an explicit statement that everything we know about our society or about the world we live in, we know through the mass-media. What is even more important for the social orientation of an individual is the fact that through the media we do not only get to know what we know, but we also get to know what is known to everybody. In other words, the media constitute the world we share with others. Without the media we would not be able to talk to others about the reality, about the same world we share.

Do the media manipulate the audience? Luhmann says that we know enough about the media, enough, that is, not to trust them without remainder. We act as though we suspect manipulation; however, no important consequences follow from this. The knowledge we get through the mass-media seems to be expanding into an ever-growing structure.

We, of course, may challenge this knowledge raising doubts regarding the quality of any given piece of information; be as it may, we get “what is known to everybody” regardless of quality or truth, and this becomes the basis for any further communication in a society, including dissent. The public simply accepts mass-media reality as the only reality we share. There is no other reality we could replace this one with. We live with suspicion, but if we deny this reality now, we will not be able to connect to any (other) reality tomorrow.

That is why some contemporary German theoreticians of the public and public relations seldom demand “the truth” from the media, and more often talk about “adequacy and suitability” instead (Bentele, 2007).

Luhmann’s reply to the human-centrist criticism of the mass-media, which he calls rationalist romanticism, is that mass-media manipulation should not be reduced exclusively to a group of people in control, since this means that, if we eliminated the group and thus stopped manipulation, suddenly “the truth” would surface – the truth about the Gulf War, for example. Such an essential reality, reality in itself, simply does not exist; therefore, it is hardly possible to “liberate” the media in this way. It is equally naïve to believe that if politics and big business let the media be, they would suddenly start speaking the truth. Equally improbable is the following hypothetical situation – the politicians would organize argumentative debates in the campaign, together with free and fair elections, instead of putting up a spectacle for the voters, if the media stopped harassing them. It is an ancient European error – Luhmann says – to believe that the media is not a system, but a group of people who can be easily changed and directed toward the truth.

31

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

The mass-media thus do not represent an ontologically neutral, objective reality in itself, but rather as an autopoietic cognitive system they observe reality and thus constitute it. There is no absolutely authentic and unique interpretation of events, because every observer has his/her own perspective. The media construct reality for the public and for society, but this reality is not “more” real or “less” real than the reality of any other system (mankind, politics, economy). The world in a phenomenological sense is the horizon. The construction of reality is always reality of the construction.

The fundamental function of the mass-media system in a society is to stabilize the ratio between redundant and contingent. The media offer limited choice. The system turns unknown into known. The age-long aspiration of the mankind is to explain the world.

Anything unknown represents fear and threat.

The second function of the system in the social dynamism is accelerating time. The mass-media make sure society stays alert to adapt to the unexpected. Relentlessly, they confront the society with new problems; they produce new irritations, as it were. The media is frequently accused of disturbing the public, but that is how they operate. Other systems cannot simply ignore the production of information and time; they must react. That is why a number of political campaigns choose the slogan “It is time for changes”, and the economy keeps investing large sums of money into advertising the products. The media provide the society with an all-accessible memory. The memory does not have a form of an information deposit, but of an ever-active production of reality (Moeller, 2006). Each system produces its own reality, and the mass-media create a common background for these realities.

The third and, perhaps, the most important function of the mass-media, is to create the form of reality, which is a starting-point for every other systemic reality. This may be called the smallest common reality we all share.

Luhmann explicitly criticizes Habermas on this point, saying that our reality is not some common reality; it is not based on consensus or on any other form of agreement between the citizens. If this was the case, the media would be a destabilizing factor. On the contrary, what they offer is always a limited variety of choices and flexibility. That is why a normative theory cannot be based on a consensus. A subtle ratio of differences and redundancy is necessary to avoid the risk of communification. There must be freedom of choice, otherwise we would not be able to tolerate differences, to share a minimum of common reality. Whenever the media were exclusivist in trying to construct a single and unique (interpretation of) reality – that reality would fall apart; a very natural question after watching the news in the Milosevic era was this: Which world do they live in?

WHAT IS THE PRODUCT OF THE MASS-MEDIA? THE PUBLIC AND PUBLIC OPINION Luhmann’s early critique of Habermas’ theory of the public sphere dates back some 40 years, in the days they began their controversy. Whenever Habermas would insist on finding some new collective social function of the public sphere, Luhmann would reply that it 32

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

is impossible to find a solution for a society particularized into specialized sub- systems.

Luhmann was convinced that, in the conditions that exist in a post-industrialist society, an all-inclusive communication process can take place only in specific and exceptional circumstances, so consequently the public sphere loses its distinctive properties, ceasing to be all-inclusive, rational and based on consensus. The only way out, as he saw it, would be to initiate relevant topics for political discussions appropriate for developing into the structure of the communication process. In other words, according to Luhmann, it is important to focus on the systems themselves, because the public sphere comes into being around the systems following the themes and problems that keep arising. The public sphere becomes more and more dependent on authorities institutionalized within the systems – parties, bureaucracy and interest groups. Luhmann rejects the concept of public sphere as a collective subject questioning even the position of the individual in it. He claims that it is simply not true that an individual person, by virtue of self-reflection, is capable to come up with something universal, common for the whole mankind, to arrive to a consensus or to know the truth. Luhmann’s critique had some influence on Habermas, and Habermas’ ideas helped Luhmann to form his conception of social systems based on communication.

The public, according to Luhmann, is the medium (vehicle) of the mass-media. The non-consensual character of the mass-media reality is definitely related to the fact that public opinion is not something shared and felt by different people, but is rather a set of incongruent and impersonal beliefs and attitudes. The public is simultaneously for and against; the difference is in percentages and it changes daily.

As any other system, the mass-media is absorbed in autopoiesis connecting its own operations to other, new operations. Here is the space the public occupies; being very efficient and never getting tired (Moeller, 2006) – you can always contact it (that is what people do every day, Noelle – Neumann, 1974). Public opinion changes every day, it can be reinvestigated every day. And when it does not change – that indeed is a piece of information!

The public opinion from yesterday is a foundation for the public opinion today, says Luhmann. The result of the previous communication process always forms the basis for the next one. The public opinion about a new political decision is a new public opinion.

Public opinion is not a sum-total of contents of individual consciousnesses (how could that be calculated?), but the communicative product of the mass-media. Public opinion today is neither an attitude en vogue as it was held in the 17th century, nor a medium of rational enlightening as it was constructed in the18th century. In the 21st century, public opinion is rather a medium of self-description and of universal description of the complex modern society. Luhmann says that public opinion is the Holy Spirit of society, the communicative accessibility of the results of communication.

Calling the public and public opinion the Holy Spirit, Luhmann emphasizes with mild cynicism its functional significance. Public opinion has nothing to do with human rationality; it is a communicative medium made possible by the expansion of the massmedia in a global autopoietic system. With the production of social memory emerges 33

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

a need for some sort of “currency” by means of which it will express itself and interact with other systems. This must be materialized into some shape and form; just like in economy, where we need money to interchange different things, the reality also needs a medium to express itself – the public.

Public opinion is a self-description of society. It changes with every new item of news, transforming itself into an eternal spiral.

CONCLUSION Luhmann’s paradigm is very important. It may help communicology think through its subject-matter and distinguish itself from sociology, or simply put, take the place of third level observation and thus better understand public communication, together with the processes signifying, giving explanation and constituting sense – in a word, providing understanding in a society.

Is it possible to accept Luhmann’s theory and, at the same time, remain true to Habermas’ utopian principles? Or is it possible to put together a new critical and systemic theory? Maybe it is, if someone answered the question from which vantage point to observe society, and what directions should be prescribed to it in advance in order to make a critique possible. On the other hand, we believe that Luhmann’s concept of interaction as a temporal system does not make much sense (because it is based on a perception code and not on communication and meaning), so Habermas’ idea of communication network in the life-world should be reaffirmed (so that it could be compatible with Luhmann’s systemic theory).

A new theory of communication should break away from the mistakes such as assumingthat society is made up of concrete individuals and relations among them, or that society is constituted by means of a consensus, agreement of opinions and complementarity of individual purposes, or that societies are territorially and regionally limited, or that society can be observed from the outside as a group of people occupying some space.

Luhmann’s concept of the public is more convincing than Habermas’ as much as his discursive analytic strategy is more serious and more reasonable than the normativist theory. Today, the public is, therefore, a construction, the structure and currency of communication mediated by the mass-media.

34

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

REFERENCES 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

Aronson, Elliot; Wilson, Timothy D. i Akert, Robin M.: Socijalna psihologija, Zagreb, Mate, 2005.

Bentele, Ginter: „Odnosi s javnošću: Rekonstruktivni pristup“, CM, 2007, 2 (2): 5–23.

Fraser, N.: “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy”, Social Text, 1990, 25/26: 56–80.

Habermas, Jirgen: Javno mnjenje. Beograd, Kultura, 1969.

Habermas, Jürgen: “The public sphere: An encyclopedia article (1964)”, New German Critique, 3 (autumn 1974): 49–55.

Habermas, Jürgen: Between facts and norms, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996.

Habermas, Jürgen: “Political communication in media society: Does democracy still enjoy an epistemic dimension? The impact of normative theory on empirical research”, Communicaton theory, 2006, 16 (4): 411–426.

Klajn, Ivan i Šipka, Milan: Veliki rečnik stranih reči i izraza, Novi Sad, Prometej, 2006.

Kleinstüber, Hans: “Habermas and the public sphere: From a German to a European perspective”, The Public, 2001, 8 (1): 95–108.

Labudović, Boris: “Pojam komunikacije u opštoj teoriji društvenih sistema Niklasa Lumana”, CM, 2007, 2 (2): 23–44.

Labudović, Boris: “Niklas Luman kao komunikolog: masmediji i javnost u opštoj teoriji društvenih sistema”, CM, 2007, 2(4): 89-110.

Lalević, M. S.: Sinonimi i srodne reči srpskohrvatskoga jezika, Beograd, Leksikografski zavod Sveznanje, 1974.

Luhmann, Niklas: “Autopoiesis: What is Communication?”, Communication Theory, 1992, 2 (3): 251–259.

Luhmann, Niklas: The reality of the mass media, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2000. Луман, Никлас: Друштвени системи: Основи опште теорије, Нови Сад, Издавачка књижарница Зорана Стојановића, 2001 a.

Luhmann, Niklas (2001b). Znanost društva. Zagreb: Politička kultura.

Meinhof, Urlike Hanna: “Audiences and publics: comparing semantic fields across different languages”, Audiences and publics: When cultural engagement matters for the public sphere. Edited by Sonia Livingstone, Bristol, Intelect Press, 2005.

Milivojević, Snježana: “Javnost i ideološki efekti medija”, Reč, 2001, 64 (10): 151-213.

Moeller, Hans-Georg: Luhmann explained: From souls to systems, Chicago and La Salle, Open Court, 2006.

Murphy, Thomas F.: “Public sphere”, New dictionary of the history of ideas. Editor in chief Maryanne Cline Horowitz. Farmington Hills, Thompson Gale, 2005.

Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth: “The spiral of silence: A theory of public opinion”, Journal of Communication, spring 1974.

Rejk, Ben i Edkok, Kristina: Vrednosti, stavovi i promena ponašanja, Beograd, Nolit, 1978.

Thompson, J.: “The Theory of Public Sphere: A Critical Apraisal”, Polity Reader in Cultural Theory, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1974: 91–99.

Trebješanin, Žarko: Rečnik psihologije, Treće pregledano izdanje, Beograd, Stubovi kulture, 2004.

labud@mac.com

35

36

37

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 316.32

Milorad Đurić

Provincial Secretariat for Culture and Public Information, Novi Sad The Faculty of Political Sciences, Beograd Serbia

Ideological Dimensions of Anti-Globalism Summary: By analysing ideological dimensions of anti-globalism, this paper examines the connection between ideology as a type of social/political constitution of meaning, in which partial interests are formed as normative projects, and the way in which social communication is produced. We assume that changes in the sphere of ideology, that is the fact that anti-globalism keeps avoiding traditional ideological divisions, may be observed as changes in the production of social communication. The contemporary world is constantly circumventing (the intended) control as a result of permanent self-reflexiveness and large amounts of information that constantly enter the universe of our social life. In such an unstable world, assumptions that have so far been fundamental in our present concepts of ideology radically change too...

Key words: anti-globalism, globalisation, ideology, communication, changes

„Mark this well, you proud men of action.

You are nothing but the unwitting agents of the men of thought who often, in a quiet self-effacement, mark out most exactly all your doings in advance“ (Heinrich Heine, 1834.)1

As early as the closing years of the 20th and first years of the 21st century, a series of protests against the institutions of de facto “World Government“ (Chomsky) – World Trade Organization, G8, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Economic Forum, OECD, NATO that broke out in Seattle, Washington, Melbourne, Seoul, Nice, Barcelona, 1 Quoted from: Slavoj Žižek, “U odbranu izgubljenih stvari“, Akademska knjiga, Novi Sad, 2011.

38

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Genoa, Brussels, Porto Alegre, along with the enhancement of nationalism, growth of Islamic fundamentalism and alike, raised new issues related to the state of the world.

Although these events are commonly referred to as the “anti-globalist movement“, their heterogeneity is evident: from colourful carnival and creative protest-performances, occupation of spaces and buildings (“Take the Square“, “Occupy Wall Street“) to destruction of corporate property, and open conflicts with the police to organising serious conferences (World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, for example). At first sight they are ideologically unattainable – beyond the traditional left wing-right wing division, but still with flexible alliances in different (sometimes unexpected) movements. In terms of organisation – it is a flexible network of movements, non-structured, non-hierarchical which includes both “the old“ and “new“ movements, united in infinite cries for freedom and justice. In terms of territory – it is a spreading movement – Spain, Great Britain, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France, Greece, Ireland, Brazil, the USA (countries of the Arab world where the “Arab spring“ erupted are not included here). Finally, “aesthetic-carnival manifestation of anarchic Demos“ (Žižek), a sort of melting pot of the new age iconography, anarchism, fundamentalism, ecologism, anarcho-punk and alike, points to a complicated task of “decoding“ these events that shook the world (nonetheless).

However, they did not only shake the world lulled, for a second, into a story of the final domination of democratic-liberal concept, but affected the very “conditions of analysis“, that is, they imposed the change of the paradigm which was the key to our interpretation and understanding of political phenomena.

As this paper is aiming to determine the ideological dimensions of anti-globalism, we assume that: a) the oratory of old ideological divisions is no longer adequate to the attempt at understanding contemporary anti-globalist events; b) the inadequacy of clear ideological divisions in respect of the anti-globalist phenomenon is caused by structural changes in the way of producing social communication; and c) despite announcement, the (utter) death of ideology has not yet occurred – i.e. anti-globalism, in spite of its extreme heterogeneity, still has a certain ideological dimension; and d) anti-globalism, contemporary in terms of the time of its emergence, is based on the hypotheses of ”old” ideologies.

However, before we look into these hypotheses specifically – let the cause of things speak for itself. Thus, it is necessary to make a short genealogy of notions.

The end of century, end of ideology?

Except for bringing us back into the socio/political atmosphere of the first half of the th 19 century and despite its (inarguably exaggerated) sharpness, the attitude that Heinrich Heine expressed in his History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany, in 1834, nonetheless represents an intriguing motive for deliberating on the position of ideology in the infinite complexity of the contemporary world. Heine’s attitude is unambiguous: it is based on the assumption that ideas may rule the world; that the world may be ruled by implementing theoretical structures and models... Therefore, such sense of ideology belongs to the ambi39

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

ence of political modernism. For, only in the conditions of an open social communication that is based on the civil society dynamics (the presence of autonomous social groups), individual rights and the system of institutions protecting/facilitating them – could the process of producing different, competitive ideological concepts be developed. Therefore, it is only in a modern, liberal universe that the idea of ideology could emerge – as a set of ideas, beliefs and doctrines that are to be applied on society in order to encourage its development – contrary to a chaotic mass composed of individuals absorbed in their own opinions and values, which ideology should master in order to turn the (masses) into a political force2.

Whether taken as a passive reaction to social and political conditions or a set of attitudes and values that inspire political actions, ideology has been one of the central and unavoidable points of political analysis in the previous two centuries3 . In the past two hundred years, political theory and practice have been passed on by codes/passwords such as “liberalism“, “conservatism“, “communism“, “nacism“, “anarchism“, “socialism“, “facism“, “racism“, “nationalism“, “neo-liberalism“, “feminism“, etc. These codes serve as specific points of orientation in the wide political spectrum to both the participants and observers. In addition, they are a driving force too, in ultimately irrational movements – millions of people have, only in the last two centuries, been ready to pursue or be pursued, to close or be closed, to kill or be killed in the name of different ideological “-isms“. On the other hand, it is almost impossible to find an example of the absolute and consistent application of ideology in political practice – there is no politician who would not, to some extent, depart from the (self)proclaimed political identity. After all, in the pragmatic struggle for coming into power, compromises are a necessity.

Everything: conceptual and practical inconsistency, strong emotional feelings, undisputable influence on political actions, as well as frequent exploitation in a negative, stigmatizing context turned ideology into one of the most elusive notions of social and political theories. Despite the large number of, often strongly opposing definitions and apparent absence of consensus in the role and significance of ideas in politics, it is possible to create the group of meanings which, in different theories, are attributed to ideology.

Therefore, ideology, in the broadest spectrum of different theories, has been apprehended as: the system of political beliefs; set of action-oriented political ideas; ideas of the ruling class; certain social classes’ or social groups’ view of the world; political ideas that embody 2 Of course, not all political thinkers welcomed this interpretation of ideology. Behavioural perspective, for example, assumes that human beings and their actions are propelled by challenges of their surroundings, and Orthodox Marxism apprexends political ideas as a reaction to the “material basis“ that is economic and class interests. Accordingly, ideology emerges as a “fake conscience“ (Engels), as a means of concealing deeper realities of social life.

3 Antoine Destutt de Tracy is considered the founder of ideology because it was in 1796, during the French Revolution that he used the term for the first time, thinking, with enlightener’s enthusiasm, that it would become a new, objective science about the origin of ideas.

40

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

or articulate classes or social interests; ideas that disperse fake consciousness among the exploited or oppressed; ideas that put an individual in the social context and produce the feeling of collective affiliation; officially approved set of ideas that are used for giving legitimacy to a political system or regime; comprehensive political doctrine that claims its right on the monopoly of truth; abstract and highly-systematic set of political ideas. There is no doubt that this list of different meanings is far too long which is why we are going to stick to Heywood’s definition of ideology that includes the following: „...more or less coherent set of ideas that provides the basis for organised political action, whether this is intended to preserve, modify or overthrow the existing system or power. All ideologies therefore have the following features: a. they offer an account of the existing order, usually in the form of a ’work view’, b. they advance a model of a desired future, a vision of the ’good society’, and c. the explain how political change can and should be brought about – how to get from (A) to (B).“ (Heywood, 2005, pg. 12) As such, the definition points to descriptive and normative aspects of ideology: on one hand, it advances intellectual/value mapping that could help individuals orientate in the actual society define their affiliation (or antagonism) in regard to political ambience. On the other hand, normatively, ideologies “provide“ desired future conditions of the society, produce a certain type of political identity and therefore lie on a fundamentally enlightening assumption of the possibility/need for (rational) control of the society. Therefore, ideology may be observed as a type of social/political constitution of meaning, in which partial interests are formed as normative projects. If “an elementary process that is socially constituted as a special (partial) reality – the communication process“ (Luhmann, 2001, pg 206), that is, if the process of producing communication is at the same time the process of producing meaning (which results in generating certain ideological identities), then the changes in ideological identities may be observed as changes in the socially produced communication.

However, in the second half of the 20th century, social changes, which would essentially change the usual perspectives, began to manifest. These changes, the acceleration of history and intensification of the globalization process, influenced the presence of “endism“ doctrines, which announced or concluded “the end of something“ – “end of cold war“, “end of communism“, “end of modernism“, “end of art“ and alike. Accordingly, there were several theories in the second half of the last century that concentrated around the idea of the end of ideology. Despite the differences, all these discussions pointed to the fact that the era of enlightenment in which “the hero of knowledge works toward a good ethico-political end - universal peace“ (Lyotard, 1988.,2), ended bringing ideology as a means of organising socio-political life to an end.

One of the pioneers was certainly Daniel Bell. As early as 1960, in his book “The End of Ideology“ he concluded that the general consensus was reached on the triumph of 41

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

“economy“ over “politics“ in western societies as well as the absence of significant ideological differences and debates among political actors. Political rivalry was reduced to issues of government efficiency and material prosperity.

Jean-Francoas Lyotard presented another form of the theory about the end of ideology suggesting that in a post-modern condition “....distrust of metanarratives“ is established.

The distrust is, beyond any doubt, the consequence of scientific progress but the very same advance, assumes it from its own perspective. (....) Narrative function loses its functors, its great hero, its great dangers, its voyages and its great goal. (...) Nonetheless, those who decide are trying to rule these forms of sociality by input/output matrices, adhering to the logic that assumes ponderability of elements and identifiability of the whole. (...)

The implementation of such criteria to all our games is not feasible without some terror, either gentle or brutal: be operational i.e. ponderable or disappear “. (Lyotard, 1988., 3) Finally, in introductory parts of the book “The End of History and The Last Man“, Francis Fukuyama concluded that .......“the consensus concerning the legitimacy of liberal democracy as a system of government had emerged throughout the world over the past few years“ i.e. “...that liberal democracy may constitute “the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution“ and “the final form of human government“ and as such constituted “the end of history“. (Fukuyama, 1997, 19) This genuine fin-de-siecle ideology became very influential in academic circles because many papers emerged that followed the approach.... However, the thesis on general consensus concerning liberal democracy (of course, including socio-economic dimensions too) was questioned quite soon....

Globalization and anti-globalization There is no doubt that today we are living in a globalized world. The world in which the continuing technological development, as man’s effort to respond to the challenges of the nature, resulted with the situation in which the entire mankind is in interaction – everybody is in relation with everybody. The world which, as Mcluhan concluded...“after three thousand years of explosion by means of fragmentary and mechanical technologies, (...) is imploding. During the mechanical ages we had extended our bodies in space.

Today, after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned“. (Mcluhan, 1971, 37) The electronic instantaneity of communication has substantially changed the former linear structure of our civilization – now, everything is in the center and at the same time, everything is peripheral. The contraction, implosion of time and space, the connection between “when“ and “where“ is discontinued in so far as the locales are penetrated and shaped by distant social events.

These changes have a strong influence on the position and role of contemporary state. New, global challenges (environmental crisis, security problems, trans-national economy, satellite communications and alike) required responses different from those 42

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

that “old“ states could offer. National borders no longer represent borders between internal and external relations and connections between “us“ and “them“. The old international system in which the state represented the basic communication framework underwent a fundamental transformation. National states are no longer capable of playing the role of dominant controllers of the system for the production of social communication i.e. can no longer provide consensus on the desired type of identity and cannot “protect“ their citizens from chain effects in the processes which take place outside their borders. Now, states are situated within communication fields rather than communication fields being within the states.

It is obvious that the changes which happened under the influence of science and technology produce a strong discontinuity compared to traditional social orders. Anthony Giddens thinks that “modes of life brought into being by modernity have swept us away from all traditional types of social order in an unprecedented way. In both their extensionality and intentionality the transformations involved in modernity are more profound than most sorts of change characteristics of prior periods. On the extensional plan, we have social interconnection globally: that is, we now longer are tied to our locality but spread all over the world. We have also seen changes on intentional terms – the way we have altered some of our intimate day-to-day existence“ . (Giddens, 1998., 16) In such an altered world, there are paradoxical and mutually contradictory processes taking place, which radically change even assumptions that used to be imperative to our understanding of not only economics, international relations, ecology but also culture, tradition, identity and our sense of belonging (who am I? and where do I belong?). Growing beyond boundaries produced by the explosion of communication and then implosion, followed by eradication and de-territorialisation, has a prevalent influence on processes and types of integration. Eradication and de-territorialisation, i.e. lifting of social relations out of the local context of interaction and their restructuring within an uncertain span of time-space, conditioned the formation of a different type of identity. It is actually the structural incapacity to establish the sort of identity that would be characteristic of cultures based on the printed word (on the principles of mechanical linearity); it is, therefore, incapacity to develop the identity orchestrated from a single centre. Because, the culture based on the press provided ...“the introspective life of long, long thoughts and distant goals to be pursued in lines of Siberian railroad kind, cannot coexist with the mosaic form of the TV image that commands immediate participation in depth and admits of no delays.(...) Literacy is necessary for developing uniform habits in all times and all places. This factor has been neglected to the extent TV is neglected today, because it nurtures many an inclinations that are in opposition to literate uniformity and repeatability“. (Mcluhan, 1971, 391) Prevalence of the electronic means of communication, their instantaneity, inability to fully control them and the effect of de-territorialisation they caused, granted individuals the choice of multiple options and dilemmas and doubts in respect of their identity as well 43

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

as the need to adjust their identities, in different ways, to the different requirements of the groups they belong to. This also explains why we cannot talk about a single dominant model; why the world, in spite of expectations, is not Americanised/Westernised, i.e. why multipolarity prevailed over the announced unipolarity and why instead of the complete realisation of the Western universalism, serious reform of the Western identity is taking place. Or, as Huntington formulated it, “modernity is separated from Westernisation and produces neither universal civilization in any contextual sense nor Westernisation of nonWestern societies“. (Huntington, 1998, 20) Project, Process Questions related to im/possibility for establishing a dominant, universal model permeate the debate at the theoretical scene, articulated through the dilemma on whether globalisation is a spontaneous process or a devised, orchestrated project. On one side, there are authors (Pierre Bourdieu, Immanuel Wallerstein, Noam Chomsky, Susan George), who see globalisation as an organised, intended project of influential groups, centres of social power, whose aim is to establish complete dominance of neo-liberal concepts, erosion of “the welfare state”, relativization or abolition of national borders in order to create conditions for the free movement of capital. According to their position, globalisation is the product of political will, an artificially created process based on the neo-liberal doctrines of Friedrich von Hayek and Miltorn Friedman in order to turn the entire world into a single market dominated by trans-national companies. This view of globalisation attracted new leftists, classical liberals, nationalists, and fundamentalists.

On the other side are the authors who interpret globalisation as a realistic social process that is a causal sequence of the process of modernisation. Under this approach, universalist pretensions of the strongest players at the international scene are not negated.

Besides... “hegemony is as old as mankind. But the current global supremacy is distinctive in the rapidity of its emergence, in its global scope, and in the manner of its exercise“. (Brzezinski, 1999, 9) The fall of the Berlin Wall shook the geopolitical structure of the world established after the World War II. The United States of America became the strongest player at the world stage thus exhibiting the unipolar structure of power.

However, neither the unipolar structure of power proved to be stable nor was the complete dominance of a single centre established. Globalisation takes place as a polycentric process that is continually avoiding any type of control. The main reason for the incapacity to create a stable picture of the world lies in its extreme self-reflexivity.

According to Giddens, even if we could design a perfect project for the control of world, unintended (uncontrollable) consequences would not disappear, and the reason lies in the following...“circularity of social knowledge will actually change social life rather than affect the natural world“. Giddens thinks that in the conditions of modernity, the social world could never be a stable place because new knowledge (notions, theories, inventions) continually change its nature, sending it off in a new direction. Giddens 44

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

compared the situation with the “juggernaut“ concluding that “we cannot conquer history but simply use it in order to achieve our collective goals. Although we produce the world ourselves and reproduce it with our actions, we cannot exercise full control of the social world“ (Giddens, 1998, 147).

Due to permanent self-reflexivity and huge amounts of information that continually enter and exit the universe of social life, the contemporary world constantly avoids control thus turning global relations into a complex process in which new challenges continuously emerge. In such an unstable world, paradoxical processes take place that constantly change assumptions on which our understanding of culture, tradition, identity, economy, ecology, international relations are founded... “no global“ – “new global“ The manner in which these social changes are understood and interpreted has great significance not only in the sphere of theory but also strongly affects the realistic social life. The distinction between the process-project is of explicit relevance when it comes to understanding globalism. We use the term “anti-globalism” in this paper but there is a vast array of other terms referring to this political phenomenon: anti-corporate movement, movement against the American imperialism, neo-liberal movement, global justice movement, the culture of global solidarity, social justice movement, etc. Terminological confusion is not coincidental – it is actually a broad and very diffuse political phenomenon. Hence, we are going to use the term “anti-globalism“ in order to enclose the set of events, from the first counter summits in Davos, Seattle, Washington etc., to actions such as “Occupy Wall Street“, stances taken by social theoreticians (Immanuel Walerstein, Naomie Clein), as well as documents and proclamations of the World Social Forum.

We have already found that the anti-globalist movement is very heterogeneous and in many aspects contradictory4. Guy Verhofstadt, who noticed it in 2001 (then the Prime Minister of Belgium), noted in an open letter referring to violent demonstrations in Genoa organised as a reaction to G7 Summit: “Yet another structure is hidden behind the fact that, despite the opposition to globalisation, you are wholeheartedly advocating tolerance for the most diverse ways of life. It must be that we owe the fact that we live in a multicultural and tolerant society to the process of globalisation!“ Concluding that “nostalgia for the closed society of our ancestors is reserved only for the conservatives who glorify past and extreme rightists“, Verhafstadt warns that “anti-globalist protests, without intending so conscientiously, hazardously incline toward the extremist, populist, rightist attitudes“ (Danas, September 26, 2001)

4 A classical illustration of the contradictory nature of anti-globalism is the photograph displaying a protestor who is throwing a stone at the shop window of “NIKE” sportswear, while he is wearing “NIKE” sneakers himself.

45

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Genuine, paradox “eclecticity“ of anti-globalism, that the Belgium Prime Minister also noticed suggests that the language of old divisions is no longer adequate. Anti-globalism escapes traditional ideological divisions. It is enough to analyse the content of proclamations from, let say, the Second World Social Forum, held in Port Alegre in order to get insight into the broadness of the scope of political goals. In addition to clearly expressing attitudes against neo-liberalism, war, militarism in general, sexism, racism, economic models that cause recessions, poverty, economic sanctions, women trafficking, multinational corporations, ruthless exploitation of developing countries, dictatorship, violation of elementary social, economic, cultural and ecological rights, those proclamations strongly advocate for peace, general security and social justice, social solidarity for dignity in life, human rights and political freedoms, diversity, unity, the people of Palestine and their struggle for self-determination, legitimate status of all immigrants, unconditional debt write-off, compensation for historical, social and ecological debts of the North incurred by the exploitation of natural and social resources of the South, preservation of biodiversity, water, land, forests, respect for rights and freedoms, democracy, right to information, right to free public education and etc. Although attitudes that could be characterised as “leftist” prevail, there are “anarchist“, “environmental“ and “feminist“ orientations and in certain cases even “conservativism“ could be recognized, anti-globalism cannot be consistently and fully aligned with any ideological determination. Naomi Klein, the author of the best-selling book “No Logo“ and unofficial spokeswoman for anti-globalism, in her response to this complex mixture of topics and orientations thinks that “....mass demonstrations showed that we overstepped our possibilities. Now is the time to stop and take action in terms of communication and theoretical work, which doesn’t mean drawing up a manifest that everybody should agree with but recognizing and defining the group of questions that are a part of common belief worldwide and then organize accordingly“.

(Danas, August 4-5, 2001) The absence of agreement on the ideological profile of anti-globalism may seem unexpected, only at first sight though. We have already concluded that the technological development of means of communication (satellite TV, Internet) has essentially and irretrievably changed the former linear order of our civilization. The centre-periphery relation has been relativized fundamentally, communication fields decentralized and deterritorialized (lifted out of the local context). Let’s use the analogy: communication structures no longer resemble a spider web encircling a clear centre but acquire the structure of fishing net. This sort of production of social communication significantly impedes building of identity orchestrated from a single centre i.e. impedes organized self-constituting discourse, which further on affects relatively low integrative capacity of the antiglobalist ”movement”. The organization of the anti-globalist movement itself follows a similar logic because it acts “…primarily informally, in discontinuity and ad hoc, relying on mass mobilization and without using traditional political channels of influence on the state (…), fully discards formal and bureaucratic forms of organization and prefers loose, 46

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

flexible modules that actively involve common members (grassroots) ” (Krstić, 2003). On the other hand, anti-globalism, in its scope, is global. Protagonists of these developments originate from different societies and thus project different views of the most important problems. All this adds to the extreme thematic complexity of anti-globalism.

And yet, the basic question remains: could we consider anti-globalism an ideology at all? To what extent could anti-globalism pass the test of Heywood’s definition of ideology that we have adopted at the beginning of the paper? Hence, could we speak of “more or less – coherent set of ideas” which offers “a view of the current order, usually in the form of the view of the world”? Besides its heterogeneity, anti-globalism is founded on the idea that globalization is a project designed by political, military and financial centers of power aiming at establishing total domination of the neo-liberal concept of society.

Financial oligarchy, implementing the globalization logic “There is no alternative” (Krstić, 2003) through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, imposes conditions to less developed societies and inevitably pushes them into debt slavery. This imperialistic expansion of socially irresponsible mega-capital, supported by the theory of “the end of history” represents for anti-globalists, a self-explanatory situation which more than justifies the reason for their emergence. As regards other characteristic that ideology has to avail with – a model of the desired future i.e. a vision of a good society, it is less present or at least less clear in anti-globalist actions. With more of “against” and less of “for”, antiglobalism mainly remains within frames of the reaction to current conditions. “Another World is Possible”, the slogan of the World Social Forum in Port Alegre has an undisputable utopic force which is however, only a necessary but hardly sufficient condition for the effect(ive) change of the world. Even less clear is the manner in which the political change should be made: based on the structure of small, autonomous groups, absence of hierarchy and decisions based on the consensus, anti-globalism sentences itself to non-efficiency in advance. The strategic dilemma lies in the questions whether to respond to globalization locally (“No global”) or to give it a try with new, alternative form of the global response (“New global”), as well as whether to firmly adhere to non-violent methods or implement more radical and aggressive forms of protest. Anyhow, anti-globalism dramatically lacks a clear vision of how to turn the world of non-liberal domination of ruthless capital into the world of economic democracy, fair distribution and social justice.

In the end, the essential problem, in our opinion, is the anti-globalists’ assumption that globalization is a designed project, managed by the centers of world capital. Thus, anti-globalism, although contemporary in terms of the time it emerged, takes on the logic of old ideologies – that the world can be ruled. Ignoring the fact that the world in the 21st century is not a stable place but, due to the growing acceleration, an explosion of communication and deterritorialization, increasingly resembling what Giddens called “juggernaut”, anti-globalism, with its “clear” and “definitive” understanding of conditions and relations in the world, is constructing a building on false foundations, significantly reducing the capacity for exploiting the current utopist energy adequately.

47

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Literature 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

Baudrillard, Jean, Spirit of Terrorism, “Arhipelag“, Beograd, 2007.

Brzezinski, Zbigniew, Grand Chessboard, “CID“, Podgorica, 1999. Đinđić, Zoran, Demokratija i autoritarni sistemi, „Filozofija i društvo“, IX-X, Beograd, 1996.

Fukuyama, Francis, The End of History and The Last Man, “CID“, Podgorica, 1997.

Giddens, Anthony, Runaway World, “Stubovi kulture“, Beograd, 2005.

Giddens, Anthony, Consequences of Modernity, “Filip Višnjić“, Beograd, 1998.

Huntington, Samuel, The Clash of Civilizations, “CID“, Podgorica, 1998.

Heywood, Andrew, Political Ideologies, “Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva“, Beograd, 2005.

Krstić, Predrag, Misli globalno – deluj antiglobalistički, „Nova srpska politička misao“ vol VII, no. 3-4, Beograd, 2003.

Luhmann, Niklas, Social Systems, Izdavačka knjižarnica Zorana Stojanovića, Sremski Karlovci Novi Sad, 2001.

Mcluhan, Marshal, Understanding Media – The Extentions of Man, Belgrade, 1971.

Pečujlić, Miroslav, Globalizacija – dva lika sveta, „Gutenbergova galaksija“, Beograd, 2002 . Žižek, Slavoj, U odbranu izgubljenih stvari, „Akademska knjiga“, Novi Sad, 2011.

milorad.djuric@vojvodina.gov.rs

48

49

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 316.7 UDC 27-1-76

Sergej Beuk

The Centre for Studies of Religion, Politics and Society Belgrade Youth Centre, Serbia

Intercultural Theology: The Problem of Christian Identity and Contemporary Missiology SUMMARY: Starting from basic questions and methods of intercultural theology, the author is trying to illustrate the organic connection between Christian identity, whose essential paradigms are changed to a degree according to the classical understanding of the positions of believers in society, and contemporary Missiology, Evangelization and diaconate, which are more frequently in communication with an intercultural reality, especially outside of the common European context. Also, intercultural theology does not only represent a form of post liberal theological discourse, but also an ecclesial need for the access to believers in their differences in a psychological, sociological and religious sense. Understood in this way, open theology has a chance to leave a mark in societies which are striving towards dialogue, understanding and a new philosophy of multiculturalism.

KEY WORDS: interculturalism, intercultural theology, identity, Christian identity, contemporary Missiology, Evangelization, diaconate.

In recent decades we have witnessed paradigm changes in all social aspects, which inevitably effects the field of religion. Globalization, transition, technical and technological acceleration, ecological crisis, bioethics, and religious extremism are not mere concepts, but the reality in which we live. How these changes apply to contemporary theology and what is the missiological future of the church – these are questions to which we seek potential answers.

50

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

At this point it seems that intercultural theology is inevitable and the only means of communication among theologians and believers, and with members of other religions and cultures respectively. Intercultural theology is not inconsistent with systematic theology, it is not opposed to dogmatics or to existing liturgical practice, but it contextualizes and complements them while conveying a particular message. The same applies to contemporary missiology1 - it can be successful only if it is intercultural, equally treating not only differences among Christians, but also distinctive traits of religious ideas and institutions which are carriers of some other, often insufficiently understood identities.

Multi-confessionality and multiculturalism have become standards, and theology - if it wishes to justify and secure its existence and to remain true to the Word and Revelation - must include both tradition and modernity, both the collectivity of the church and individual freedoms. Hence the need for intercultural theology, one that does not impose, but proposes.

Interculturalism and intercultural theology It is very important to underline, at the very beginning, that intercultural theology represents a specific intellectual and spiritual reflection on intercultural processes in a particular social reality, which means that it is not a new theological discipline, but a new method, perception and perspective within theological reflection2. At this point we can detect two reasons for its occurrence: the first - theologians of Asia, Africa and Latin America have influenced disciplines of fundamental and systematic theology, which have essentially been perceived as a European theological entity, without any direct connection to their cultural identities. The second reason is related to the migration explosion in Europe and North America, where multiculturalism and theological pluralism have become socio-cultural needs. If we take into account the breakthrough of religious studies, as well as the expansion of contextual theology, it becomes quite clear that interculturalism is an inevitable term in every day life of churches and religious communities all around the world.

Therefore, Intercultural Theology is a method of actualizing a dialogue between nonWestern forms of Christianity and existing theological forms. Multidisciplinary approach is obligatory and includes insights from various fields: church history, cultural anthropology, sociology of religion, ecumenical theology and contemporary missiology. It has to be cohesive, open, markedly ecclesial and intellectually founded: “A true universal and ecumenical theology must be intercultural.”3 Hollenweger’s conclusion confirms the thesis of many contemporary theorists that theology cannot exist without a multicultural/ intercultural context. Theology must step out from its purely academic status in order to 1 Friedli 1987.

2 Cartledge 2011 3 Hollenweger 1986: 28.

51

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

synthesize different Christian traditions, regardless when and where they originated. This does not mean that intercultural theology is automatically anti-dogmatic, nor can it be fully identified with ecumenical theology, but it is a methodical entity per se, and opens up various speculative fields within the existing theoretical disciplines:

Ecumenical THEOLOGY

CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGY

Narrative THEOLOGY

POLITICAL / POST-CONFLICT THEOLOGY

INTERCULTURAL THEOLOGY

If we detach ourselves from the strict theological reflection, for a moment, we will clearly conclude that the philosophy of interculturalism is a cohesive resource for continuous decoding of social functions of religious discourse, especially in the sphere of national, ideological, ethical and historical identities and different levels of socio-cultural identification. In this sense, philosophy, sociology, culturology, and even theology, have the need to analyze the new political and religious reality of Europe, North and Latin America.

Such multicultural environment is sustainable only through the premises of intercultural understanding and dialogue at all levels - from political entities, through education and the media, to religious institutions and non-governmental sectors. We can conclude that intercultural theology - if it does not affirm consolidation and acceleration of democratic culture, which includes diversity of all kinds - cannot be successful and meaningful. It is progressive and emancipatory, and only as such can have a function that is essential to the society of the new millennium.

However, intercultural theology does not offer ready-made solutions, but is in constant development, and so is the culture in general: “Cultures are not finished products, but are processes which are changing through the course of human intervention and which continuously affect the whole social context on various local, regional and global levels”4.

4 Aquino 2007: 14.

52

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Herein we can appreciate the advantage of intercultural theology - it implies constant development and update of existing theological ideas and immersion in a culture that transcends ethnic and / or religious constraints: “Theology and culture are not separate worlds (notions): there has always been mutual interaction and critique.”5 The described relationship is actualized by globalization as a state of interdependence of nations, cultures and religions, whose benefits and already existing tensions cannot be projected or assumed without the remainder.

At this point we are interested in seeing which advantages, objectives and methods of intercultural theology would be acceptable to most churches and which do not affect the doctrinal differences and ecclesial heterogeneity of modern Christianity: −− Inter-religious dialogue; −− Inter-religious and intercultural pedagogy; −− Inter-contextual communicating the message of Gospels; −− Analysis of theological, social, economic and political conditions of intercultural transformation processes; −− Affirmation of religious studies and religious pluralism; −− Publication of papers on the subjects of intercultural hermeneutics and missiology; −− Platform propositions on how to overcome religious antagonisms; −− Impact on the creation of the media presentation of life and work of churches and religious communities; −− Highlight on needs for a wider social democratization and humanization.

Acknowledging that only a part of intercultural theological agenda is listed, we believe that the theoretical and practical application of some is already possible, especially in the sphere of religious dialogue, media and education. Here we note another advantage of intercultural theology, mediation in communication and interpretation of the religious practices to the Other, who is taken as an associate and not as a competitor, emphasizing religious universalism, both in the field of theology, and in the field of ethics.

It seems that the right answer to the question of what intercultural theology is for does not lie only in the theoretical approach of the theological post-liberalism of the West, but also in particular daily lives of individuals and religious communities – Christians and their churches – which often go through turbulent changes. Thus a possible answers to questions about Christian identity and contemporary missiology can be found in the area of intercultural theology, taken as foundations for keeping individual faith alive and spreading Logos throughout the world.

5 Newlands 2004: 5.

53

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

THE CHALLENGES TO Christian Identity As the term of identity implies an individual quest, a way and constant improvement, Christian identity is not and cannot be static, fixed and defined in advance. Although the concept of Christian identity implies a certain tradition and historical heritage, it is now, more than it has ever been, exposed to changes that modernity brings.6 However, Christians throughout the centuries, as well as today, find sources of their own identity in the Holy Bible, which can be defined as a belief in one God, the Holy Trinity, and faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior and Redeemer. Faith, taken as such, is reflected in transcending the ego and awakening higher principles (Holy Son) in us, by whose salvific sacrifice we have been redeemed. With redemption we become God’s servants, who serve their neighbors and through them the whole mankind. Thus the church is considered as a new eschatological community, whose members act upon faith (and by deeds) and are directed towards the same goals. Sense and knowledge of identity flows into a larger whole, and self-realization takes place in Christ’s power, with the help of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, in the reality of the Christian identity we comprehend the activity of God as the one of the Holy Trinity, in its entirety, and Jesus Christ as the Incarnation.

Although one cannot speak about Christian identity without a basic insight into the Gospels, Apostle Paul7 is the most important founder of the Christ-centric view of the world. Creating new communities of the faithful, he gradually establishes and deepens the basic ideas of Christian identity, bringing together different cultural contexts and missionary activity in a relatively monolithic whole. Looking at the work of the Apostle Paul, from today’s perspective, we can determine which are the basic parameters and criteria for understanding the Christian identity – they are set in a practical way in which communities of the faithful function in everyday life and through ministry, in its perception of the world and its adaptability in the frames of the world as such. Starting from the structure of the very community, its ways of marking important dates, to express solidarity, religious people support each other maintaining the preservation of their unique identity. Accordingly, many layered elements of Christian identity can be noted: 1. personal relationship with God, 2. feeling of belonging to a particular church, 3. specific religious language, 4. heritage, 5. common source(s) of religion and 6. cultural characteristics. The established relationship among these constituents and their interaction, which is achieved through constant competition, compose a fluid space in which identity is formed, an identity called Christian.

6 The Vatican has announced through its official organ the list of the new Seven Deadly Sins which threaten society at the beginning of the 21st century, these are the following: genetic modification, experiments with human beings, the pollution of the environment, excessive acquisition of wealth, taking or selling drugs, pedophilia, abortion and social injustices that cause poverty and misery. With this announcement the Catholic Church made a clear statement that the believers today face issues and dilemmas which have never, for the most part, existed before 7 Campbell 2006.

54

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Having mentioned these general characteristics of Christian identity, here we must note characteristics of identities which are related to certain churches and denominations: Orthodox identity implies liturgical understanding of personality, with frequent practice of fasting, praying and worshiping saints. Orthodox churches are organized nationally, which implies an obvious belonging to certain ethnicity and, accordingly, historical determinants.8 Roman Catholic identity is identified with the church that is fully centrally organized, with specifics which clearly separates it from the Orthodox - dogma about papal infallibility, doctrine of purgatory and indulgences, and clergy celibate.

Traditional Protestant identity occurs in the area of ​​individual faith, biblical hermeneutics, general and work ethic and enhanced social learning. Presbyterian Church organization9 and democratic relations within the church, make the Protestant identity homogeneous compared to the Orthodox and Roman Catholics.

Evangelical Protestant identity, which emerged from traditional Protestant churches, in addition to individual faith, focuses on worshiping, public and group praying, and strong cohesion of its members.

Of course, much more can be said about understanding and experiencing the diverse religious identity, but currently we are interested how intercultural theology implies Christian identity and which priorities are formed in the interaction with other religious teachings. Entering, inevitably, in the area of ​​ecumenical theology, four basic areas of intercultural Christian identity are highlighted: 1. belief in one God, Creator and Redeemer; 2. belief in His justice and mercy; 3. belief in human equality and the sanctity of life; 4. belief in individual salvation.

The above areas represent indisputable truths of monotheistic religions and are equally important for both theologians and for believers. As for Christians themselves, their identity is clearly shown through faith, justice, love and trust in God – equally the same for all Christians: the Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Protestants. The Future of Christian identity and the theology is to build peace, dialogue and understanding, in which intercultural theology has its important place. However, it is not possible without modern missiology and evangelistic practice, through which the Message is transmitted and communication is achieved. In this sense, we can now talk about intercultural mis8 Speaking about the Orthodox Church and its identity, we must emphasize that by this concept the distinguishing properties of certain churches are meant, whose identity is dependent on different historical circumstances that determined the development of the Orthodox creed in certain areas. Thus we speak about an Orthodox sub-identity of Serbs as the Saint Sava orthodox identity having certain specific features in comparison with other nations and churches.

9 Except in the case of the Anglican Church which is episcopally organized.

55

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

siology as one of the ways in which the church lives in multi-confessional, multinational and multicultural environment.

CONTEMPORARY missionary and diaconate Observing missiological studies from intercultural theological perspective, we can determine that missions and evangelism today are ultimately multidimensional concepts that encompass anthropology and psychology, but also the media, which until recent decades was not the case.10 However, despite the availability of information and a wide range of missiological centers, mission and evangelism remain on the edge of the event, without imposing presence in the lives of most churches. Why is this so? The first reason is the general atheism of societies which were traditionally Christian. The other reason is technologisation and scientification of reality, which is inevitably reflected in theology. The third reason is the perception of the spiritual needs which transcend the limits of certain churches and religions. Worship once a week is an insufficient spiritual mover to believers today, nor is it a way for the believers to take active participation in the life of their communities.

Modern missiology implies an actualization of everyday Christian practice within the multicultural milieu and an activation of existing church resources on expanding the Word in the world. This is not a need, but an obligation of the church, according to the words of its founder, Jesus Christ: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28, 19). The mission is, we conclude, the abolition of borders and implication of differences among people and their autonomous cultures. Understood in this way, Missiology contains two essential components - the theological and anthropological: Theological because the message is God’s word, regarding his purpose and promises he gave to mankind; anthropological because it must be communicated within the structure of human organization. The message is theological because it is related not only to the inner life of the individual and his spiritual experience, but also to his/ her eternal state. It is anthropological as it expands in the material environment on which people depend in their physical existence, and where spiritual experiences have to be transmitted through a number of human relationships, culturally conditioned. When Jesus spoke to the Apostles / followers as those who are not of this world but are also in this world, he actually pointed to the basic dichotomy of the Christian mission. Both in terms of mission rules and in terms of missionary activity, these two dimensions must be in equilibrium.11 The balance which Tippet argues about refers to the theory and practice, faith and action, present and future of the mission in the world, implying intercultural communication and universal - humane message. But missiology, among these listed components, must also include areas that may or may not be closely related to it, including: 10 Bosch 1991.

11 Tippet 1987: xxi.

56

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

theology of the mission; history of the mission; Biblical theology and church history; ecumenical theology; missionary training; communication techniques; establishment and growth of local churches (church planting and church growth); Christian pedagogy; intercultural communication; practical and applied theology; media theory; social and cultural anthropology; social psychology.

This, of course, does not completely exhaust all areas and topics which directly or indirectly have to do with the contemporary missionary, but are guidelines to development which ensures the mission’s presence in the world.

As for the diaconal service, we can say that it represents permanency in theological reflections, historical analysis of the role of the church within a society and pastoral care12, maintaining continuous contact with all believers. Traditional concept of diaconal service is related to care of “new members, the poor, widows, orphans,”13 but today the fields of interest and activities of diaconate are greatly different. Presenting new goals of diaconal service Engelsviken states: −− Reestablishing the holistic perspective of church missions; −− Need for a connection between social work/action and identity of the church; −− Diaconate detection as an invigorating service; −− Prophetic dimension of diaconate.14 Analyzing the first two points, an etiological link can be noticed - among the mission, identity of the church and believers, as well as diaconal practices - which exists in the time continuum. Diaconate is, therefore, a continuous realization of Christ-centric sense in society, and through the church it is opened to everyone, extending the borderlines of the Message in the present. Missiologically interpreted, diaconate in the XXI century must possess the following characteristics: 1. presence in all ecclesial activities 2. local concentration. 3. cooperation 4. pre-emption 5. charity and 6. interculturalism/multiculturalism.

12 Cummings 2004.

13 Ditewig 2004: 14.

14 Engelsviken 2008: 111.

57

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

The characteristics listed determine diaconal service as a part of an organic whole of the church in liturgical and evangelistic sense. Thus diaconate becomes dynamic, dedicated to specific social problems and phenomena, following various transformation processes and detecting the needs of believers. The contemporary vision of diaconal service is, as confirmed, unequivocally holistic and intercultural, as it should communicate not only within the church and in it, but be present in the public communication/discourse, promoting humanistic and democratic values, which is a particular challenge. Modern diaconal service is mobile and pervasive only when it steps out of the church routines, transits into general and public, encourages ethical values ​​and knowledge of the Other.

Mission is nothing but a phrase if not followed by strong faith, a desire for change and responsibility comprehended widely.

Interculturalism AS THE KEY At the end of this short paper there is a need to remember that interculturalism is based on three principles (the principle of equality, the principle of differentiation and the principle of positive interaction)15, it is quite obvious why intercultural theology gains in academic significance. It equitably treats different, often divergent, religious ideas and systems, and leads to a dialogue among individuals, groups and institutions, strengthening social cohesion and democratic standards. By expanding their own field of action, intercultural theology draws a specific religious map where center is not only a Western European intellectual model, but a variety of contents which remains autonomous, but inclusive at the same time.

As regards Serbia and Vojvodina, intercultural theology can become an intellectual and spiritual articulation of needs, aspirations and desires for true coexistence in diversity.

Thus it becomes a transformational force which tends to enlarge the sense of the social role of religion and its relevance in all fields: political, educational, and even economic.

Fleeing collectivism and reductionism of any kind, together, both intercultural theology and missiology, constitute a complementary form of meta-narratives and praxis, which has been in continuous research development.

This key can open the door to genuine intercultural understanding, which was long defined by the Apostle Paul: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor freeman, there is neither male nor female, because you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3: 28) . So be it ...

15 Dietz 2009.

58

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

REFERENCES Aquino, Pilar Maria, Feminist Intercultural Theology, New York, Orbis Books, 2007.

Bosch, David, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, New York, Orbis Books, 1991.

3. Cartledge, Mark, Intercultural Theology, Norwich, SCM Press, 2011.

4. Cummings, Owen, Deacons and the Church, Mahwah, Paulist Press, 2004.

5. Dietz, Gunter, Milticulturalism, Interculturality and Diversity in Education, Münster, Vaxmann Verlag GmbH, 2009.

6. Ditewig, William, 101 Questions And Answers On Deacons, Mahwah, Paulist Press, 2004.

7. Engelsviken, Tormod, Mission to the World: Communicating the Gospel in the 21st Century, Oxford, Egede Instittuten/Regnum, 2008.

8. Friedli, Cf. R., „Interkulturelle Theologie”, in: Müller, K., Sundermeier Th., (Hg.), Lexikon Missionstheologischer Grundbegriffe, Berlin, 1987.

9. Hollenweger, Walter, “Intercultural Theology”, Theology Today, Vol. 43, No 1, Princeton, 1986.

10. Newlands, George, The Transformative Imagination: Rethinking Intercultural Theology, Hampshire, Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004.

11. Tippet, Alan, Introduction to Missiology, Pasadena, William Carey Library, 1987.

1.

2.

matersva@sezampro.rs

59

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 316.722(497.11)

Hristina Mikić

Modern Business School, Belgrade, Serbia Creative Economy Group, Belgrade

Cultural Industries and the Diversity of Cultural Expressions: International Institutional Framework and the Current Conditions in Serbia1 Summary: Our country ratified the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions in 2009, joining the group of 124 countries that have ratified this Convention and, according to their context of policies and actions in the cultural sector, innovate the measures of fostering and promoting the diversity of cultural expressions and creative powers.

This paper is envisioned as a plaidoyer of the conditions of cultural diversity in Serbia, and offers an insight into the current measures for its preservation and nurture in the key areas of the application of the Convention: public policy, international cooperation and mobility of cultural services and goods, and the integration of culture into the policy of sustainable development. The first part of the paper discusses the diversity of cultural expressions, as well as contemporary concepts of cultural governance from the standpoint of international bilateral agreements. The second part is dedicated to the analysis of the current state of cultural diversity of cultural industries in Serbia, while the third part provides some insight into the public policies and measures aimed at the preservation and nurture of cultural expressions.

Key words: cultural industries, diversity of cultural expressions, public policy, UNESCO, European Council, United Nations, intercultural dialogue, multiculturalism, development.

1 This paper was written in the framework of “Creative Serbia“ project implemented by the Creative Economy Group and it represented a base for the preparation of the National report about implementation of UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

60

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

INTRODUCTION The institutional framework for the development of cultural industries and the guarantee of the human right of accessing and using cultural contents is comprised of numerous, mutually interconnected strategic documents, political agendas and multilateral agreements whose goal it is to adequately articulate the connections between culture and the development of human society. Ideas related to the freedom of opinion, expression, satisfaction of cultural needs and the free expression of creative potentials of groups and individuals have had a long tradition. The central point of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the importance of each individual regarding personal dignity, freedom and safety (UN 1948), and the definition of culture as a human right is the most basic dimension of human dignity (Pascual et al, 2011). Therefore, the right of culture was woven into the founding document of UNESCO, to be carried out through its functions and activities by “encouraging the wealth of the diversity of cultures and promoting the free flow of ideas by word and image” (UNESCO 2007: 3). From a historical perspective, it seems that the role of culture and cultural industries, as well as their treatment in the international institutional framework, had not been clearly defined until the World Cultural Council published a report entitled “Our Creative Diversity”, giving the culture an essential dimension in the new developmental paradigm with “a human face”, suggesting that it should be given a central place, as opposed to the margin of the development where it had previously been (UNESCO 1995). Namely, the culture was given an important role in the actualization of complete human development, raising the question of public responsibility and public policies that could lead to finding adequate solutions for those potentials.

A further conceptualisation of the above mentioned premises ensued at the Stockholm International Conference on Cultural Policies for Development in 1998 (UNESCO 1998), when representatives of around 150 governments reached an agreement to include culture into their development policies and strategies; another turning point was the publication of the World Culture Report (UNESCO 2000). The importance of these documents lies in the fact that they provided certain narratives, explaining how culture can contribute to the development (in the widest sense possible), at the same time underlining the importance of cultural creativity and its diversity as a source of human progress.

In 1997, the debate on sustainable development, culture and diversity of cultural expressions was joined by the Council of Europe’s Working Group for Culture and Development, which published a report entitled “In / From the Margin(s)” (Council of Europe, 1997), whose very title points at the main topic of the report: the European perspective on changing the treatment of culture, by establishing a new thought-framework for evaluating the developmental potential of culture and setting the foundation for the political debate on this topic in Europe. As the report was made in the time of the establishment and strengthening of the processes of European integration, when culture as a dimension of these processes was still not being mentioned in Europe, it is not surprising that the narrative of this document, as well as those of the ensuing documents, treat the issue of 61

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

cultural diversity as something too sensitive and deeply rooted into the sovereignty of the EU member states. Instead of the concept of diversity of cultural expressions, the Council of Europe promoted the idea of interculturalism, seeing this phenomenon as a process of co-existence of various cultures getting into contact with each other, and therefore enriching each other. Insisting on the interculturality reflected a certain political attitude of the Council of Europe, which was to be further established in the European society: the cooperation and opening of national cultures in order to create a common cultural space, comprised of various European cultures. Namely, it seemed as though cultural diversity and its strengthening through the perspective of multiculturalism could be interpreted in a wrong way, as insisting on the distinctiveness and deepening the differences among European societies, instead of striving towards universal human values.2 Gradually, it was understood that the issue of preserving and enriching cultural diversity deserves more detailed exploration, and that the process of programming cultural development in such a complex social and economic environment must be given special attention. It is important to keep in mind that the environment in which these topics were discussed reflected the period when cultural goods and services started acquiring increasing importance for the international trade. This can be seen from the data from the UNESCO report on the international flows of cultural goods and services (UNESCO 2000a), showing that the value of trade in these goods increased almost fivefold in the period 1980-1998, reaching 2.8% of global export and 3.8% of global import at the end of this period. In contrast to the above mentioned tendencies, the question of sustaining and encouraging cultural diversity and cultural industries had led to contradictory points of view, and discussions on this topics were started many times at previous conferences in Monaco (1969), Venice (1970) and Mexico (1982). The initial premise – that diversity of cultural expressions is not only inevitable, but also desirable, as a state that encourages and enhances, by leading to mutual encouragement and enrichment of cultures on a global level – could not be taken as something unambiguous. The countries that were in the process of constituting their political and economic unity, as well as small cultural communities, were afraid that encouraging the diversity of cultural expressions in the above mentioned social circumstances could lead to fragmentation, and therefore to the weakening of their 2 It is also worth mentioning that the concepts and notions such as cultural diversity, interculturality and multiculturality were not clearly defined, nor interpreted in the way they are today. The first associations regarding cultural diversity were seen strictly as the respect for differences, and the history teaches us that such differences often led to the foundation of self-sufficient, closed cultures. Therefore, the idea of multiculturality was first interpreted as something negative, a concept denoting independent existence of national cultures in one multicultural space. In contrast, interculturality was seen as something positive, since it was based on the idea that co-existence of cultures and their interconnections can lead to the acceptance of common values among cultures that are universal and, at the same time, possess authentic creativity. This could serve as a basis for the reconstruction of the European identity, in which different European cultures merge and coalesce. For more, please consult: Đurić, J: ‘ Identitet i interkuturalnost – Srbija kao mesto prožimanja Balkana i Srednje Evrope’, Filozofija i društvo, 3 (2008): 217 -232.

62

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

social and economic cohesion (Majstorović, 1972). In other words, the strengthening of cultural diversity was a big challenge for the countries who did not achieve economic and political stability, since directing the public policies towards this approach would lead to national disintegration, causing separatism as a consequence of the emphasized cultural diversity. In contrast to the contradictions intrinsic to this concept, the processes of its acceptance as a central principle of public policies were affirmed through different work materials and statements by international organisations. At the same time, the concept of cultural industries was introduced to public policies. This is very discretely mentioned in the UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Policies, where emphasizing the importance of cultural industries in spreading cultural contents and ensuring the accessibility of culture are treated as key mechanisms for the democratisation of culture (UNESCO 1982; UNESCO 1982a). This approach can be related to the period of Cold War, and the division between the East and the West. Since most international organizations included into their development agendas whose goals aimed at helping and developing the Third World countries, it was politically incorrect to promote a concept that was then typical of the creative sector of the developed countries, and that was based on the commercial multinational corporations, mostly from the USA. In the same year, UNESCO published a comparative study on cultural industries and their role in developed countries where this concept was recognized (Canada, France, Finland), but also in developing countries (Kenya, Tanzania), and the ones from the socialistic block (Cuba).3 Cultural industries were given a slightly more important role in the World Culture Report (UNESCO 2000), where they started being examined in the light of economic phenomena. They were seen as key mechanisms for decreasing the disbalance in the flow and exchange of cultural goods on a global level. The idea of improving cultural diversity and cultural industries was placed in the center of multilateral relations when Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity was published (UNESCO 2001), and later also with the publishing of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (UNESCO 2005). That was the period in which, for the first time, an appeal was made for states to recognize the importance of cultural industries, not only as powerful instruments for the creation of collective individual and cultural identities, but also as leading forces in the all-encompassing sustainable cultural and economic development.

The Council of Europe joined the global efforts towards the protection and affirmation of cultural diversity by adopting the Faro Declaration on the Council of Europe’s Strategy for Developing Intercultural Dialogue (Council of Europe 2005), and after that by adopting the White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue (Council of Europe 2008).

Both of these documents put an emphasis on the intercultural dialogue as an instrument for enabling cultural diversity, which is described as an “open and dignified exchange of opinions between individuals and groups of different ethnic, cultural, religious and 3 For more see: UNESCO, 1982a.

63

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

linguistic background and heritage, with mutual understanding and respect” (Council of Europe, 2008:12). This trend, although with modified narratives and perspectives, has also been contributed to by other UN agencies concerned with the issues of trade and development. For example UNCTAD, after the publication of the “Declaration on Cultural Industries and Development” (UNCTAD 2004), published two world reports on creative economy (UNCTAD 2008; UNCTAD 2010), both underlining the cultural and economic dimension of international trade and development, as well as the importance of including developing countries into these processes to a larger extent, as they are rich in cultural diversity and authentic expressions. The beginning of the 21st century ushered in a period of the strengthening of the dialogues between cultures rich in cultural expressions, at the same time confirming the dual nature of cultural contents that can be seen as economic and cultural goods (UNESCO 2007:3-4), which started the process of the affirmation of the principles of complementarity of economic and cultural perspectives of development.

THE CURRENT STATE OF THE DIVERSITY OF CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS IN THE CULTURAL INDUSTRIES OF SERBIA The starting point for the evaluation of the public measures aimed at the protection and enhancement of the diversity of expression in cultural industries is the evaluation of their current state. To this effect, a number of approaches have been used, focused on the issues of measuring cultural diversity and finding adequate indicators for evaluating the measures of public policies, and also for measuring their impact on the protection and enhancement of diversity. Made as attempts to find an adequate solution for this issue, most of these analyses approached diversity from the perspective of quantitative indicators related to the data on production, distribution and dissemination of the contents of cultural industries, as well as the configurations of different dimensions of cultural industries on the market.

When it comes to the infrastructure and resources in the field of cinematography, there are 341 companies registered for dealing in cinematography in our country: 273 for cinematographic and video production, 50 for distribution and 28 for projection (with around 126 movie theaters). In terms of film production, Serbia is a country with small production (an average of 15 fiction films a year), with its annual production of feature films still higher than that of Greece (14), Romania (14), Slovakia (10) and Croatia (2), which makes it relatively more productive than the other countries in the region. The film production in Serbia has for the most part been dedicated to author film; therefore, the help it receives outside the market (state stimulations, financial support) is necessary for its sustainability. In most cases, even the most popular films do not manage to cover more than 10% of their own production, and only on rare occasions the profits and the investments have a ratio of 1:1 (Čitulja za Eskobara – Obituary for Escobar, Zona Zamfirova, Promeni me – Change Me). In the recent years, the biggest market share has been achieved by Emotion Production (16.8%), Vision Film (8.8%), 64

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Work in Progress (5.6%), Baš Čelik film studio (4.9%), Contrast Studios (2.9%), while the average share of the majority of the active film companies has been between 0.5% and 1%4. As for the program contents, the biggest part of the audio-visual production (as well as the profit) comes from commercial contents (commercials), while 45% of the profit comes from the production of TV series and programs. In the area of audio-visual production, TV companies play an important role as producers or co-producers of TV contents, but also as relevant players in the cinematographic system in the sphere of broadcasting cinematographic production. This segment is characterized by an absence of efficient coordination, and in some cases by a disrespect of the regulations related to the broadcasting of domestic audio-visual works (‘small’ TV rights), and it often happens that the conditions of broadcasting are non-transparent, even discriminatory for certain producers (especially in terms of pricing policies for broadcasting films on television). Because of such situation, except when it comes to the public radio-diffusion services, it is hard to achieve the diversity of cultural expressions on a local and regional level. In the sphere of distributive cinematography there are 51 distribution companies and 200 video-clubs, out of which about 100 were active in 2010. It is also interesting to mention that the number of videograms sold in cases of film hits was around 50 copies in 2009, while 95% of video rentals were based on pirate disks.5 As there is no complete record of the sales of video-discs through retail channels (e.g. chains of kiosks), the latest estimates show that in 2009 the sales of video-disks were around 2.5 million copies, and it is estimated that this is six times less than what would be possible in the conditions of a regulated market in reproductive cinematography.6 As for the resources of the presentative cinematography, it formally exists only in numbers (statistic records). However, in reality, a number of cinemas have been closed and cannot be used for screening. From the perspective of program conception, around 80% of films screened are of the USA origin, while only 20% belong to the European and domestic production.7 Due to the lack of measures for stimulating the screenings of non-commercial and art films, most of the distributors are focused solely on blockbusters, with which profit is guaranteed.

4 Mikić H, Rikalo M. “Film Market in Serbia: Development Challenges and Solutions” 9th Annual International Conference on Communication and Mass Media, Institute for Education and Research, Athens, Greece, 16-19 May 2011 5 Data and estimates by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia, Association for Creative Industries - documentary materials in Filmska distribucija u Srbiji – trenutno stanje, Beograd: Privredna komora Srbije, 2009 6 Ibid.

7 E.g. in 2011, out of a total of 161 screened films, 97 were of the USA origin, 46 of European origin, and 18 of domestic origin. The structure of the films screened in the past seven years is similar to that.

65

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Table 1 – Film production and cinematography in Serbia, 2009-2012

Year

Number of features produced

Share of film co-productions

Number of domestic distributors

Number of cinemas per 1,000 residents

2009

26

10

49

0,014

2010

32

17

50

0,016

2011

29

13

51

0, 016

2012

31

-

50

0,017

Source: Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, 2012 (accessed 1/02/2012); Rikalović, G. Creative Serbia – New Line of Development, Belgrade, Anonymous said, 2011. * Film Center Serbia, www.fcs.rs (accessed 01/02/2012); Registers Agency, the national market for goods and services (www.trzistesrbija.com, accessed 01/03/2013)

Table 2 – Radio and television in Serbia (2009-2011) Annual broadcast time according to the program type

Number of radio and TV broadcasters

Television

Radio

Private

Public

Programs for national minorities

2009

694,439

1,531,373

192

82

29,441

2010

677,723

1,501,162

194

80

31,288

2011

792,357

1,752,731

229

91

26,728

Year

Source: Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, 2012 (accessed on 01/02/2012) A similar situation can be seen in the area of television and radio. The radio-broadcasting market is comprised of around 320 broadcasters, around 70% of which are private broadcasters. Non-documentary films are produced only by the Radio-Television of Serbia and by a few private television channels with national frequency, while around 90% of TV stations are mainly dedicated to broadcasting foreign TV series (in the recent years dominated by those of Turkish origin). This is partly due to economic reasons. The average costs of producing a domestic TV series are between 50,000 and 80,000 euros per episode – a sum that not even the public service for radio diffusion has been able to provide lately, while the rights for publishing foreign TV series are around 1,000 euros per episode. Music industry and discography have been in crisis for a long time now, and the only remaining producers in this area are City Records and Grand Production, and even these record labels are now 66

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

changing their focus towards the publishing of singles (production of single hits) and not whole albums. By switching to MP3 formats that can be acquired for free, the music industry has moved from the sphere of classical discography to that of virtual/digital discography, while the biggest part of the profit for musicians, producers, composers and musical performers comes from festivals, live music performances and collective copyrights.

Literature and publishing mostly rely on around six hundred companies that, in terms of territorial distribution, are mostly located on the territory of Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, Kragujevac and other large cities. The average number of books published is between 10,500 and 11,500 per year, dominated by literature (around 45%), humanities (23%) and around 10% from the area of applied sciences, medicine and technology. The largest market share (measured according to the sales profit) belongs to Zavod za Izdavanje Udžbenika i Nastavnih Sredstava, National Gazette, Laguna, Kreativni Centar, Monomanjana, Alnari.

The market is not sufficiently differentiated, but there are three groups of publishers according to their business and program policies: commercial publishers, publishers specialized in specific fields (professional publishers) and a group of publishers that emerged in the times of social transformation, who managed to find a satisfying ratio of market to non-market interests, and to survive in the market with the help of subsidies (foreign funds, co-productions etc), without the need of achieving economic self-sustainability. The book distribution is disorganized and inadequate for the existing book market. Publishers’ warehouses contain an average of 20,000 titles, only 15% of which are available through three minor distributors (Krug Commerce, Knjiga Info and Book Bridge). Even though the structure of distribution channels is dominated by bookstores (around 50%), the total number of bookstores, some 299 objects, is unevenly regionally distributed (around 50% of all bookstores are located in Belgrade). It is alarming that certain large cities, such as Kruševac, Pirot, Prokuplje, Sombor etc have no bookstores whatsoever.

Table 3 – Trends in the publishing production in Serbia according to the number of titles (2009-2012) Year

Publishing production (total)

Translation

Belletristics

Book for children

Arts and Sports

Humanities

2009

15.651

3.514

4.296

1.339

1.502

4.771

2010

15.671

3.071

4.237

1.166

1.408

4.695

2011

15.628

3.378

4.316

1.089

1.371

4.865

2012

14.654

2.813

4.232

971

1.451

4.539

Source: National Library of Serbia (1/01/2013)

67

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Table 3a – Diversity of cultural expressions in the field of publishing and literature (2009-2012) Year

Belletristics

School books

Humanities

Art and Sport

D.

T.

D.

T.

D.

T.

D.

T.

2009

2.778

1.518

2.136

88

4.075

696

1.280

222

2010

3.101

1.136

2.190

150

4.118

577

1.214

194

2011

3.083

1.233

2.329

189

4.180

685

1.179

192

2012

3.206

1.026

2.171

118

3.983

556

1.212

239

Source: National Library of Serbia (1/01/2013) * D - domestic production; T - translation In terms of the production structure, the most numerous titles are the domestic ones, making around 4/5 of the total number of titles, while translated titles make 1/5 of the production.

The ratio of the domestic to translated titles is more or less equal when it comes to literary titles, with an average of 40-50% of them being of foreign origin, while domestic authors are dominant in all the other categories, making around 80% of the total production. This data show that the domestic production is relatively strong, despite the bad economic situation and the limited access to the financing for the publishing purposes. It can also be noted that there has been a decrease in the number of translations in the literary domain, which can be explained by a relative increase in the costs of the publishing of translated titles in the domestic market. One of the reasons for this is also the increase in the copyright costs charged by foreign publishers for publishing books in the Serbian market, which has in recent years been growing in comparison to the average costs from 7 or 8 years ago.

The book market has been partially monopolized in the recent years, due to the fact that a large number of bookstores (53%) are owned by publishing houses. On the other hand, it is evident that, despite a large number of editions, most books never reach their audience. Even though there is a relatively large number of publishers, almost 60% of bookstores only offer books by around 50 authors. The discrepancy between book production and offer can be seen from the fact that around 63% of bookstores offer less than 5,000 titles (which makes up only 30% of average annual publishing production). There are also additional problems in book distribution, such as the lack of basic networking mechanisms, weak communication channels and the fact that the readers are not adequately informed about the books, as well as the illegal sales of books (from street vendors, on local fares etc), which is, in many respects, the main limiting factor for literature and publishing. Manifestations as a means of achieving the diffusion of literature have had various impacts on animating the readership and promoting the book. According to the Agenda of Cultural Manifestations, there are around 127 manifesta-

68

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

tions8 related to publishing, some of which are subsidized by the Ministry of Culture, Information and Information Society, through annual calls for proposals for the sustainment of literary manifestations. Among the important players in the domain of books and literature there are also polyvalent cultural centers, which use classical means of cultural diffusion (public presentations, literary evenings, promotions etc). There are also initiatives on the border of citizen activism and educational animation (such as the “Pesničenje” festival by the Škorekart NGO).

In newspaper industry a total of 193 legal persons have been registered, mostly in the domestic private sector, while the presence of foreign capital has been detected in only 5% of the companies (Ringer, Adria Media, Media Print, Alpet, Alliance BK Group). There are 217 legal persons involved in the publishing of magazines, 8 of which are owned by foreign companies.

In the territory of Serbia there are currently 20 daily newspapers, 92 weekly newspapers, 217 monthly, 43 bi-weekly, 78 bi-monthly, 83 quarterly, 10 semiannual, 18 annual and 17 newspapers of other types, plus 104 public internet outlets.9 In contrast to the infrastructural problems, such as certain limiting factors for the sociocultural cycles of cultural industries, the economic aspects of cultural industries in Serbia show that, in terms of economy, many of these areas are experiencing growth. In terms of economy, markets for most cultural industries are of national and regional nature, consisting primarily of the countries of former Yugoslavia. For example, the most important market for publishing and newspaper industries are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro. For visual arts, the market is in Macedonia, Switzerland and France. Audio-visual services (television, video and commercial) are exported to Italy, France and Great Britain, while architecture, engineering and technical services are exported to the markets of Italy, Russia, France and Germany. Over the past ten years, the dynamics of the foreign trade with other countries have gone through different phases. The period from the year 2000 to 2004 was characterized by a significant growth of import, while in the period 2004-2012 the opposite trends were noticed, with significantly higher average growth of export (around 21%) than of import (annual growth of 10.8%).10 The most dynamic average annual export growth rates have been noticed in the area of the new media, handicrafts and publishing, while in terms of import this is the case with the new media and visual arts. Despite the high average export growth rates, as well as rapid market penetration of certain industries, in the overall period Serbia has had a status of a net importer of creative goods, while the disbalance between export and import is still evident.11 8 Agenda of Cultural Manifestations, Belgrade: Center of Study in Cultural Development, www.zaprokul. org.rs (accessed on 1/02/2012) 9 In accordance with the data from the Registry of Media Outlets, April 11 2011, www.kurir-info.rs (accessed on 01/03/2013).

10 Rikalović, G. Mikić, H. ‘ Kreativne industrije i trgovinska razmena Srbije sa inostranstvom’, in Ekonomska nauka u funkcuji kreiranja novog poslovnog ambijenta, Priština: Ekonomski fakultet 2011:222-233 11 This is supported by the information that in the year 2000 the foreign trade deficit was nine million dinars, and in 2009 it was 23 times bigger (207.3 millions); the average annual deficit growth rate in the foreign trade of creative goods was 34.8%.

69

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Table 4 – Foreign trade of Serbia in cultural goods, 2009-2011 (in USD) Year

Export of Cultural Goods

Import of Cultural Goods

2009

225195000

432538000

2010

321198000

545500000

2011

384890000

589542000

Source: Rikalović G, Mikić H, ‘Kreativne industruje i trgovinska razmena Srbije sa inostranstvom’, in Ekonomska nauka u funkciji kreiranja novog poslovnog ambijenta, Priština: Ekonomski fakultet, 2011:222-233, the author’s calculations based on the foreign trade database www.stat.gov.rs In terms of economy, cultural industries have a share of 2.5% of gross added value in the national economy, with around 2.5% of employees. However, their multiplicatory impact is much more important, together with the enhancement of complementary industries that produce goods and services for cultural industries. If we look at the economic contribution of cultural industries from this angle, it can be noticed that every 3th work position in cultural industries creates one new work positions in complementary industries, contributing to the additional employment which makes 5% of total employment, and creating a share of 7.8% GVA of complementary industries.12 Table 5 – Economic aspects of cultural industries in Serbia (2009-2012)*

Year

Share in GVA (%)

Employees

Public financing of cultural industries (consolidated, €)

2009

4,76

75.963

192.185.000

1,51

2010

4,34

74.864

175.772.970

1,27

2011

4,33

74.777

169.134.600

1,14

2012

Np.

74.466

164.348.954

1,44

Share in the total budget outlay (consolidated, %)

Source: Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (accessed 1/02/2013), authors’ calculations,* UNESCO classification of cultural industries (UNESCO, 2009)

12 Mikić H, “Public Policy and Creative Industries in Serbia”, 7th International Conference on Cultural Policy Research, Barcelona, Spain, 9-12 July 2012. http://www.iccpr2012.org (accessed on 1/07/2012).

70

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Researches in the participation in creative industries show that around 60% of the population does not attend a single cultural event annually, rarely buys any books or other products of cultural industries, but passively consumes cultural products, mostly by watching television, reading newspapers and so on.13 One of the reasons for this is the very low solvency of the citizens of Serbia, reflected by the fact that two thirds of the population of Serbia (67%) can spend only 20 euros a month for the satisfaction of their cultural needs, one quarter can spend up to 50 euros a month on cultural events, while only 7% of the population can spend more than that.14 More precisely, an average household in 2010 spent 78 euros a year for cultural expenses – a number that has been decreasing by 4% annually over the recent years (Mikić 2011). There is also a large disbalance between rural and urban areas, the former spending an average of 3.5 euros a month on cultural needs per household member, which is mostly caused by the poverty in rural areas. These results reflect the distribution of the economic power of the citizens of Serbia, as well as the tendencies leading to the impoverishment and gradual disappearance of the middle class in Serbia – the class that was, in the 8th and 9th decades of the 20th century, the main exponent and catalyst of cultural participation and spending.

Table 6 – Participation and usage of the products of cultural industries in Serbia (2009-2010)

Number of publishing houses

Book sales (profit per 1,000 citizens, €)

Share of cultural outlays in total household outlays (%)*

820,5

602

15365

4,9

283

965,1

574

13643

4,7

2011

347

879,5

679

12100

4,3

2012

-

-

645

-

-

Year

Number of cinema visits (per 1,000 citizens)*

Cinema profits (per 1,000 inhabitants, €)

2009

233

2010

Source: *Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (accessed 1/02/2012); author’s calculations

13 Cvetičanin, P. M. Milankov, Kulturne prakse građanina Srbije, Beograd, Zavod za proučavanje kulturnog razvitka, 2011.

14 Ibid

71

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

DIVERSITY OF CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS IN THE DISCOURSE OF PUBLIC POLICIES: INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT AND SERBIA The goal of the Convention on Cultural Diversity was the acceptance of the dual nature of cultural goods and services, seen as exponents of identity, symbolic messages and economy, and at the same time the need for countries to obtain their rights and receive international support in protection and enhancement of the diversity of cultural expressions, which should ensure free flow of ideas and contents. The main idea of the Convention is that balance and openness should be accepted as key elements of cultural policies. The Convention is an appeal to the countries to adopt certain measures for enhancing the diversity of cultural expressions and to strive towards using these measures for enhancing their openness for other cultures, at the same time being careful not to harm the balance between cultures over the course of implementation. With this in mind, it seems that the most significant issues for understanding the repercussions of the Convention are related to the conceptualisation of the terms ‘protection’ and ‘enhancement’ in the discourse of public policies. The term ‘protection’, often used as a basis for public action, is aimed at “preserving, protecting and enhancing the diversity of public expression, as opposed to the protectionist measures driven by economic interests” (UNESCO 2007: 4). However, in reality, it is obvious that, apart from the protection of diversity in case of severely endangered cultural expressions, the measures of public policies can often act as means of economic protection for cultural industries in terms of economy. This view is further supported by the environment of international trade in cultural goods and services, which has been developing over the past 40 years under the patronage of the World Trade Organization. The global trade system, based on the rules set by the World Trade Organisation, contains a series of questions and dilemmas, many of which have had impact on national cultural industries and, in a wider context, on the whole exchange of cultural goods and services. Due to the efforts made by certain countries, the issue of trade in cultural goods has been omitted from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and is dealt with in the negotiations on services. This approach has enabled most countries to keep their sovereignty when it comes to their cultural and economic policies related to this sector, especially to the audio-visual contents.

In contrast to the resistance offered by the developed countries, primarily the USA, negotiations in the World Trade Organisation were finished with the acceptance of the agreement on trade and services, which contained a series of annexes about the sectors in which no agreements were reached (including cultural industries). Led by France and Canada, member states of the World Trade Organization have refused to negotiate on the protective measures, subventions and compensations for cultural industries, arguing that creative contents are neither goods nor services, but cultural goods, and as such cannot be part of negotiations. Subventions and protective measures, considered as a rule in trade agreements as damaging for the principles of mar72

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

ket and non-discrimination, were interpreted by most countries as merely measures of cultural policies aimed at protecting cultural identities and the diversity of cultural expressions. The connection between the concepts “protection of the diversity of cultural expressions”, as defined by the UNESCO convention, and “cultural exemptions”, as defined by the World Trade Organisation, is more than noticeable. Global application of this instrument to international trade relations was suggested by France in 1993, interpreting it in the light of the preservation of cultural diversity and the need for maintaining balance in international trade and exchange of cultural goods and services, in order to preserve national identities in the globalized world. Thus, all the arguments in support of cultural diversity and its importance have been made good use of in the context of the preservation of sovereign economic policy in this area, even though that has never been explicitly stated. Years of disputes over international trade relations have had their impact on the process of the adoption of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Enhancement of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Interestingly enough, when it came to this issue, out of the 124 signatories, 111 of which are the WTO members, the USA was alone in its argumentation about the potential adverse effects of the Convention in terms of international flow of the trade in cultural goods and services, arguing that the goal of the Convention is to restrict the export of American audio-visual products, and also adding that the ideas and concepts defined in the Convention reflect the long-lasting aspirations on the part of Canada and France to remove their cultural industries from the liberalised trade flows as much as possible. It is obvious that, by adopting the Convention and applying its provisions, this has been achieved to a certain extent. Firstly, the Convention gives a descriptive definition of cultural industries as “industries that produce and distribute cultural goods and services”, i.e. the products that possess “a certain quality, usage or purpose and contain or convey cultural expressions, regardless of the trade value they might have” (UNESCO 2005). This approach enables the signatory states of the Convention to define, according to their socio-economic context, which industries and economic subjects comprise the sector of cultural industries, and to define the borders of the cultural policy and the application of the Convention according to that. For defining this concept, the most developed countries use the UNESCO Framework for Cultural Statistics (UNESCO 2009) for easier operationalization of public policy measures and activities. Certain countries such as Canada, New Zealand, Finland, European Union, Singapore, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Columbia and Germany even went one step further, introducing national standards for the prescriptive defining of cultural industries (Pesoa 2012:11).

In our country, cultural industries are not clearly defined by the current Law on Culture (2009). It partially uses the organisational criterion, as well as the criteria of aesthetics, communication and affiliation of products, services and technology, for defining the cultural-artistic field, which leads to an unclear, distorted image not only of 73

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

this sector, but also of the range of cultural policies.15 Not even the existing legal acts, defining the organization of administrative organs in the area of culture, despite using the term ‘creative industries’ for denoting organizational units, give any clear delineation of the areas related to this concept.16 The academic discourse has gone much further with understanding the concept. It treats cultural industries from the perspective of industrial production and reproduction of cultural contents, encompassing publishing, music industry, cinematography, radio and television (Šešić, Stojković 2007; Mikić, Jovičić 2006; Mikić, 2011).17 In the domain of public policies, since the ratification of the UNESCO Convention, the measures that have been carried out in the most intensive manner were those of economic and organizational nature. In relation to this, it is important to point out that the diversity of cultural expressions has been emphasized as an explicit criterion for the co-financing of cultural projects18, even though the projects implemented so far do not allow us to assess how well this has been implemented in reality.19 Supporting cultural expressions through economic measures usually came down to providing public financing for various cultural contents and expressions, and the structure of this support varied depending on the level of government. In the above mentioned period, from 2009 till 2012, a total of 125.8 million euros were invested annually into the promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions, on all administrative levels, which makes around 16.3 euros per capita per year. The structure of the funds points to the 15 In 2011, during the making of the Strategy of Cultural Development of the Republic of Serbia, efforts were made to define this area and harmonize it with international standards. However, due to the change of the government, it is uncertain whether the revised Strategy will implement the international standard for the classification of cultural areas or not.

16 For more, please refer to: ‘ Pravilnik o unutrašnjoj organizaciji i sistematizaciji radnih mesta u Ministarstvu kulture, informisanja i informacionog društva’, No. 110-00-9/2011-10, April 8th 2011 17 In the analysis and assessment of the current conditions of cultural industries in our country, the term ‘cultural industries’ is used for denoting the activities which lead to industrial production and reproduction of cultural contents, encompassing publishing, music industry, filmmaking and radio and television.

18 The call for proposals for the financing or co-financing of cultural projects, art projects and professional and scientific researches in culture in 2013, opened by the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia (27/10/2013); Pravilnik o načinu, kriterijumima i merilima za izbor projekata u kulturi koji se finansiraju i sufinansiraju iz budžeta Republike Srbije; (The Codebook on the Rules and Criteria for Selecting Culture Projects to be Financed from the Budget of the Republic of Serbia), in Official Gazette RS, No. 57/2010.

19 This is supported by the results of the work done by the Working Group for Intercultural Dialogue at the Ministry of Culture, which in 2008 started the project of mapping the intercultural dialogue.

This process showed that there are very few projects, especially by NGOs or the independent cultural sector, which promote intercultural dialogue through artistic creativity. For example, only 79 projects were sent in for the competition for the best intercultural project, even though the Ministry of Culture finances an average of 352 projects annually. Krstanović, S. ‘Interkulturalnost i kulturna politika’,in: Ne prolazi ulicom bez traga: ka interkulturalnosti’, Aksentijević, Z. (ed), Beograd: Grupa 484, 2009, page 39.

74

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

fact that, on the level of the central government (state level), the support for the institutions of public importance and for the media diversity made 85% of the total sum invested into the enhancement of cultural diversity. On the territory of Vojvodina, these two financial lines participated with 62% of the total sum, while on the local level, not counting Belgrade, 97% of the total sum was spent on the above mentioned financial lines.20 Such results are hardly surprising, having in mind that the main element of cultural life consists of the cultural public sector, judging from both the number of channels and the infrastructural capacities. However, in contrast to this fact, the current system of financing the diversity of public expressions still exhibits a certain amount of disbalance. For example, the accessible financing for the projects by independent players on the cultural scene and other organizations was around 12% on the state and local level, respectively, which is around 3% of all the funds intended for the support of cultural diversity, while its share on the level of the cultural system of Belgrade was 12.8%. The distribution of the means in Vojvodina has had significantly better results, where around 50% of total funds have been redirected for financing these projects.21 These differences can be explained by different configurations of cultural systems in relation to their territorial dispersions, as well as by the ethnic structure of Vojvodina, where cultural diversity plays a very important role, and its main exponents are polyvalent centers, civil associations and various societies (extra-institutional players). In the past four-year period, the biggest challenge for the financing of the diversity of public expressions was to provide access to the infrastructure for the creation, production, diffusion and distribution of cultural contents. For these purposes, since the Convention was ratified, a total of 19.2 million euros have been spent, and the means 20 In the period 2009-2012, on the national level, a total of 154 million euros were invested into the enhancement of the diversity of cultural expressions (an average of 38.5 million euros, or 15.5% of total means annually). In Vojvodina, around 27.4 million euros were invested (an annual average of 6.85 million euros, or 47% of total means). On the local level (133 self-governing units), some 253 million euros were invested (an average of 63.5 million euros a year, or 97% of the total budget), while in the municipality of Belgrade 72 million euros were invested (around 18 million euros a year, or 80% of the total means). The author’s calculations were based on: Odluka o budžetu AP Vojvodine za 2009, Službeni glasnik AP Vojvodine No. 04/09, Odluka o završnom računu budžeta AP Vojvodine za 2010, Odluka o rebalansu budžeta za 2011, Pokrajinska skupštinska odluka o rebalansu budžetaAP Vojvodine za 2012, Zakon o budžetu Republike Srbije za 2009, Službeni glasnik RS No. 120/08, izmene 31/09, Zakon o budžetu Republike Srbije 2010, Službeni glasnik RS No. 107/9, izmene 91/110, Zakon o budžetu Republike Srbije 2011, Službeni glasnik RS No. 101/10, izmene 78/1, Zakon o budžetu Republike Srbije2012, Službeni glasnik RS No. 101/1, Izveštaj o realizaciji programa ustanova i organizacija u oblasti kulture for 2009, 2010 and 2011, Grad Beograd – Sekretarijat za kulturu i Zavod za proučavanje kulturnog razvitka in Kulturni resursi okruga Srbije, Beograd: Zavod za proučavanje kulturnog razvitka, 2011.

21 For programs and projects of this type (cultural and media diversity), on the national level, an average of 3 million euros were invested on the local level, in Vojvodina around 2.9 million euros annually, and on the local level (not counting Belgrade and Novi Sad) around 1.9 million. In the municipality of Belgrade, around 2.3 million euros were invested annually.

75

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

of this type made up 6.4% of the state budget for cultural diversity, 4.6% of Vojvodina’s budget, 2.1% of local budgets and 8% of the municipality of Belgrade’s budget for cultural diversity. A similar situation can be seen when it comes to the measures for the promotion of local creativity worldwide and the facilitation of the intercultural dialogue between cultures, mostly carried out on the state level and in Belgrade, costing an average of 2.19 million euros annually, while this aspect of the enhancement of cultural diversity has been largely neglected on the level of local self-governing units due to the unfavorable economic situation.22 In the area of indirect economic measures, it is important to mention the support for the artists in the process of creating cultural expressions – support through the enhancement of their social and economic status, as well as the tax support aimed at the better financing of production, dissemination and distribution of cultural goods and services.

This refers to the introduction of more flexible taxation of the profit made by artists and cultural workers, achieved by setting the limits for the recognized expenses for artistic and cultural work to be higher than those for other authorial work, allowing a five-year period for the taxation of the profit obtained in the field of art.23 In order to improve the artists’ social status, the cities of Belgrade and Novi Sad are financing social contributions to the independent artists whose social status is most endangered24, while the Ministry of Culture grants lump sum compensations by granting national awards to prominent artist and cultural workers.25 Among the indirect measures in the corpus of social politics, there are also tax reliefs for charity donations. These reliefs have been increased from 1.5% to 3% of the total profit after the ratification of the Convention.

22 For encouraging the free flow of ideas and cultural expression, on the national level an average of 1.72 million euros were invested annually, while in the municipality in Belgrade that sum was 450,000 euros annually.

23 As a part of this measure of the tax policy, the recognized expenses for works of art are between 50% and 34% of the gross profit. Zakon o porezu na dohodak građana, Službeni glasnik RS, No. 24/2001, 80/2002, 80/2002 – other law, 135/2004, 62/2006, 65/2006 - corrected 31/2009, 44/2009 and 18/2010 24 For example, for this measure, the Secretariat for Culture of the Municipality of Belgrade spends around one million euros annually. This sum is given annually to around 1,600 freelance artists on the territory of Belgrade.

25 The national award (pension) for making a contribution to the culture is 50,000 dinars a month, and has so far been awarded to 412 artists and cultural workers.

76

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Table 7 – Economic measures of public policies aimed at protecting and improving the diversity of cultural expressions (2009-2012) Measure

Infrastructural support

Measure description

Jurisdiction

Effects of the measure

Supporting the capital works of reconstructing cinema infrastructure, cultural institutions and other cultural objects

Ministry of Culture and Information, National Investment Plan, local selfgoverning units, AP Vojvodina

Facilitating effective access to cultural contents

Program support

Supporting the dissemination of cultural contents and ensuring the diversity of cultural expressions

Support of the media diversity (program and capital financing)

Supporting the production and dissemination of the diversity of media contents

Ministry of Culture and Information, AP Vojvodina

Enhancing the diversity of media contents

Supporting networking and cooperation on an international level

Ministry of Culture and Information, AP Vojvodina, Belgrade Municipality, Serbia Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SIEPA)

Promoting domestic creativity worldwide, increasing cultural exchange, facilitating dialogues between cultures

Enhancing social and economic status of artists (tax reliefs for the artists’ income); financing supreme creativity; national awards

Ministry of Culture and Information, Belgrade Municipality

Better socioeconomic work conditions for artists and cultural workers

Enhancing sustainable financing of cultural contents through increased tax reliefs (3% of total profit)

Ministry of Culture and Information, Ministry of Finance and Economy

Better financing of production, dissemination and distribution of cultural goods and services

Supporting and encouraging free flow of ideas and cultural expressions

Supporting the artists in the process of creating cultural expressions

Tax support

77

Ministry of Culture and Information, local self-governing units, AP Vojvodina

Enhancing the diversity of public expression

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

The regulatory measures intended for the enhancement of cultural diversity are specified by the Culture Law (2009), Cinematography Law (2011) and Library and Information Law (2009), all of which emphasize the diversity of cultural expressions as a principle of cultural development, development of cinematography and activities related to libraries and information. The Broadcasting Development Strategy (2011) has given a strong impetus to the establishment of the regulatory framework for fomenting cultural diversity, focused on the support of media diversity not only through program contents, but also through regulatory provisions ensuring the sanctioning of the concentration of media ownership, at the same time encouraging higher transparency of media operation and financing.

Table 8 – Regulatory measures of public policies with the aim of improving the diversity of public expression (2009-2012)

Measure

Measure description and goal

Jurisdiction

Effects of the measure

Culture Law

Supporting cultural development and the diversity of cultural expressions

All levels of public administration

Enhancing the diversity of public expression

Libraries and Information Law

Supporting the dissemination of knowledge and public accessibility of cultural expressions

Ministry of Culture and Information, National Library of Serbia, public libraries

Facilitating the accessibility of the knowledge and culture database, developing the library and information systems

Cinematography Law

Supporting the protection and enhancement of the national cinematography and the diversity of filmmaking

Ministry of Culture and Information, Film Center

Developing the national cinematography

Strategy

Ensuring and improving the media diversity and the freedom of expression

All levels of public administration

Transparency of the ownership of media; prohibiting media concentration and ensuring pluralism of the freedom of speech

78

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Organizational and institutional measures were the most intensive area of public policies, and those intended for networking and the creation of collaborative platforms in cultural industries should be given special attention. In 2010, the Ministry of Culture and Information established two working groups, whose goal it was to better articulate and recognize the needs of cultural industries and the independent cultural scene. The Task force for the development of creative industries was formed in order to aid the Ministry of Culture and Information with the development of the support program for creative industries, as well as to work towards the establishment of cross-sector cooperation in this area. The Task force created the program entitled “Creative Serbia 2020” (Kreativna Srbija 2020), aimed at the economic sustainment of cultural industries in Serbia, and also at encouraging creative and entrepreneurial spirit with all the players in creative industries.26 Under the mandate of Task Force was published the publication entitled “Creative Serbia” (2011) intended for the affirmation of cultural industries, entrepreneurial spirit and the professionalization of the cultural sector. The publication led to the organization of several public debates in Belgrade, with this topic. The first one was in May 2012, for the International Day of Cultural Diversity (May 21st 2012), and the second in November the same year, as a part of the first Forum of Creative Economy.27 The Task Force for the cooperation with the independent cultural scene was formed after the signing of the protocol with the Independent Cultural Scene of Serbia, an umbrella organization consisting of around 74 civil organizations in the area of culture,28 whose goal it is to establish a dialogue with the Ministry of Culture, coordinate the needs of the independent art scene and strive towards its active inclusion into the cultural policy.

26 Due to the political elections and the expiration of the mandate of the Working Group, the project was not implemented as a government program, even though the partners who gathered around this project initiative continued to work on the economic enhancement of creative industries through the platform of private-public partnership called ‘Creative Serbia’, coordinated by the Creative Economy Group from Belgrade. For more, please consult: Mikić, H. ‘Kreativna Srbija – Prezentacija projekta’, Beograd: Grupa za kreativnu ekonomiju, 2012. http://www.kreativnaekonomija.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/CreativeSerbia-2020.pdf (last accessed on 1/02/2013).

27 The Creative Economy Forum, with the participation of the representatives from the UNESCO Statistics Institute, was envisioned as a first significant program of the public advocacy and affirmation of the concepts defined by the Conference, presented in the introductory part as training for the decision makers on a local level. The training was attended by around 65 representatives of local self-governing units from all around Serbia. Grupa za kreativnu ekonomilu. ‘ Završen prvi forum kreativne:prepoznata kreativna ekonomija kao razvojna šansa Srbije’. Beograd: Grupa za kreativnu ekonomiju (Vesti, 7/11/2012) http://www.kreativnaekonomija.net/zavrsen-prvi-forum-kreativne-ekonomije-prepoznata-kreativnaekonomija-kao-razvojna-sansa-srbije/ (last accessed on February 2nd 2013).

28 Protokol o saradnji Ministarstva Republike Srbije i Asocijacije udruženja i inicijativa Nezavisna kulturna scena Srbije, No. 6-00-1/2011-01 from January 19th 2011.

79

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Table 9 – Overview of the organizational public policy measures with the aim of protecting and enhancing the diversity of public expression (2009-2012).

Measure

Measure description and goal

Supporting networking and cooperation in cultural industries

Establishing collaborative platforms in cultural industries and stimulating cooperation and entrepreneurial spirit

Task force for the development of creative industries

Expert support and creation of programs for the development of creative industries

Coordinator for Creative Industries

Administrative and professional support in the development of cultural industries; suggesting measures for the enhancement of their functionality

Task force for the cooperation with the independent cultural scene

Enhancement of the measures and cooperation with the independent cultural scene

Jurisdiction

Effects of the measure

Ministry of Finance and Economy, Secretariat for the Economy of AP Vojvodina, the Borough of Savski Venac

Establishing the Cluster of the Creative Industry of Vojvodina, the Filmmaking Cluster, the Cluster of Old Crafts ’Recraft’; Nova Iskra Design Incubator; the Cluster of Youth Tourism and Entertainment Industry

Ministry of Culture and Information

Program for economic sustainment of cultural industries entitled “Creative Serbia 2020”; publication entitled “Creative Serbia”, for promoting entrepreneurial spirit in cultural industries

Ministry of Culture and Information

Coordinating and participating in the work and results of the working group for the development of creative industries

Ministry of Culture and Information

Clearer articulation of the needs of the independent cultural scene and cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Information

Within their respective jurisdictions, other state agencies also provided their support for the encouragement of cultural industries and strengthening of the diversity of cultural expressions. As a part of the program for cluster support by the Ministry of Finance and 80

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Economy, support has been provided for the foundation/development of five clusters in the area of cultural industries: Film Commission (76 members), Cluster of the Creative Industry of Vojvodina (40 members), RE: CRAFTS & Innovation Cluster for Design and Old Crafts (27 members), Cluster of Arts and Crafts from Sombor (15 members) and Cluster for Design and Printing from Niš. The goal of the support of clusterisation in cultural industries is to encourage the creation of more coherent production, distribution and dissemination processes related to the products of cultural industries, but also to train the players of cultural industries to produce quality products and services that can be sold on foreign and domestic markets. Generally, except for the Film Commission that is a clearly defined network of businesses from the film industry located at different agglomeration levels, all other clusters are striving towards the creation of collaborative platforms and are still in their embryonic stage. Namely, due to the heterogeneous nature of creative industries, as well as varied configuration and structure of certain industries in this sector in Serbia, it is very difficult to establish clusters that will be based on systematic connections between organizations, which can be seen from the differences in the sizes of the existing clusters. For example, if we take a look at the cluster structure, we will see that it is mostly dominated by small clusters with up to 25 members which, judging by their type, belong to the entrepreneurial clusters, established in order to ensure cooperation and improve the entrepreneurial spirit between micro businesses and entrepreneurs, whose main goals are to enable the access to information and the cooperation, by bringing together providers and consumers.29 The Nova Iskra Design Incubator is a specific type of a collaborative platform, which is a kind of a civil rent-a-desk business incubator aimed at creating the conditions for joint work and promotion of young designers.30 Another similar example is the Design Center in Čajetina, intended for the networking of women dealing in arts and crafts, and for bringing them in contact with the creative industries.31 International cooperation and the mobility of goods and services provided by creative industries take place along two lines: through international bilateral agreements and on the level of cultural institutions and independent players in cultural industries; however, there has been no support for the sustainment of their export components.

29 Only the Filmmaking Cluster is an example of clusterisation at higher level of development, which, according to its type, belongs to vertical clusters, mainly oriented at the export of film services and the improvement of investments.

30 The Incubator has 48 members (young architects, designers, costimographers, photographers etc), and has been supported by Opština Savski Venac, where it is located.

31 The Design Center came into being as a part of the project entitled ‘Old Crafts for New Age’ (Stari zanati za novo doba), aimed at improving the economic position of women trough the strengthening of female entrepreneurship in the rural areas of South-Western Serbia. The project also focused on the creation and networking of businesses for production, promotion and sales of hand-made souvenirs, as well as on the establishment of a design center in Čajetina, and training centers in the municipalities of Prijepolje and Nova Varoš, intended for continuous training of women to produce, pack, promote and market souvenirs.

81

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Some research into international cooperation point at the absence of concepts and developed mechanisms that could improve the efficiency of this cooperation. It is also noticeable that there are no measures that would ensure better market access and better distribution of cultural goods through specific arrangements, which would strengthen the independent cultural industries. Also, there are no mechanisms that would enable the conveyance of knowledge and good practices in building institutional structures for the increased affirmation of cultural industries on the international stage. Most of the programs take place in Paris, where there is an official cultural-informative center, while of all the other EU countries, “most Serbian cultural activities exist in Austria, Italy, Germany and Greece (around 23% of all programs). As for the countries with traditionally good relations, the most intensive activities took place in the Russian Federation (around 4%). In the region, Serbia has had most cultural activities in Croatia (around 4%), while in the countries of the Western Balkans (Former Yugoslavia without Slovenia, plus Albania) this accounts for around 10% of all programs. Serbian cultural activities in other countries are most intensive in the North America (around 7%), where there is the largest Serbian community living abroad”.32 A large number of programs are carried out as ’Culture Days’ in most European countries such as Austria, Germany and France, the wider region of Croatia and Romania and, as for other countries, in Canada and Australia. Despite the absence of a firm concept of international presence, Serbia is often represented at the manifestations about the Balkans, through various programs.33 In the policies of international cooperation, a disproportionate presence of traditional creativity can be noticed (such as folk dances, traditional music, medieval art), with random presence of contemporary art forms, mostly initiated and implemented by the artists themselves, or by independent organizations or foreign partners.34 In the domain of publishing, the participation of domestic publishers at international book fares was organized through the Association of Publishers and Bookstore Owners in Frankfurt, and consisted of the visits to the book fares in Paris, Leipzig, Pula etc. After a period of increased urging and lobbying, the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society of the Republic of Serbia organized, in cooperation with the Society of Creative Industries at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia as the executive organizer, presentations of domestic publishing at the fares in Leipzig, Frankfurt, Thessalonica and Vienna, representing writers and publishers from Serbia with around 400 titles.

32 Rogač Lj. ‘ Kulturne aktivnosti Srbije u Evropi i svetu 2000-2012’, Kultura. 130 (2011): 336.

33 For example, the ‘Balkan Traffic’ festival, and the program entitled “Zapadni Balkan u kulturnom fokusu”(‘Western Balkans in the Cultural Focus’), organized by the Austrian Cultural Forum in London.

Also, a three-day manifestation in Athens dedicated to the culture of the Balkans, organized by the Hellenic Organization for Culture and sponsored by the president of the Republic of Greece, K. Papulias, etc.

34 An example of this is the organization of the classical exhibition of naive painting and cultural heritage, whose most frequent themes are monasteries and churches of Serbia. One such exhibition, entitled ”Srbija zemlja fresaka”(‘Serbia, Land of Frescoes’), took place in the National Museum, etc.

82

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

“Book translation is still one of the most frequent forms of activities on the international level. In the past ten years, the most translated books were the ones written

by Danilo Kiš, followed by Ivo Andrić, Miloš Crnjanski etc”35, while the old-fashioned literary readings are still being organized, usually dedicated to one contemporary author – the guest, taking place in the embassies of the Republic of Serbia in certain countries. Sales of domestic literature are easier on the regional level due to the common language (former Yugoslavia), and are based on private initiatives by small professional publishing houses. In relation to that, there are two editions that deserve special attention: “Sto slovenskih romana” (One Hundred Slavic Novels) and “ Srpska proza u prevodu”( Serbian Prose In Translation). The former consists of mutual translation of ten novels from each of the ten Slavic countries, published since the fall of the Berlin wall until today, and each participating country can nominate ten of its best novels published since 198936. Serbian Prose in Translation is a program whose goal it is to translate five domestic literary works into English each year, enabling them to reach the Anglo-Saxon market and be further translated into other languages. Another objective of this program is the translation of books originally written in English, and their placement on the domestic market. Even though this initiative is still in its early stages, the tendencies on the market of Anglo-Saxon publishers should also be taken into account, as they include into their catalogues up to 3% of translated books from other linguistic areas. According to this, the success of the inclusion of the domestic literary works into the catalogue of translated works can be considered significant.

Filmmaking and cinematography of Serbia, in the context of cultural activities abroad, are important only in terms of particular films or authors. Unlike neighboring cinematographies, e.g. the Romanian, who is represented collectively under the patronage of the state and under the name of ’New Romanian School’ of common thematic framework and artistic sensibility, the Serbian cinematography is present at international film festivals only partially, depending on the total annual production. Most manifestations in the domain of filmmaking and cinematography are only intended for the presentation and evaluation of domestic production on the international level, as well as in certain specific film environments (European, regional, Central European, documentary etc), while there has been no encouragement or promotion with the goal of creating sustainable market systems for the valorization of filmmaking. In that respect, there are no activities that would contribute to the Serbian film becoming a part of the regular repertoire of the European cinema network. As the events aimed at promoting new Serbian film production have not been profiled clearly, they are often 35 Rogač Lj. ‘ Kulturne aktivnosti Srbije u Evropi i svetu 2000-2012’, Kultura. 130 (2011): 336.

36 So far, five countries have sent their novels to represent them in this edition. Apart from Serbia, this has been done by Russia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Slovakia. After the suggestion by the PEN Center, the Arhipelag publishing house from Belgrade has been selected as the Serbian publisher. The whole project should be completed by 2015, when the whole edition will be printed in the English language as well.

83

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

carried out as mixed programs – something typical of a number of Serbian cultural programs abroad.37 Finally, the integration of culture into the sustainable development strategies, as the last aspect of the measures promoted by the UNESCO Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, seems to be the least developed aspect of the public policies in our country. Even though these measures are intended for the strategic integration on all levels of public administration, and also for pointing out the connection between development, culture and the decrease of poverty through the adherence to this principle, an insight into the strategic documents on both the national and the local level shows that the existing policies are not adequately sensitive to culture.38 On the local level, some 96 municipalities (80%) have adopted the local agendas of sustainable development (LA 21), which inadequately treat cultural and spiritual dimension of human activities as being a part of the quality of life, not recognizing the aspect of cultural industries as its developmental dimension. Cultural industries and their contribution to the social and economic development can only be seen in the environments where there are local strategies of cultural development, and in Serbia there are only five such municipalities (Kragujevac, Valjevo, Pančevo, Užice, Niš). In these municipalities, the issue of the sustainable development of culture is more or less related to other strategic lines of the community development, and in some cases even has a central place in this development through cross-sector connections, mainly with tourism (e.g. Pančevo and Užice).

Literature 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Bilten javnih finansija za mesec oktobar 2012. Beograd: Minstarstvo finansija republike Srbije, 2012.

Council of Europe. Faco declaration on the Council of Europe’ Strategy for Developing Intercultural Dialogue, Strasbourg: Council of Euruope, 945 Meeting, 9 November 2005.

Council of Europe. Bela knjiga o interkulturalnom dijalogu-Živimo zajedno jednaki u dostojanstvu!, Strazbur: Savet Evrope, 2008.

Cvetičanin, P. M. Milankov. Kulturne prakse građana Srbije, Beograd: Zavod za proučavanje kulturnog razvitka CUSEFTA, Canadand and Unated States Free Trade Agreement, 2 October 1988 United States-Canada,_ U.S.T. _, T.I.A.S. , reprinted in 27 I.L.M. 281.

37 The vague goals of the current international activities in the area of filmmaking are reflected by the events related to new Serbian cinematography, such as the event entitled ‘Days of Serbian Film in Vienna’, organized in the capital of Austria, a large European metropolis, but without any subtitles for the films (in 2009, by the Embassy of the Republic of Serbia in Vienna), which clearly shows that it was intended only for the Serbian Diaspora, which, of course, should not be the only goal of international cooperation, which raises the question of whether such initiatives are envisioned as political, or as cultural manifestations.

38 Currently, there are more than 480 strategic documents on the local level, related to various aspects of socio-economic development. For more, please refer to: The Database of Local Strategic Documents, http://strategije.skgo.org (last accessed on 1/02/2013).

84

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

Đurić, J. “Identitet i interkulturalnost-Srbija kao mesto prožimanja Balkana i Srednje Evrope”, Filozofija i društvo, 3(2008): 217-232.

Grupa za kreativnu ekonomiju. „Završen prvi forum kreativne: prepoznata kreativna ekonomija kao razvojna šansa Srbije“. Beograd: Grupa za kreativnu ekonomiju (Vesti, 7.11.2012) http://www.kreativnaekonomija.net/zavrsen-prvi-forum-kreativne-ekonomije-prepoznata-kreativna-ekonomijakao-razvojna-sansa-srbije/ (preuzeto, 2. februar 2013) Izveštaj o realizaciji programa ustanova i orgnizacija u oblasti kulture za 2009, Grad Beograd-Sekretarijat za kulturu Izveštaj o realizaciji programa ustanova i orgnizacija u oblasti kulture za 2010, Grad Beograd-Sekretarijat za kulturu Izveštaj o realizaciji programa ustanova i orgnizacija u oblasti kulture za 2011, Grad Beograd-Sekretarijat za kulturu Krstanović, S. „Interkulturalnost i kulturna politika“ u: Ne prolazi ulicom bez traga: ka interkulturalnosti, ur. Aksentijević, Z. Beograd: Grupa 484, 2009.

Majstorović, S. Kulturne i jezičke različitosti, Kultura 19 (1972): 122-145.

Mikić, H. Expert report on economic analisys of creative industries in Serbia, Belgrade: SFBC-Creative Economy Group, 2011.

Mikić, H., Rikalo M. “Film market in Serbia: development challenges and solutions” 9th Annual International Conference on Communication and Mass Media, Institute for Education and Research, Athens, Greece16-19 May 2011 Mikić, H. „Kulturna politika i savremeni izazovi finansiranja kulture: međunarodna iskustva i Srbija“ Kultura br. 130 (2011).

Mikić, H. „Public policy and creative industries in Serbia” 7th International Conference on Cultural Policy Research, Barcelona, Spain, 9-12 July 2012. http://www.iccpr2012.org (pristup, 1.07.2012) Mikić, H. „Kreaativna Srbija - prezentacija projekta“, Beograd: Grupa za kreativnu ekonomiju, 2012. http://www.kreativnaekonomija.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Creative-Serbia-2020.pdf (preuzeto, 1.02.2013) Mikić, H. Jovičić, S. Kreativne industrije u Srbiji: preporuke za razvoj kreativnih industrija, Beograd: Britanski Savet, 2006.

NAFTA-Nord American Free Trade Agreement, 7th October 1992. http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/ epub/89/pg89.txt (preuzeto, 1.02.2013) Odluka o budžetu AP Vojvodine za 2009, Službeni list AP Vojvodine br. 04/09, izmene 14/09 Odluka o rebalansu budžeta AP Vojvodine za 2011, http://www.psf.vojvodina.gov.rs/Rebalans%202011.pdf Odluka o završnom računu budžeta AP Vojvodine za 2010, http://www.psf.vojvodina.gov.rs/ Pokrajinska%20skupstinska%20odluka%20o%20zavrsnom%20racunu%20budzeta%20APV%20 za%202010%20godinu.pdf Pascual, i dr. Vodič za učešće građana/ki u razvoju lokalnih kulturnih politika u evropskim gradovima, Kotor: Expedito, 2011.

Pessoa, J. „Cultural Statistics in Africa: The Missing Link“,rad izložen na 3rd Pan-African Cultural Congress (PACC3) Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 28-30 August 2012 Pokrajinska skupštinska odluka o rebalansu budžeta AP Vojvodine za 2012 http://www.psf.vojvodina.gov.rs/Rebalans%20Oktobar%202012.pdf Pravilnik o unutrašnjoj organizaciji i sistematizaciji radnih mesta u Minsitarstvu kulture, informisanja i informacionog društva, br. 110-00-9/2011-10 od 8 aprila 2011.

Privredna komora Srbije-Udruženje za kreativne industije. Filmska distribucija u Srbiji- trenutno stanje, dokumentacioni materijal, Beograd: Privredna komora Srbije, 2009 Protokol o saradnji Ministarstva kulture Republike Srbije i Asocijacije udruženja i inicijativa Nezavisna kulturna scena Srbije, br. 6-00-1/2011-01 od 19. januara 2011.

Rogač Lj. „Kulturne aktivnosti Srbije u Evropi i svetu 2000-2010“, Kultura 130 (2011).

Rikalović, G. ur. Kreativna Srbija: novi pravac razvoja, Beograd: Anonymous said, 2011.

Rikalović, G. Mikić, H. „Kreativne industrije i trgovinska razmena Srbije sa inostranstvom“, Ekonomska nauka u funkciji kreiranja novog poslovnog ambijenta, Priština: Ekonomski fakultet

85

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

32. Savet Evropre. In from the magins: a contribution to the debate on culture and development in Europe.

Strasbourg: Council of Euruope, 1997.

33. Strategija razvoja sistema javnog informisanja u Republici Srbiji do 2016, Službeni glasnik RS, br.

75/11.

34. Šešić - Dragićević, M, Stojković, B. Menadžment, animacija, marketing, Beograd: CLIO, 2007 35. UN. Universal declaration on human rights. New York: Unated Nations, 1948. http://www.un.org/en/ documents/udhr/index.shtml (preuzeto, 1.05.2013) 36. UNCTAD. Creative Industries and Development. Eleventh session, Sao Paolo: UNCTAD, 13-18 June 2004 http://www.unctad.org/en/docs//tdxibpd13_en.pdf (preuzeto, 1.05.2008) 37. UNDP/UNCTAD. Creative Economy Report 2008: The Challenge of Assessing the Creative Economy: Towards Informed Policy-making. New York:UN, 2008 38. UNDP/UNCTAD.Creative Economy Report 2010: Creative Economy: A Feasible Development Option.

New York:UN, 2010.

39. UNESCO Universal declaration on cultural diverstiy, Records of the General Conference, 31st Session, Paris: UNESCO, 15 October to 3 November 2001, http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ ID=13179&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html (preuzeto, 01.02.2013) 40. UNESCO, Deset objašnjenja uz Konvenciju o zaštiti i promovisanju raznolikosti kulturnih izraza, CLT/CEI/DCE/2007/PI/32, Pariz: UNESCO, 2007.

41. UNESCO. Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

Paris:UNESCO, 2005. http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=31038&URL_DO=DO_ TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html (preuzeto, 01.01.2011) 42. UNESCO. Cultural policy: a preliminary study, Round table-meeting on cultural policies, Monaco: UNESCO 1969.

43. UNESCO. Flows of Selected Goods and Services, 1989-1998. Paris: UNESCO., 2000a.

44. UNESCO. Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural Policies for Development, Final Report CLT-98/ Conf: 210/5, Stockholm: UNESCO, 1998.

45. UNESCO. Intergovernmental Conference on the Administrative and Financial Aspects of Cultural PolicIes, Venice: UNESCO, 1970.

46. UNESCO. Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Polices, UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies, Mecixo City: UNESCO, 1982.

47. UNESCO. Cultural industries: a challenge for the future of culture. Paris: UNESCO, 1982a.

48. UNESCO. World Culture Report- Cultural Diversity, Conflict and Pluralism, Paris: UNESCO, 2000.

49. UNESCO-UIS.The 2009 UNESCO Framework for Cultural Statistics (FCS 2009). Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2009. http://www.uis.unesco.org/Library/Documents/FCS09_EN.pdf (preuzeto, 01.01.2011) 50. UNESCO-World Comission on culture and development. Our Creative Diversity, Paris: UNESCO, 1995, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001055/105586e.pdf (preuzeto, 1.01.2012) 51. Zakon o bibliotečko-informacionoj delatnosti, Službeni glasnik RS, br. 51/11.

52. Zakon o budžetu Republike Srbije za 2009, Službeni glasnik RS br. 120/08, izmene 31/09 53. Zakon o budžetu Republike Srbije za 2010, Službeni glasnik RS, br. 107/09, izmene 91/10 54. Zakon o budžetu Republike Srbije za 2011, Službeni glasnik RS br. 101/10, izmene 78/11 55. Zakon o budžetu Republike Srbije za 2012, Službeni glasnik RS, br. 101/1 56. Zakon o kinematografiji, Službeni glasnik RS, br. 99/11.

57. Zakon o kulturi, Službeni glasnik RS, br. 72/09.

58. Zakon o porezu na dobit pravnih lica, Službeni glasnik RS, br. 25/2001, 80/2002, 43/2003, 84/2004, 18/2010, 101/2011 i 119/2012.

59. Zakona o porezu na dohodak građana, Službeni. glasnik RS, br. 24/2001, 80/2002, 80/2002 - dr. zakon, 135/2004, 62/2006, 65/2006 - ispr., 31/2009, 44/2009 i 18/2010 60. Zavod za proučavanje kulturnog razvitka. Kulturni resursi okruga Srbije. Beograd: Zavod za proučavanje kulturnog razvitka, 2011.

hristinamikic@gmail.com 86

87

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 305-055.2-057.875(497.11)

Svenka Savić

University of Novi Sad, Serbia ACIMSI Centre for Gender Studies

Veronika Mitro

University of Novi Sad, Serbia ACIMSI Centre for Gender Studies

Education for gender - Equal Society of Female Students in Serbia1 SUMMARY: The aim of this study is to show that education for gender-equal society influences the attitude (i.e. stereotypes) about gender equality and gender roles.

We used a questionnaire to survey gender stereotypes among female students.

The total of 72 students enrolled in the academic year 2012-13 at the University of Novi Sad (UNS), the University of Belgrade (UB), and vocational colleges in Vojvodina completed in the questionnaire. The students differed in national identity (Roma and non-Roma) and were classified into three groups: Roma students who acquired knowledge about gender issues through extra-curricular activities; non-Roma students in the fourth year of Serbian language studies, without special education about gender issues; non-Roma students of master studies whose curriculum includes systematic study of gender issues.

The results show that the non-Roma students having no education in the area of gender studies, women’s and human rights conform to attitude-stereotypes in large part, the Roma students who gained knowledge through extra-curricular activities to a lesser degree, whereas the least attitude-stereotypes can be found amongst the non-Roma students educated in the area of gender studies.

Key words: female students, gender equality, gender roles, national identity

1 This work is a part of the project Gender Equality and the Culture of Civic Status: the Historical and Theoretical foundations in Serbia (no. 47021), financed by the Ministry of Education and Science within the program Integrated and Interdisciplinary Research for the period 2011-2014.

We would like to thank Ms. Mirjana Jocić for useful suggestions to earlier drafts of this paper and to the students who took part in this research.

88

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

1.0. INTRODUCTION By education for gender-equal society we mean curricular activities, within the system of education in the area of the gender studies, as well as extracurricular activities including alternative programs of women/gender studies, seminars, workshops and conferences concerning human rights.

Within the Serbian curriculum any possibility of gaining systematic knowledge about gender equality is almost absent on every level of education (pre-school, primary, secondary or higher education). On the post-graduate level, systematic education in the field of gender studies is available only at the University of Novi Sad - UNS (ACIMSI: Centre for gender studies) realized through the master and doctoral program of gender studies, and at the University in Belgrade - UB (Faculty of political sciences) in an elective course: Gender, Language, Politics. The situation is different when it comes to extra-curricular activities: a number of courses, seminars, conferences and workshops with the subject of gender and sexual (in) equality are offered not only to the student population, but also to those at lower levels of education – high school, elementary school – especially in the cities, and especially directed towards underprivileged groups – women, Roma.

According to the records of UNS for the academic year 2012-13, in various years of study 120 Roma students were enrolled at various faculties, and 85 at vocational colleges in Vojvodina. There are no available data as to the sex of the students, so the number of male viz. female students enrolled as a result of affirmative action during the last 10 years, especially from the beginning of the Romany Decade (2005-2015) cannot be determined, because there are no statistics at UNS regarding gender.

At UNS there is no data regarding different aspects of socialization within the system of higher education, such as civil and political engagement of the students, additional education and hobbies, from which we could gather knowledge regarding the identity changes and cultural patterns of female students.

2.0. THE AIM The aim of this pilot research is to determine whether systematic and extracurricular education for gender-equal society influences gender stereotypes of Roma and Non-Roma female students at universities in Serbia.

3.0. METHOD 3.1. SAMPLE The sample for this research comprises 72 female students divided into three groups: 1st group – Roma female students (27 of them in total) enrolled in various years of study at different faculties at UNS and vocational colleges in Vojvodina. The students in 89

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

this group received scholarships from Roma Education Fund, (www.romaeducationfund. hu). This scholarship, besides good scholarly achievement, also requires extracurricular work (participation on seminars, conferences, trainings etc.) and active participation in developing the Roma community. The distinctive characteristic of the Roma student population at UNS is the diversity of age, as society institutionally and extra-institutionally encourages higher education among the Roma population, , not only those of ‘appropriate’ age, but also superannuated - those, namely, who graduated from high-school (lasting four years) earlier and did not continue their education. The female students interviewed in this group are of different age (from 19 to 21 = 9; from 22 to 25 = 7; from 26 to 30 = 4; above 31 = 7). Besides, they attended different levels of study (first year = 5, second year = 5; third year = 4; fourth year = 3; undergraduate ABD (All but degree) = 2; master studies (graduate studies) = 6; doctoral (PhD) studies = 2), pursue different areas of study (management = 6; medicine = 5; pedagogy = 3; journalism = 2; foreign languages = 2; sociology = 2; economy = 1; literature = 1; law = 1; art = 1; social sciences = 1; political sciences = 1; psychology = 1). From the total of 27, 25 (92,59%) are active in the civic sector (in Roma or other associations of citizens), having attended various training courses, seminars and courses of lectures (about gender equality, invigorating female Roma population, discrimination, human rights, journalism, assertiveness, romology, democracy, leadership, project writing, lobbying, teamwork etc.).

2nd group – Non-Roma female students (total of 25) enrolled in the fourth year of undergraduate studies (the final one) at the Department of Serbian Language and Linguistics at the Faculty of Philosophy (FP) of UNS. The group is homogenous regarding age (from 22 to 25), they are not active in the civic sector, and only 3 of them (12%) attended foreign language courses, and none of them had previous curricular or extra-curricular education regarding gender equality.

3rd group – Female students of graduate (master) studies lasting one year, at the Faculty of Political Sciences (FPS) in Belgrade (total of 25) who have had a systematic one semester course within the official curriculum (the elective course Gender, Language, Politics). The students are of different age (23 = 2; 24 = 7; 25 = 1; 26 = 4; 27 = 1; 30 = 1; 34 = 1; 53 = 1) and of different professions: journalists, politicologists, special education teachers, managers in culture, philologists, public relations managers, social workers, art historians. Half of them (50%) are not (socially) active, and there are those who are involved in activities of civic associations (The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, Alternative Women’s Studies, The Victimology Society of Serbia, Defenders of Human Rights, student organization – Move Serbia, FEMIX – Initiative for Social Responsibility, Open School of Belgrade, Altero); members of political parties (The Socialist Party of Serbia, The Democratic Party), and professional associations (The Association of Specialists Working at Pre-School Facilities) or organizational teams (BEFEM – the PR team of FPS).

They have attended courses and seminars on different subjects: pre-school education, journalism, research in politics, sociocultural anthropology, gender equality, successful 90

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

communication (strategies), cultural activities in social work, battle against corruption, Romanian language, journalist reporting discrimination, violence and organized crime, social responsibility, mediation.

The students are of the same sexes and social and educational status, and differ in national identity , age, professional orientation, experience regarding women and civic activism in local communities, and level of knowledge regarding gender issues.

3.1. The technique of collecting data Our research is primarily focused on establishing interconnectedness between the knowledge acquired in the area of gender studies and human rights and recognizing stereotypes about different gender issues.

We collected the attitudes of students about gender equality and gender roles by means of an anonymous questionnaire2 written in Serbian language, containing the following sets of questions: −− Personal data regarding age, ethnic affiliation, the year of study, and the area of study. −− The questions related to extra-curricular activities: −− Membership in political, civic and professional organizations; −− Gaining additional knowledge through participating on seminars, courses and conferences; −− Hobbies; −− The questions related to gender equality: −− Question-statements regarding different aspects of gender equality. The task of the person filling in the questionnaire is to express her assent or dissent with the statement given.

Question 1 - I think that men and women should share the housework Question 2 – After a divorce, the children should belong to the mother.

Question 5 – Whenever a girl says NO she means YES. Question 6 –Men who cry have probably not been in the army.

Question 7 – Women politicians are not feminine.

Question 8 – Beauty pageants are important competitions because they praise female beauty.

Question 11 – Whenever girls wear short skirts or dresses they provoke violence.

Question 12 – The best way for a woman to fulfil her personality is to become a mother.

Question 13 – In our society double standards hold: one for women and another for men.

2 We applied the modification of the questionnaire used in seminar work of Milica Nikoletić Rašković (2013), originally prepared by Sunčice Vučaj (2010).

91

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Question 16 – Women are the weaker sex.

Question 22 – In Vojvodina there should be more programs/activities devoted to invigorating women/ girls within the framework of informal education.

−− Closed-type questions The task of the person filling in the questionnaire is to

choose one (or more) of the answers given: Question 9.– More and more women participate in the political life of the society.

How much do women with their activism contribute to the improvement of the society: a) a lot; b) moderately (so-so); c) a little; d) none whatsoever; e) I do not know; Question 15 – When a female student receives her degree from the Department of Psychology, she is a: a) psiholog (psychologist); b) žena psiholog (female psychologist); c) psihološkinja (a special word denoting a female psychologist).

Question 19 - Who, in your opinion, has the most influence on what kind of a woman\man we will become? a) the media; b) the parents (family); c) school; d) other things.

−− Open-type questions The person should answer them using her own words:

Question 3 - Who should work to support the family?

Question 4 - What are the things the parents would not approve of when their daughter is concerned?

Question 10 a – Explain why it is good to be a woman.

Question 10 b – Explain why it is good to be a man.

Question 13a – If you believe that there are double standards for men and women, give an example.

Question 14 – When someone says: ‘Be a man!’ or ‘Be a woman!’ what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

Question 17 a – What are the fundamental properties of manhood?

Question 17b – What are the fundamental properties of womanhood?

Question 18 – List the best jobs suitable for women and those suitable for men: Question 20 – Who is your role-model at the moment? (it can be someone from your family, a public personality, someone you know from school, or someone from your neighbourhood...): Question 21 – In Serbia a law considering gender equality was enacted. According to the law, what changes are the most important to be made in order to improve the situation of women in the society?

92

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

4.0. The results 4.1. The answers the students gave to question-statements The percentage of dissent is equal (100%) in all three groups of female students regarding only two statements (see graph 1).

Graph 1 – The percentage of dissent over the questions-statements 6 and 11 according to the groups of students

The students from all three groups clearly discern the stereotypes about “men who cry“ and “girls who wear short skirts“. Men who cry are not ’sissies’ and girls who wear short skirts are simply following a trend in fashion. As for the rest of the statements, the percentage of disagreement varies depending on the group and can be presented as aschema (see graph 2): the degree of agreement is the highest viz. the lowest in the third group of students (of non-Roma who have been educated about gender equality within curricular activities), are followed by the first group (of Roma who have been educated about gender equality within extra-curricular activities), while the second group (non-Roma without education about gender equality, future teachers of Serbian language) comes last in this context.

The students who have been systematically educated about gender recognize the stereotypes about women to the highest possible degree; they are aware of double standards for men and women (question 13) and acknowledge the need to create systematic educational programs “aimed at invigorating girls/women within the framework of informal education“(emphasis S.S and V.M). Roma students (who mostly acquired knowledge about gender equality through various extra-curricular programs) are able to recognize attitudes about women/girls as stereotypes but not in the same degree as the above mentioned, hence the stereotypes regarding motherhood and child care remain untouched. This is confirmed by the answers specifically related to the role of the mother (12). A considerable number of these students believe that it is true that “the best way for a woman to realize herself as a personality is to become a mother” and that “after the divorce the children should belong to the mother”. It is a well known fact that in Roma families the role of the mother is of utmost importance and that this concept profoundly influences the system of values; moreover, the students do not associate it with the patriarchal concept of gender roles, but with the cultural pattern of the community they belong to. The group that has received no 93

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

education whatsoever about gender equality (future elementary and high-school female teachers of Serbian language) presented in their beliefs that they are conforming to attitude-stereotypes regarding motherhood and care for children to the highest degree. We deem this fact especially significant considering the teaching process of the future generations of students.

Graph 2 – Percentage of disagreement with the question-statements according to the student groups

94

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

4.2. The answers students gave to closed-type questions It is a fact that all the students believe that women, by participating actively in political life, significantly contribute to the improvement of the society. However, differences could be observed between the three groups. The students having special education about gender issues demonstrate stronger conviction (group 3), followed by those who actively take part in the process and have basic education (Roma students in group 1) while the least conviction is exhibited by the students who are not educated about this and whose professional area of interest is teaching Serbian language in elementary and high school (group 2); we observe also that future teachers demonstrate less knowledge in answering the questions than the Roma students.

Graph 3 – Answers to the question how much women contribute to the improvement of the society by their active participation according to the groups:

This fact may worry those working on education plans about gender equality; namely, the data demonstrates the attitudes towards gender equality held by those involved in the teaching process. We conclude that the interdependence between personal 95

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

convictions and the level of knowledge should be investigated among those who know little about the issue. More precisely, education about gender equality should become a continuous program of increasing gender equality awareness of those who are about to enter the teaching process, as a sort of general background knowledge to teaching at any level.

Graph 4 – The answers students gave to the question: when a female student receives her degree from the Department of psychology, she is a: psiholog (psychologist), žena psiholog (female psychologist), psihološkinja (a special word denoting a female psychologist)

It can be expected that students educated in the field of gender studies and human rights are better acquainted with gender sensitive language (Savić, 2010; 2011).

The students who have learned about gender issues within the master-study curriculum after having elected the course, have certain awareness of its importance; somewhat less awareness has been demonstrated by the Roma students, although still a high percentage (62.07%), while the future teachers of Serbian language answered the question in accordance with the conventions they learned in their programs of study, i.e. that for naming the professions of women the masculine form of the substantive is used. Those in favour of the spreading of this idea have the opposite attitude about this.

The situation was similar with the question concerning influences on what kind of men and women shall we become; in case the students have been educated in the field of gender studies, human rights and gender equality, they know very well that, besides family and parents, other factors contribute as well.

96

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Graph 5 – The answers students gave to the question: Who, on your opinion, has the most influence on what kind of man/woman shall we become? According to the groups:

4.3. The answers of students to the open-end type of questions All three groups agree that both parents should work and support the family. Only the gender-aware students believe for the most part that “all the adults who are able to work” ought to do so contributing to family support in equal measure (this fact is related to the current situation in the country where a lot of adult men and women do not have a job).

Graph 6 – The answers students gave to the question: Who should work and support the family? According to groups:

97

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Regarding the question: “What are the things parents would not approve of when their daughter is concerned?” the answers given by groups 1 and 3 differ from those given by group 2 in it that there is a higher percentage of students who refused to answer (did not answer) than those who think that “it depends on the parents” and those who gave reasons related to sexual behavior ( “to be a lesbian”, “to live in promiscuity”).

Graph 7 – Answers to the question: What is it that parents would not approve of when their daughter is concerned? According to the groups of students:

Other decisions parents may think are bad for their daughter were only differently formulated by the three groups: −− behaviour involving risk: prostitution, alcoholism, drug abuse, hanging out with bad people, living on one’s own without parent supervision night life, going out too often, traveling, tattooing etc. (1st group = 8; 2nd group = 7; 3rd group = 3); −− education: giving up school, in school (1st group = 5; 2nd group = 3; 3rd group = 1); −− employment: to be unemployed, choosing a job that is considered to be “for men” (1st group = 3; 2nd group = 3; 3rd group = 2); −− marriage and family: getting married too early, wrong choice of the partner, abandoning children (1st group = 3; 2nd group = 2; 3rd group = 2); −− sexuality: being a lesbian, living in promiscuity (1st group = 3, 3rd group = 1).

It was unexpected that a considerable percentage in all three groups of students refused to give answer to the question: “Explain why it is good to be a man and why it is good to be a woman”. The answer should have been the result of their personal reflection on the differences between the sexes and not so much about presenting those differences by conforming to stereotypes widespread in society.

98

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Table 1 – Percentages of the people who did not answer the question: Explain why it is good to be a man and why it is good to be a woman. According to all three groups of students: Man

Woman

1st group

2nd group

3rd group

1st group

2nd group

3rd group

25.93

16

35

22.22

20

30

The students who answered the question gave one or more reasons to justify their opinion which we classify in the following categories: −− Social status (“men have greater power”; “we are privileged for men treat us nicely”; “women are aware of inequality and struggle against it”); −− Employment (“men get jobs easier”, “because women don’t do hard manual labour”); −− Biology (“they don’t have to give birth”, “they don’t have periods”; “they can realize themselves as mothers”); −− Family (“when he comes home from work, hardly any man will cook lunch and do the house-work”; “the woman is the backbone of the family”); −− Feelings (“men show their feelings to a lesser degree”; “women are more sensitive”); −− Attitude to life (“women are more resourceful”; “more active”; “ have a capability to simultaneously do many things ”); −− Physical strength (“men are stronger”); −− Appearance (“men don’t have to invest in their (physical) appearance”; “they look better”); −− Other (“because women need them”; “because that gives you the possibility to be a good person”).

The students from all three groups clearly observed that men are privileged in our patriarchal society and that, accordingly, the most frequent answer was that “it is good to be a man because men have better positions in society than women” (1st group = 60%; 2nd group = 50%; 3rd group = 72%). The students gave other reasons as well: The students from group 1 and 2 listed biological properties (“they do not have periods”; “they cannot give birth”), and the students from groups 1 and 3 the advantages on the occasions of applying for a job and having more opportunities; the Roma students show even more sensitivity to this, since they are pressurized by men from their own community no less than they are mistreated by the employers belonging to the ethnic majority.

99

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Table 2 – Ranking and frequency of reasons why it is good to be a man viz. a woman according to the groups of students Men

Women 1st group

1.

2.

3.

social status 60% employment 30% biological advantage 15%

1.

2.

3.

attitude to life 55.55% biological advantage 38.89% social status 22.22%

2nd group 1.

2.

3.

social status 50% family 33.33% biological advantage 28.57

1.

2.

3.

biological advantage 88.89% attitude to life 50% (physical) appearance 22.22%

1.

2.

3.

attitude to life 33.33% sensitivity 33.33% biological advantage 16.67

3rd group 1.

2.

3.

social status 72.72% employment 9.09% physical strength 9.09%

Respondents from groups 1 and 2, who answered the question why it is good to be a woman, gave, for the most part, as a reason, the attitude to life (more resourceful, more active), and the students from the 2nd group mentioned self-fulfilment as mothers (90/% gave this answer). Giving birth is a reason also for 38.89% students from the 1st group and 16.67% from the 3rd group. A good reason for being a woman is, for the students from the 1st group, the social status, for those from the 2nd group – (physical) appearance and for those from the 3rd group - sensitivity.

To the question “if you think that there are double standards for men and women, give an example” a significant percentage of students from each of three groups did not provide an answer (40.74% of 2nd group; 37.04% of 1st group and 20% of 3rd group). The reason was perhaps that that they did not want to think about examples. The students who did answer gave examples from which one can see that they recognize elements to gender inequality of women in three fundamental areas: freedom of exhibiting sexuality, employment, and division of house-chores (Table 3): −− sexuality (“ if a man often changes his partners, that is considered positive and would not be met with disapproval, whereas it is vice versa for women”);

100

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

−− Employment and work (“If a woman wants a career, she is considered a bad mother;

a man is considered ambitious. It is widely believed that many positions of authority and top-level leadership ought to be held by men exclusively, whereas for women there are less intellectually challenging, female jobs”); −− division of house-chores (“It is perfectly natural” that the place of a woman is in the kitchen and she is expected to take care of the family and of the children, whereas a man should provide for the family financially); −− other (“boys normally inherit the real estate (property) of the family”; “according to the leading stereotype of masculinity, it is entirely acceptable for a man to exhibit aggressiveness, whereas women get reproached and meet disapproval for the very same kind of behaviour, with derogatory expressions such as “unladylike“, “tomboy“ and the like”; “if a man gets drunk, nobody will reprimand him, whereas a woman will be condemned”).

Table 3 – The areas the students recognized as the ones in which different standards are maintained for men and women 1st group

2nd group

3rd group

Sexuality

25

33.33

37.5

Employment and work

50

60

50

Division of house-chores

12.5

6.67

Other

12.5

12.5

It can be concluded that these differences are inherent to the everyday experience of the students as women and that, regarding this area, no special educational policy is needed in order to “teach” the students that there are differences.

Answering the question: “When someone tells you: ‘Be a man!’ or ‘Be a woman!’, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?” most of the students cited characteristics of men and women well known in the society. However, some students from the 1st group (29.63%) and from the 3rd group (25%) answered this question with some comment about gender (in)equality and stereotypes learned during the process of education (“exhibiting sexuality standardized in society”; “what comes to my mind is that the person is full of prejudices and stereotypes”; “that I should behave in accordance with the required standards for men, or for women”; “I should wear a blue, not a red sweater”, “ this person should urgently get educated about gender equality”).

101

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Table 4 – Characteristics of men cited by the students (according to the groups) 1st group

2nd group

3rd group

Strong, powerful, domineering / take charge, have the guts to hit, be rough, bang your fist on the table

7

8

6

Courageous

3

5

3

Tough, resolute, audacious, firm

5

5

3

Don’t cry, don’t show your emotions, be rational (more rational)

6

3

1

Consistence

1

Responsibility

1

Handsome (man)

1

We conclude that the characteristics ascribed to men and women by the students are stereotypical and stem from the everyday discourse and the media: men are strong, domineering, courageous and tough, and do not cry; whereas women are tender, sensitive, well-groomed, delicate, quiet, good-looking and polite.

Table 5 – Characteristics of women cited by the students (according to the groups) 1st group

2nd group

3rd group

Tender / sensitive/emotional / fragile

8

6

5

Well-groomed

6

3

1

Delicate (feminine)

3

4

4

less conspicuous / be shy / don’t come forward first / don’t argue / be submissive / let the man dominate /

6

Good-looking / nice, cute / be polite / behave well, with dignity

3

1

1

Conscientious

1

Ladylike

1

A high percentage of students in all three groups agree that every job is equally suitable for both sexes! (In the 1st group 48.15%, in the 2nd group 28%, in the 3rd group 65%). The students who had been educated about gender issues are more consistent (3rd group 1st group).

102

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Table 6 – Best jobs for men and women Women

Men

1st group

2nd group

Doctor/paediatrician, surgeon, pharmacist/ nurse / midwife

7

7

Teacher, pedagogue, counsellor, employed in school, professor, professorship

10

22

Stewardess

1

1

Announcer, journalism

3

Writer, actress, singer, art, actor, cultural centres, fashion designer

1

5

1

Psychologist, pedagogue, special education therapist,

2

4

1

Culinary art, pastry cook

2

2

Fashion-modelling

1

Factory worker, manual work

1

Economist

3

1st group

2nd group

3rd group

2

9

1

1

6

1

1 1

4

1

Trainer sports

1

Lawyer judge

1

Housewife

1

4

1 1

1

Work in office / administration / secretary, work in banks, accountant

1 2

1

1 1

1 2

Philologist, foreign-language instructor, PR and human resources, foreign-language teacher

2

Public sector

1

Executive jobs / manager,

2

Jobs requiring verbal abilities and perception

1

103

3rd group

1

1

1

1

3

2

1

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Women 1st group Activist

2nd group

Men 3rd group

1st group

2nd group

1

Politics politician, minister, president

1

3rd group 1

1

7

1

Architect

1

4

Pilot

1

1

Policeman, inspector

1

2

Engineer

6

Car mechanic, craftsman, plumber

1

Collector of secondary raw-material

1

2

Computer science and programming

2

Electrical-engineering

1

Field-worker, miner, bricklayer

1

Jobs requiring logical reasoning, physical strength

1

2

Table 7 – Answer to the question: Who is your role-model at the moment?

1st group

2nd group

3rd group

I do not have one

10

8

10

My mother

2

2

4

My parents

2

3

My father

1

1

Grandma and grandpa

1

My mother and my aunt

1

My sister

1

My aunt

2 1

104

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

1st group

2nd group

A person from my family

3rd group 1

My friend – she is successful, resourceful, active, improves herself constantly and is at the same time charming and sociable

1

My boyfriend, my best friend, the sister of my aunt

1

My mother and the dean of my college

1

father, uncle; Zoran Đinđić

1

Novak Đoković (persistence – perseverance and commitment to the limits of human capacity)

1

Rafael Nadal

1

I look up to different traits of different persons I admire, but I wouldn’t take any of them as a role-model

1

prof Kosta Josifidis

1

Brian Tracy

1

Angela Merkel

1

professors Ana Pajvančić and Ana Bilinović (teaching at my faculty), Hala Gorani (journalist, announcer)

1

Professor Svenka Savić

1

Princess Jelisaveta

1

Professor Rajko Djuric

1

Myself

2

1

Milunka Savić

1

Professor Čedomir Čupić

1

In all three groups, for the most part, the students did not have role-models; we interpret that as a positive fact, because they create their vision of life and identity for themselves. Those who do have role-models find them among family members and friends, followed by those who find them among famous personalities or persons from their experience or those they get to know at school.

Not all the students answered the question: “According to the law, what changes are the most important to be made in order to improve the situation of women?” The Roma students did know the complete inventory of procedures to improve the situation of women, since the legislative regulations of the law are related to the female Roma population.

105

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

They have heard a lot about that through various seminars, and some of them work as instructors for other Roma women in various groups in cities as well as in villages.

Table 8 – Answers to the question: In Serbia, a law was enacted considering gender equality. According to the law, what changes are most important to be made in order to improve the situation of women?

1st group

2nd group

I do not know, no answer

4

7

Equal treatment regarding employment and work

7

8

Adherence to the law in practice

2

1

Equality of men and women and further developing policies of equal opportunities

8

4

1

Solving the problem of family violence

2

1

1

Lessening prejudices considering women not being able to do things, being less qualified, or stupid, whereas men are more capable and clever

1

The right of women to entertain their own opinion

1

A woman should not be considered a slave

1

Women should be respected and not underestimated

1

To be accepted as she is, and not restrained

1

To change the belief that her place is in the house

1

3rd group 1

Visibility of women in official communication (in legal texts, legislative regulations etc.)

1

Equal participation in public life of both sexes

4

The success and contribution of women should be publicly recognized

1

A quota system is imposed

1

Access to the media

1

Economic emancipation regarding executive positions and the media

1

Avoid discrimination

1

Standardizing gender sensitive language

1

The future teachers of Serbian language know the least of all about the law, although they have experience of unequal treatment in the occasion of getting employed – no semi106

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

nar is necessary to gain such experience - almost 99% of the graduate students from this department are women, and probably just few of them will get a job. To them, experience was critical to notice inequality, not the law, being seldom adhered to anyway.

4.4. Hobby One of the questions in the questionnaire was about the personal hobbies of students.

We wished to know how many things they had chosen for themselves that are not any part of curricular or extra-curricular programs contributed to the education of students.

We know from some other research projects that in our cultural milieu a hobby is not something expected of women; consequently, this sphere of female energy is still largely invisible for research. We, therefore, assumed that a hobby of her own choice may give us insight into a change happening to women receiving higher education and living (and attending school) in large cities (Belgrade, Novi Sad).

Moreover, we wished to know whether the choice itself could give us information about the change of gender roles, if any, or would confirm the presence of some run-ofthe-mill stereotypes. The answers from the questionnaire are classified according to frequency, for each of the groups separately, followed by the list of individual hobbies with frequencies added (unfortunately, not every student answered the question about hobbies, and those who did answer mentioned frequently more than one activity, so the sum-total of the answers does not match the number of the interviewed students).

The answers according to the groups are the following: 1st group Roma students hobby (21 out of 27 i.e. 77.78%), namely: reading 6, dancing 4, acting 3, watching movies 3, writing 2, singing 2, walking 2, cooking 2, pastry cooking, playing an instrument, drawing, judo, music, literature, swimming, volley-ball, fishing, facebook, sleeping, helping others with learning, research.

2nd group non-Roma students, future teachers of Serbian language hobby (24 out of 25 i.e. 96%), namely: reading 7, writing 3, music 3, foreign languages 3, exercises in a gym 3, movies 2, aerobics 2, drawing, acting, walking, singing, playing an instrument, dancing, folklore, yoga, jogging, obedience training of dogs, pastry cooking.

3rd group non-Roma students, attending the elective master-study course about gender hobby (12 out of 20 i.e. 60%): reading 2, photography 2, design 2, swimming 2, writing poetry, painting, literature, visual arts, cinematography, travelling, coin-collecting, origami, music, singing, modern ballet and rowing.

This list, containing 38 different hobbies, is impressive. It demonstrates the wide spectrum of interests that these young women have and, what is even more important, none of the hobbies chosen can be classified as “typically female”. On the contrary, they could be classified as typically students’ hobbies, by means of which they achieve status recognition 107

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

and belonging to a particular group of young people in the society. The most often selected hobby is reading – an integral part of their role as students, as well as their future vocation – followed by the activities connected to fitness, good-looking and having fun (dancing, music, working out) widespread among members of their generation (the young) which may serve as evidence that they fit into their age group. Based on this fact, one can say that the evidence we gathered about the hobbies of the students are incongruous with the stereotypes (prejudices) about interests or activities of women belonging to the two ethnic groups (women from both groups like dancing, singing and learning as well).

Table 9 – The list of all the hobbies with added frequencies by the groups

1st group

2nd group

3rd group 2

1

reading

6

7

2

dancing

4

1

3

acting

3

1

4

watching movies

3

2

5

writing

2

3

1

6

singing

2

1

1

7

walking

2

1

8

cooking

2

9

pastry cooking

1

1

10

playing an instrument

1

1

11

drawing

1

1

12

judo

1

13

music

1

14

literature

1

1

15

swimming

1

2

16

volleyball

1

17

fishing

1

18

facebook

1

19

sleeping

1

20

helping others with learning

1

21

research

1

3

1

108

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

1st group

2nd group

3rd group

22

foreign languages

3

23

exercises in a gym

3

24

aerobics

2

25

folklore

1

26

Yoga

1

27

jogging

1

28

obedience training

1

29

photography

2

30

design

2

31

painting

1

32

visual arts

1

33

cinematography

1

34

travelling

1

34

coin-collecting

1

36

origami

1

37

modern ballet

1

38

rowing

1

Some of the answers are particularly interesting. A Roma girl answered that her hobby was helping others with learning; she obviously belongs to a group of volunteers who in their associations give instructions to elementary school children with learning difficulties. Thus, hobbies can be related to current activities of Roma students within the framework of a mentor program realized in various civil organizations. These are, therefore, the ‘modern’ hobbies of young Roma students. In the future, these features of identity of highly educated Roma students, with which they represent themselves well, not only in their own ethnic community, but also in the wider community, during their university education, should be investigated more closely. Subsequently, we asked some students (11 of them) of non-Roma ethnicity at UNS, who did not fill in the questionnaire to appraise the list of hobbies given by (R)oma students and (N)on-Roma students in order to get some information with their help about the stereotypes present in two selected groups3.

3 Prior to the list of hobbies, the following text was printed: in front of you there are three lists of hobbies given by students at the University of Novi Sad and the University of Belgrade in the year 2012-2013. On the basis of the inventory of hobbies, please estimate which of the two groups of students had given these lists: Non-Roma or Roma students, by writing the letters N or R next to the group number.

109

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Table 10 – The estimation of national identity based on the list of hobbies Appraisal of the students (R)

(N)

(R) and (N)

List of hobbies given by Roma students

5

3

3

List of hobbies given by non-Roma students - future teachers of Serbian language

5

4

2

List of hobbies given by non-Roma students on the master-program

4

5

2

On the basis of the 11 people surveyed, we were not able to conclude whether the students actually recognized the national identity of the students on the basis of their list of hobbies.

5.0. CONCLUSION On the basis of this research, we raise the following question: How to investigate the elements of education for gender-equal society among female students from within the framework of the current system of higher education, in which there are few programs focusing on this topic. We have observed that ignorance or inadequate knowledge comes from gender (in)sensitive educational programs, both curricular and extra-curricular activities not negligible considering certain groups of students, in this case Romani female students, but this can be easily extended to, for example, physically impaired students. The knowledge acquired in extra-curricular activities is not visible within the scope of knowledge acquired in curricular activities, because of the lack of space for their application.

This knowledge is demonstrated only in occasions when students are specifically inquired in the area (as it was the case with this questionnaire).

The second important question is how to investigate the degrees of education about gender equality and human rights among students of different ethnic origin – in our case Roma and non-Roma female students . Our investigation shows in which segments these two national groups are similar and in which different. The method of the investigation should be coordinated in order to present in the right way the nature of knowledge the students have and receive during their studies as a whole, including knowledge and abilities that are for the most part the result of their personal choices (hobbies).

The three groups of students selected from UNS, UB and vocational colleges in Vojvodina show that there are differences regarding the degree of internalization of stereotypes within the three groups: those who received systematic education to recognize gender inequality were ready to recognize discrimination in the questions given concerning stereotypes about men and women; by contrast, those who did not were less able to do so.

110

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

The Roma women have acquired their knowledge of gender and civic equality in a process of extra-curricular activities, that is to say, in a process that lacks any kind of verification of knowledge gained either by passing exams, writing papers or any other form of testing; nevertheless, their personal experience of inequality is evident from the answers they gave. It has been shown that the knowledge gained in extra-curricular activities is indeed active in their conceptualization of gender equality and in recognizing the inequality of women in relation to men. We conclude that this type of education is important for those groups who have less power in society and towards whom there is a considerable social distance from outside of their own ethnic community. It can be expected that the Roma students, having learned to recognize inequalities (i.e. implicit discrimination) regarding sex and gender, will be able to recognize them regarding ethnic origin or any other kind of bias. Thus for them extra-curricular education is essential.

On the basis of the results of the investigation we have carried out, we would like to make some proposals we believe to be far-reaching: 1. For acquiring knowledge about equal status of women in the society, curricular as well as extra-curricular educational programs in the education system are necessary for all groups of female students, especially for those who experience inequality in their everyday life.

2. The women who have acquired knowledge are able to recognize such situations and are ready to bring about changes in their private lives as well as in society.

6.0. REFERENCES 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Nikoletić Rašković, Milica (2013), Stavovi o rodnoj ravnopravnosti studentkinja iz nacionalnih zajednica u Vojvodini: Romkinje, Centar za rodne studije, ACIMSI, Univerzitet u Novom Sadu, ACIMSI: Centar za rodne studije, master program (odbranjen seminarski rad iz Metodologije rodnih istraživanja, mentorka: Svenka Savić).

Savić, Svenka (2010), Obrazovane Romkinje: prijedlog za model interkulturnog razumjevanja i slušanja, Jasenka Kodrlja, Svenka Savić, Svetlana Slapšak (urednice), Kultura, drugi, žene, Institut za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu, Hrvatsko filološko društvo, Plejada, Zagreb, 187-202.

Savić, Svenka (2011), Rodni identitet i obrazovanje Romkinja u Srbiji, Interkulturalnost, Zavod za kulturu Vojvodine, Novi Sad, br. 1, str. 52-65.

Savić, Svenka (2012), Romkinje u Srbiji: mogućnosti za očuvanje i razvoj identiteta, Tibor Varadi i Goran Bašić, urednici, Promene identiteta, kulture i jezika Roma u uslovima planske socijalnoekonomske integracije, SANU, Odeljenje društvenih nauka knj 33, Beograd, 71-85.

Slapšak, Svetlana (2001), Ženske ikone XX veka (posebno Romkinja), Biblioteka XX vek, Beograd, 240-245.

Vučaj, Sunčica (2010), Rodna i LGBT diskriminacija: postoji i uspeva, Osnovna studija o stavovima mladih o rodnoj i LGBT ravnopravnosti, Projekat: Doprinos mladih antidiskriminacionoj politici, NVO Atina, Beograd.

svenka@eunet.rs mitro@sbb.rs

111

f o t o

C o d y

s t r a n a :

1 1 1 ,

C o b b 1 1 2 ,

c o d y c o b b @ m e . c o m

1 1 3 ,

1 2 6 ,

1 2 7 ,

1 4 7

112

113

114

115

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 323.1:061.23(497.11)"2009/..."

Miroslav Keveždi

The Institute for Culture of Vojvodina Novi Sad, Serbia

National Councils of National Minorities in Serbia and Their Activity in the Culture Field since 2009 to This Day – An Overview of the Most Important Scientific and Expert Papers, Analyses and Recommendations Summary: The author reviews the most significant activities, research, analyses and recommendations concerning the activities of the National Councils of National minorities in the Republic of Serbia in the field of culture, starting with the enactment of the Law on National Councils of National Minorities in 2009.

The author recognizes that, despite their importance, the Councils have not been the focus of attention of the scientific community, since there have been very few papers focused particularly on the Councils. Prior to their establishment, and only due to public expectations, have the Councils been included in scientific research papers. Following their establishment, the Councils have had the attention of NGOs and the Ombudsman Institution. Their expert analysis indicates that there are many problems in the legislation practice when it comes to the influence of political parties on the council, the organizational structure of the Council, the transfer of management and founding rights, compliance with other laws, determining the criteria for declaring an institution of special importance for conservation, and the improvement and development of the distinctive national identity of a national minority.

Key words: culture, cultural rights, national minorities, national councils of national minorities, minority rights, law on national councils, protection of minorities

116

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Introduction This paper reviews the most significant activities, research, analyses and recommendations concerning the activities of the National Councils of National minorities in the Republic of Serbia in the field of culture, especially those founded after the enactment of the Law on National Councils of National Minorities in 2009.

Serbia is an ethnically heterogeneous country, numbering 83.3% of Serbs at the 2011 Census and 20 national minorities with over 2,000 members (Vukmirović, 2012). The members of national minorities in the Republic of Serbia may choose their National Councils in order to exercise their right to self-governing in culture, education, information and the official use of language and script. National Councils are representatives of national minorities, so they ensure and institutionalize the participation of minorities in the process of decision-making and governance in these areas.

The concept of cultural autonomy headed by the national councils was first introduced into the legal system of the Republic of Serbia with the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Freedoms of National Minorities at the end of February 2002 (Bašić, 2006).1 In Article 2, the Law defines minorities as follows: ”A national minority, for the purpose of this Law, shall be any group of citizens of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia numerically sufficiently representative and, although representing a minority in the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, belonging to a group of residents having a long-term and firm bond with the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and possessing characteristics such as language, culture, national or ethnic affiliation, origin or confession, differentiating them from the majority of the population, and whose members are distinguished by a desire to collectively nurture their common identity, including their culture, tradition, language or religion. All groups of citizens termed or determined as nations, national or ethnic communities, national or ethnic groups, which meet the conditions specified under paragraph 1 of this Article, shall be deemed national minorities for the purpose of this Law”.

The first National Councils, established by the Law from 2002, were elected by the electoral system. Fifteen additional Councils were established pending the commencement of the Law on National Councils of 2009.

National Councils of National minorities, as bearers of cultural autonomy of ethnic minorities, became a constitutional category upon the adoption of the Constitution in 2006.2 The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia guarantees to its national minorities individual and collective rights, with the collective rights implying that “persons belonging to national minorities, directly or through their elected representatives, participate in 1 Zakon o zaštiti prava i sloboda nacionalnih manjina (“Sl. list SRJ”, br. 11/2002, “Sl. list SCG”, br. 1/2003 Ustavna povelja i “Sl. glasnik RS”, br. 72/2009). http://www.seio.gov.rs/upload/documents/ekspertske%20 misije/protection_of_minorities/the_law_on_the-protection_rights_nat_minorities.pdf 2 Ustav Republike Srbije (Službeni glasnik RS” br. 98/2006) http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/ documents/untc/unpan019071.pdf

117

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

decision-making or decide on certain matters related to their culture, education, information and official use of language, in accordance with the law” (Pajvančić, 2009:97-99).

In order to define the overall status of the National Councils in the legal system of the Republic of Serbia, the Law on National Councils of National Minorities was adopted on August 31st 2009, and complemented by a legislative framework for the promotion and protection of minority rights.3 The Act entered into force on September 11th 2009, defining the jurisdiction of the National Councils in education, culture, media, and the official use of language and script, relations with national authorities and autonomous regions, the relationship with local government, the election process of national councils, the financing of national councils and more.

The first elections using the procedure under the Law on National Councils instated 19 councils. Members of fifteen national minorities elected their representatives through direct elections, while the national councils of the Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovenian national minority were elected through the electoral assembly. Bosniak national minority failed to establish their national council after the elections. The turnout at the immediate elections was 54.5% of the registered representatives of minority enrolled in the special electoral rolls. In accordance with the new law, members of national minorities elected their representatives for the protection and promotion of collective minority rights. Concurrently, the state gained a partner in the design and implementation of minority policy, whose ultimate goal should be the integration of national minorities in all spheres of social life.4 Institutional organisation of minority rights in the Republic of Serbia is vital for the stabilization of relations within Serbia (Nenadić, 2005:686). Similarly, regulation of minority rights is central for the diplomatic relations of Serbia with its neighbors and international organizations (Raduški, 2008). Culture is undoubtedly one of the most important areas for the preservation and development of the identity of national minorities.

Culture includes and produces contents that are transmitted through the educational and informational system of national minorities, thus creating a wider cultural system (Molar, 2000:17-27). Therefore, we believe that paying attention to the institutional base is vital, since it enables the functioning of the minority cultural system in Serbia. This base is reflected primarily in the work of National Councils of national minorities. For that reason, it is necessary to make an inspection of the most important works, research, analyses and recommendations concerning the activities of National Councils in the field of culture, in accordance with the Law on National Councils.

Our study analyses the results and conclusions related to the activities of current National Councils in culture. In order to provide insight, we analyse published research pa3 Zakon o nacionalnim savetima nacionalnih manjina („Službeni glasnik RS” br. 72/2009). http://www.seio. gov.rs/upload/documents/ekspertske%20misije/protection_of_minorities/law_on_national_councils.pdf 4 http://www.rtv.rs/sr_lat/politika/puna-integracija-manjina-u-drustveni-zivot_423607.html

118

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

pers and expert analyses regarding minority rights and national councils, with particular emphasis on their relation to culture.

Research and analysis of minority rights and legislation In the past decade, National Councils as such have attracted relatively little attention from experts. The Councils and their work are mainly the focus of minority media, but are almost never the focus of scientific papers in Serbia. Since the democratic changes on October 5th 2000, the scientific attention was put on the more general problems in understanding national minorities, the treatment of individual and collective rights (Nenadić, 2005; Stanovčić, 2008; Јовановић, 2004, 2009), the politics of multiculturality (Bašić, 2003, 2007; Kristović, 2012; Raduški, 2009b, 2011; Domonji, 2008; Lošonc, 2012), the international standards in the exercise of minority rights (Matić, 2002; Raduški 2009a), the interethnic relations in Serbia and the Balkans (Raduški, 2001, 2008; Rakić, 2009; Sitarski, 2010), the minority position in Serbia and Vojvodina (Petsinis, 2004; Stanovčić, 2007, Domonji, 2008) and demographic analysis (Raduški 2006, 2010a, 2010b; Stanković, 2004).

National Council as such is mentioned in one paper, once again indirectly, in the analysis of the Bunjevci’s national identity in the process of globalization (Subotić, 2011).

Following the adoption of the Law on Protection of Rights and Freedoms, it had been pointed out that the laws were passed in an atmosphere of reform and universal optimism, filled with hope in an inevitable and permanent way out of the economic crisis, nevertheless with an uncertain future of the state entity as well (Krivokapić, 2003:91). This situation resulted in a delayed adoption of many supporting documents that were meant to help the work of the council. Amid ample praise, criticisms were mainly directed towards the lack of financial support from the state, particularly with regard to funding minority media, which had been emphasized by the minority leaders as the key elements for maintaining their own culture and tradition (Nenadić, 2005:688). The second criticism was directed at the lack of constructive dialogue between the minorities and the majority. The third reason for criticism was the unequal status of different ethnic minorities, perceiving the law as favoring big national minorities such as Hungarians, thus opening the doors for making a division between “small” and “big” minorities (Nenadic, 2005:688; Domonji 2004).

Nenadić emphasized in 2005 the need for establishing an Ombudsman for minorities, which was granted the same year with the institution of the Ombudsman at a national level (The decision to establish the Provincial Ombudsman was adopted in December 2002).

Research and analysis concerning National Councils Before the elections held on June 6th 2010, National Councils as such were mentioned in only one article directly – an article about National Councils as instruments of implementation of collective rights of minorities (Korhec, 2009:61-76). After the elections, Councils were mentioned indirectly in another article, in the analysis of Bunjevac national identity in the process of globalization (Subotić, 2011). Also, one monograph 119

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

was written about the first 10 years of National Council of Slovak national minority in Serbia (Čáni et al. 2013).

After the Law on National Councils of National Minorities was passed, just before the elections for the National Councils of national minorities in Serbia, a survey was conducted regarding the collective perception of the role and importance of National Councils of national minorities in Vojvodina (Lazar, 2010; Marinkovic 2010). It was established that, out of the total number of members of national and ethnic communities in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina surveyed, the majority (60.9%) was aware of the possibility of establishing National Councils of national minorities in the Republic of Serbia (Lazar, 2010:568). The survey revealed that almost two-thirds (64.3%) considered the preservation of collective identity as the most important task of the Council of their national/ ethnic group. The results also showed that the respondents as members of national/ethnic groups in Vojvodina were aware that National Councils are not a means of political organization and representation, but failed to recognize their importance in the domain of institutionalised protection of minority rights. This fact, along with the information that 28% of respondents found the most important task of the national council to be the preservation of traditions and customs, illustrates that there is still a low level of legal culture among members of national/ethnic groups in Vojvodina. Almost 22% of respondents expected the National Councils to take care of the economic position of minority ethnic communities (Lazar, 2010: 572).

Two years of the National Councils The first two years of the National Councils were followed by a research conducted by the Provincial Ombudsman in relation to the 19 National Councils registered with the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, Public Administration and Local Self-Government.5 This research provides a very detailed insight into how the Law on National Councils of National Minorities worked in practice. The research sample consisted of the National Councils of the Bulgarian, Bunjevac, Greek, Egyptian, Hungarian, Macedonian, German, Romanian, Ruthenian, Slovak, Ukrainian, Croatian and Czech national minority. National councils of the Ashkali, Albanian, Bosniak, Vlach, Roma and Slovenian national minorities were not included in this research.

Based on the research, it has been observed that in the field of culture not a single national council initiated the adoption of laws or regulations. Seven national councils established cultural institutions (Article 16, paragraph 1 and 2 of the Act). National Councils of the Slovak and the Hungarian minority stated that there were examples of partial transfer of founding rights in cultural institutions (Article 16, paragraph 3 5 Dve godine nacionalnih saveta – a research by the Provincial Ombudsman (2012) http://www. ombudsmanapv.org/ombjo/attachments/article/741/Dve%20godine%20nac.saveta%20II%20deo_2012_. pdf.pdf

120

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

of the Act) from the AP of Vojvodina and local governments onto national councils.

Eight National Councils established cultural institutions of special importance for the preservation, promotion, and development of national uniqueness and identity of national minorities (Article 18, paragraph 1, item 1 of the Act). A significant number of cultural institutions that have been declared by national councils to be of such special importance have failed to modify their articles of incorporation in accordance with the decisions of the national council, which led to the general laws of these institutions not containing provisions establishing that they are places of special importance for a national minority, so now these institutions have no provision stipulating that the National Council shall appoint one member of the management committee of the institution and in this way participate in the management of the institution.

Three National Councils – the Slovak, the Hungarian, and the Romanian – indicated that, in some cultural institutions, which have been found to be of special importance for the preservation, improvement, development peculiarities and national identity, they have appointed a member of the board of directors and/or gave their opinion on the proposed members of the board of directors of institutions and/or gave their opinion on the selection of the directors of the institution (Article 17 of the Law). Units of local government, as the founders of cultural institutions, for different reasons and through different mechanisms prevent such appointments on the board of directors, using their right in accordance with the Act. The National Councils of Macedonian, German, Czech, Egyptian, Hungarian and Bunjevac minority indicated that they have established a strategy for the cultural development of their national minority (Article 18, paragraph 1, item 2 of the Law).6 The power to establish cultural properties, both movable and immovable, which are of special interest (Article 18, paragraph 1, item 3 of the Act), was exercised by the National Council of the German minority, while the National Council of the Czech minority stated that the process of establishing cultural property was in progress. The National Council of the Hungarian minority has not established movable and immovable cultural property of importance to this national minority in form of a special decision; however, in the Strategy for the Development of Culture of the National Council of the Hungarian minority 2012-2018, they did cite cultural possessions of special importance for the Hungarian minority. We must bear in mind that determining movable and immovable cultural property of special importance for the national minority is a prerequisite for the realization of a range of rights / powers of the Council in the field of culture.

The National Council of the German minority stated that they had initiated proceedings before the competent authorities / institutions to establish the status of protected movable and immovable cultural property of special importance to the national minority 6 A later inquiry by the Institute for Culture of Vojvodina has shown that these allegations were in fact untrue – we can now state that only the Hungarian ethnic community has a documented and adopted Cultural Strategy.

121

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

(Article 18, paragraph 1, item 4 of the Act), in relation to the mass graves in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. The Council stated that the “religious buildings (churches) and the cemetery” were decided to be movable and immovable cultural property of special importance for the German minority.

The Law on Cultural Heritage7 regulates the procedure for the determination of cultural goods, as well as for the determination of cultural goods of great and exceptional importance. The Provincial Ombudsman has no knowledge whether the procedures started by the national councils were in accordance with the procedure prescribed by law.

Two national councils proposed measures for the protection, reparation and reconstruction of cultural goods that were found to be of importance for their national minority (Article 18, Paragraph 1, Item 5 of the Act).

The National Council of the German national minority had given opinions and suggestions in the process of writing the spatial and urban plans for the town of Bački Jarak, where there are cultural goods of exceptional importance for the German national minority (Article 18, para. 1 item 6). No National Council has used its power to suggest to the local governments to suspend spatial and urban plans whose implementation would jeopardize cultural goods of exceptional importance to a given national minority (Article 18, Paragraph 1, Item 7 of the Act). No National Council has given their opinion to competent authorities prior to an authorization to move an immovable cultural property of exceptional importance to a national minority to a new location (Article 18, paragraph 1, item 8 of the Act). Furthermore, no national council has exercised its legal opportunity to express opinions in cases of establishing or abolishing libraries, or organizational units of libraries, whose funds contain books in minority languages (Article 18, paragraph 1, item 9 of the Act).

Eleven National Councils gave proposals for the allocation of funds from the budget of the Republic of Serbia, AP of Vojvodina and local governments, which are awarded through an open call for proposals for events, facilities and associations of national minorities in the field of culture (Article 18, paragraph 1, item 10 of the Act). These were the National Councils of the Macedonian, Slovak, Bulgarian, Greek, Ukrainian, German, Romanian, Czech, Ruthenian, Hungarian and Bunjevac minority.

Only the National Council of the Macedonian minority replied that they used their legal right to nominate a candidate for a joint list of candidates for the National Council for Culture (Article 18, paragraph 1, item 11 of the Act). No national council has appointed a representative to participate in the work of the National Council for Culture without voting right, when issues relevant to the culture of its national minority are being considered (Article 18, paragraph 1, item 12 of the Act).

7 Zakon o kulturnim dobrima („Sl. glasnik RS“, br. 71/94, 52/11-dr. zakoni i 99/2011- dr. zakon)

122

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Evaluation of five National Councils in Serbia During 2012, the project entitled “Evaluation of five National Councils in Serbia – Bulgarian, Hungarian, Romani, Romanian, and Slovak” was completed by the Centre for Regionalism from Novi Sad, which was the first project of such coverage carried out in Serbia (Pavlović – Križanić, 2012). Using a unique questionnaire, the survey was used to interview more than a hundred members of the National Councils, working bodies, representatives of institutions of special importance to a national community, prominent intellectuals and citizens. The focus of the study was on the establishment of the national councils in accordance to the Law on National Councils, examples of good practice with regard to the obtained competencies, and also on detecting problems. Particular attention was given to the new election method of National Council members.

The main objection to the work of the Councils observed during the survey was the politicization of their election. Problems with registering in special electoral rolls were caused by the instruction of the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights about the process of registration in the special electoral minority rolls. The instruction enabled a legal person, and thus also political parties of national minorities, to carry out the registration of citizens in the special voters list. The instruction allowed the registration requests to be submitted by a third party, which in some cases led to the registration of citizens without their knowledge or will. In addition, it was pointed out that the body of the democratic principles for direct elections for National Council members, in addition to its rights, also implies certain obligations – a fact the Councils seemed to have failed to remember.

In the opinion of the evaluators, the concept of National Councils was adapted to suit the needs and the realistic capabilities of minorities which are numerous, concentrated in one area, very well organized, with developed and influential minority parties, have excellent infrastructure and are represented in the government at all levels. Such minorities are able to easily use the complex and complicated instruments provided by the law. In Serbia, this description fits only the Hungarian minority. The jurisdictions given by law have seemed thus far to be well beyond the capacity of the Councils to make use of them (Pavlović-Križanić, 2012:8).8 This analysis of the Councils also notes that the “basic matters of their organizational structure were addressed only in principle and in general manner,” and that “insufficient attention was given by the Law of National Councils to their organizational structure, the relationship between the Council and its boards, the authority of the council chairman (in addition to representation and advocacy), and so on” (Pavlović–Križanić, 2012:14). Objections have also been made to the undefined relations between committees and councils, which gave rise to two models – the supremacy of the committees and the supremacy of the council. Undetermined structure of membership in departmental committees led to an “un8 It is important to note that the lack of capacity of the national councils was noticed by the OSCE, which led to the intervention in the form of a manual on council’s competences (Keveždi et al. 2011) and practicum on strategic planing (Borojević 2011). During the 2013, The Center for Development of Civil Society (CDCS) and the OSCE Mission in Serbia organized a summer school on minority rights and integration.

123

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

certainty in practice about how to understand their role – as an executive authority in sector areas, or as mere decorative authority used only declaratively” (Pavlović-Križanić, 2012:15).

Some inconsistencies between the Law on National Councils and the Law on Culture have also been pointed out. An example of such discrepancy is declaring an institution to be of special importance to a national minority. According to the Law of National Councils, in such an institution the Council has the power to appoint one board member and to give its opinion on the proposed members of the board of directors, as well as to give an opinion in the election of the chairman. In keeping with the same Law, if more National Councils decide that an institution is of particular importance, each national council appoints one member to the board of directors. In practice, such a scenario could cause problems if multiple councils declared the same institution to be of special importance: “If each council appointed one member to the board of directors, the number of members appointed by the national councils may be greater than the number of members appointed by the founder” (Pavlović-Križanić, 2012:22). In such cases the Acts of the Law on Culture provide a different solution, according to which several interested national councils make a joint proposal.

Concerns arise because of a lack of defined criteria and standards by which to determine which institutions may be declared as institutions of special importance.

Other research The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights has also pointed out some problematic issues in the transfer of managing and founding rights (Kovačević, 2013). They recommend that criteria should be determined by which National Councils could declare a certain cultural institution as an institution of special importance for the preservation, promotion and development of uniqueness and national identity of national minorities. Furthermore, “It is necessary to harmonize the regulations of the Law on National Minority Councils and Law on Culture relating to the jurisdiction of the National Councils in the field of culture” (Kovačević, 2013a:27). In the same study, a review was given in regards to the evaluation of the constitutionality of the Law on National Councils before the Constitutional Court of Serbia. The conclusion was that amendments to the Law on National Councils of National Minorities were clearly necessary. Following the announcement of government officials that the law will undergo changes, a Working Group for the Amendments to the Law was formed, whose work has yet to start.

Conclusion Ten years since the establishment of the first national councils, and four years after the adoption of the Law on National Councils of National Minorities, it is evident that the councils are rarely the object of scientific observation. The Councils are more often in the focus of experts, Ombudsman institutions and non-governmental organizations.

The results of an expert analysis suggest that there are many problems in the legislative practice in the domain of relations between the political parties and the councils; in 124

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

the organizational structure of the councils; in the transfer of management and founding rights; in compliance with other laws; in determining the criteria for declaring institutions to be of importance for the preservation, promotion and development of the individual national identity of national minorities.

Recommendations made by professional community indicate the need for additional amendments to the Law on National Councils. It is necessary to examine the validity of the concept that allows and encourages the participation of political parties in the nomination and election of the members of the Council. It is also necessary to clearly stipulate responsibilities of the President and the executive committee of the national council, as well as their relations with the culture committee. Experts point out that the committee’s jurisdiction also has to be redefined, so that committee members can consider issues related to culture (without the right to make decisions).

So far, the expert analyses have not paid much attention to the influence of national councils on the wider society and the cultural sphere. The study on the minority members’ expectations from the councils will be an interesting one to repeat at the end of this Council’s mandate (year 2014). The question is how the Councils have responded to these expectations. The influence of political parties on culture can be viewed through the populist cultural policies that follow a culture that apparently meets the demands of a broader population segment. At the same time, forcing folk cultural events can suit only a relatively small number of members of the minority communities – those who are members of cultural folk associations. These associations have a large logistical role in the campaigns for elections of councils, so it is possible that culture will gain a strong folk attribute and become one-sided. We therefore consider it necessary to take a holistic approach in the future analysis of the law, the council as an institution, and the wider society.

References 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Bašić, Goran (2007) Politike multikulturalnosti - zaštita ili kontrola etničkih identiteta? Filozofija i društvo, vol. 18, br. 3, str. 167-195.

Bašić, Goran. [ur.] (2003) Demokratija i multikulturalnost u Jugoistočnoj Evropi. Beograd: Centar za istraživanje etniciteta.

Bašić, Goran; Crnjanski, Katarina (2006) Politička participacija i kulturna autonomija nacionalnih manjina u Srbiji. Beograd: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung - Centar za istraživanje etniciteta.

Borojević, Tatjana. (2011) Praktikum za izradu strateškog plana Nacionalnog saveta nacionalne manjine.

Beograd: OEBS. Čáni, Ladislav; Čániová, Mária; Čemanová, Lýdia; Damijanová; Dorčová Valtnerová, Vladimira; Hlaváčová, Svetluša; Lenhart, Vladimir; Sklabinská, Milina; Zolňanová, Svetlana (2013) Národnostná rada slovenskej národnostnej menšiny 2003-2013. Nový Sad: Národnostná rada slovenskej národnostnej menšiny.

Dimitrijević, Vojin; Kartag-Odri Agneš; Milinković, Branislav; Serfontein, Jan-Lui; Stojković, Branimir.

(1999) Kulturna prava. Beograd: Beogradski centar za ljudska prava.

Domonji, Pavel. [priredio] (2004) Između načela i prakse – položaj „malih“ i „velikih“ manjina u Srbiji.

Beograd: Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji.

Domonji, Pavel. [priredio] (2008) Multietnički identitet Vojvodine: izazovi u 2007-08. Beograd: Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji.

125

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

Đukić, Vesna. (2010) Država i kultura, Beograd: Institut za pozorište, film, radio i televiziju, Fakultet dramskih umetnosti. Đurđev, S. Branislav i ostali (2006) Stanovništvo i domaćinstva Srbije prema popisu 2002. godine (ur.

Goran Panev), Beograd: Republički Zavod za statistiku, Institut društvenih nauka, Društvo demografa Srbije.

Dve godine nacionalnih saveta – istraživanje pokrajinskog ombudmsana (2012) http://www.ombudsmanapv.org/ombjo/attachments/article/741/Dve%20godine%20nac.saveta%20II%20deo_2012_.pdf.pdf Gavrilović, Danijela; Petrušić, Nevena (2011) Međunacionalni odnosi i zaštita manjinskih prava u Srbiji.

Migracijske i etničke teme 27, 3: 419–439.

Kapotorti, Frančesko. (2001) Prava pripadnika etničkih, verskih i jezičkih manjina. Beograd: Jugoslovenski komitet pravnika za ljudska prava.

Keveždi, Miroslav; Sklabinska, Milina; Dr Vujić, Aleksandra; Serenčeš, Žužana; Doc. Dr Đorđević, Ljubica. (2011) Nadležnosti nacionalnih saveta nacionalnih manjina – priručnik za nacionalne savete nacionalnih manjina. Beograd: OEBS, Ambasada SR Nemačke, Ministarstvo za ljudska i manjinska prava, državnu upravu i lokalnu samoupravu.

Klaić, Dragan (2007) Tematski prioriteti, izmenjena institucionalna tipologija - kulturne politike i institucije, u suočavanju sa izazovom multikulturalnih društava. Zbornik radova Fakulteta dramskih umetnosti, br. 11-12, str. 265-275.

Koković, Dragan D; Lazar, Žolt K. (2003) Činioci negovanja nacionalnog i kulturnog identiteta u Vojvodini. Sociološki pregled, vol. 37, br. 1-2, str. 49-59.

Koković, Dragan. (2005) Pukotine kulture. Novi Sad: Prometej.

Kovačević, Nikola; Nikolić, Nevena; Pokuševski, Dušan (2013a) Ostvarivanje prava nacionalnih manjina – sprovođenje preporuka nezavisnih institucija za zaštitu ljudskih prava u Srbiji. Beograd: Beogradski centar za ljudska prava.

Kovačević, Nikola; Nikolić, Nevena; Pokuševski, Dušan (2013b) Realisation of Rights of National Minorities : implementation of recommendations of independent institutions for the protection of human right in Serbia. Belgrade: The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights.

Kristović, Mirjana (2012) Promišljanje multikulturalizma kao posebnog pristupa kulturnoj raznolikosti.

Teme, vol. 36, br. 3, str. 1065-1086.

Krivokapić, Boris (2003) Serbia and Montenegro: the New Legal Framework for the Protection of Ethnic Minorities. Revue québécoise de droit international. Volume 16.1. pp. 61-100. http://rs.sqdi.org/volumes/16.1_-_07_krivokapic.pdf Krivokapić, Boris [urednik] (2002) Zakon o zaštiti nacionalnih manjina - stručna rasprava povodom Prednacrta zakona o zaštiti nacionalnih manjina, održana u Beogradu 20. septembra 2001. Beograd: Institut za uporedno pravo.

Lazar, Žolt; Ristić, Dušan (2010) Značaj nacionalnih saveta i aktivizam pripadnika nacionalnih manjina u Autonomnoj pokrajini Vojvodini. Sociološki pregled, vol. 44, br. 4, str. 567-593.

Lošonc, Alpar; Prole, Dragan [ur.] (2012) Aporije multikulturalnosti. Novi Sad: Mediterran Publishing.

Marinković, Dušan. [uredio] (2010) Kolektivna dinamika etničkih zajednica u Vojvodini. Novi Sad: Mediterran Publishing – Vojvođanska sociološka asocijacija.

Matić, Petar M. (2002) Međunarodni standardi u ostvarivanju prava pripadnika nacionalnih manjina u Srbiji. Politička revija, vol. 1, br. 1, str. 191-208.

Molar, Klod. (2000) Kulturni inženjering. Beograd: Clio.

Nedeljković, Saša (2007) Čast, krv i suze. Beograd: Zlatni Zmaj.

Nenadić, Danijela (2005) Institucionalna zaštita manjina. Politička revija, vol. 4, br. 3, str. 679-692.

Pajvančić, Marijana (2009) Komentar Ustava Republike Srbije. Beograd: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.

Pavlović‐Križanić, Tatijana; Lončar Jelena (2012) Evaluacija rada pet nacionalnih saveta u Srbiji. Novi Sad: Centar za regionalizam.

Petsinis, Vasilis (2004) Vojvođanske nacionalne manjine - sadašnje stanje i budući izgledi. Sociološki pregled, vol. 38, br. 1-2, str. 219-237.

Preporuke u vezi sa uređenjem normativnog položaja nacionalnih manjina u Srbiji (2007) Beograd: Centar za istraživanje etniciteta.

126

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

34. Purger, Tibor (2012) Ethnic Self-Governance in Serbia. The First Two Years of the National Minority Councils. International Relations Quarterly, Vol. 3. No.2. (Summer 2012/2) http://www.southeast-europe.org/pdf/10/DKE_10_A_DK_Purger-Tibor.pdf 35. Raduški, Nada (2001) Nacionalne manjine i međuetnički odnosi na Balkanu. Sociološki pregled, vol. 35, br. 1-2, str. 75-91.

36. Raduški, Nada (2006) Etnički diverzitet stanovništva Vojvodine - popis 2002. godine. Zbornik Matice srpske za društvene nauke, br. 121, str. 369-374.

37. Raduški, Nada (2008) Nacionalne manjine u etničkom mozaiku Balkana. Politička revija, vol. 7, br. 3, str. 917-931.

38. Raduški, Nada (2009a) Iskustva razvijenih evropskih zemalja u rešavanju pitanja nacionalnih manjina.

Sociologija, vol. 51, br. 1, str. 65-82.

39. Raduški, Nada (2009b) Multikulturalizam i nacionalne manjine u Vojvodini. Srpska politička misao, br.

4, str. 337-347.

40. Raduški, Nada (2010) Multikulturalizam Vojvodine i demografski razvitak nacionalnih manjinа. Zbornik Matice srpske za društvene nauke, br. 131, str. 339-347.

41. Raduški, Nada (2010) Sociodemografske i etnokulturne odlike nacionalnih manjina u Srbiji. Sociološki pregled, vol. 44, br. 2, str. 247-263.

42. Raduški, Nada (2011) Savremena Srbija kao multietnička i multikulturalna država. Socijalna misao, vol.

18, br. 2, str. 107-120.

43. Raičević, Nebojša (2006) Zaštita manjina u okviru Saveta Evrope. Socijalna misao, vol. 13, br. 3, str.

183-202.

44. Rakić, Mile M. (2009) Demokratija i međunacionalni odnosi u Republici Srbiji - neki od problema.

Politička revija, vol. 8, br. 4, str. 41-56.

45. Samardžić, Miroslav (1999) Položaj manjina u Vojvodini. Beograd: Centar za antiratnu akciju.

46. Sitarski, Milan; Vujačić, Marko; Bartulović Karastojković, Ivana. [priredili] (2010) Iščekujući Evropsku Uniju – stabilizacija međuetničkih i međureligijskih odnosa na zapadnom Balkanu I tom. Beograd: Beogradska otvorena škola.

47. Stanovčić, Vojislav (2008) Pojam nacionalne manjine i tretiranje individualnih i kolektivnih prava.

Godišnjak Fakulteta političkih nauka, vol. 2, br. 2, str. 479-503.

48. Stanovčić, Vojislav [uredio] (2007) Položaj nacionalnih manjina u Srbiji. Beograd: SANU. 49. Subotić, Momčilo (2011) Nacionalni identitet u procesu globalizacije - primer Bunjevaca. Politička revija, vol. 10, br. 1, str. 67-93.

50. Živković, Jovan (2007) Personalna autonomija - modus ostvarivanja kolektivnih prava nacionalnih manjina. Zbornik radova Filozofskog fakulteta u Prištini, br. 36, str. 213-218.

51. Вукмировић, Драган (2012) ПОПИС становништва, домаћинстава и станова 2011. у Републици Србији : становништво : национална припадност : подаци по општинама и градовима. Београд: Републички завод за статистику.

52. Јовановић, Миодраг А. (2004) Колективна права у мултикултурним заједницама. Београд: Службени гласник..

53. Јовановић, Миодраг А. [приређивач] (2009) Колективна права и позитивна дискриминација у уставноправном систему Републике Србије. Београд: Правни факултет Универзитета : Службени гласник.

54. Корхец, Тамаш (2009) Савети националних мањина као инструменти остваривања колективних права мањина. u: Јовановић, Миодраг А. [приређивач] (2009) Колективна права и позитивна дискриминација у уставноправном систему Републике Србије. Београд: Правни факултет Универзитета : Службени гласник. str. 61-76.

55. Станковић, Владимир; Лађевић, Петар [припремили] (2004) Етнички мозаик Србије према подацима пописа становништва 2002. Београд: Министарство за људска и мањинска права Србије и Црне Горе.

Translated by Marina Olear

mir@nspoint.net

127

128

129

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 821.112.2-21.09

Svetislav Jovanov

Serbian National Theatre, Novi Sad Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Belgrade Serbia

A Tragic Conflict in Goethe’s Egmont SUMMARY: This paper investigates the first phase of a tragic conflict phenomenon in German romanticist tragedy, through the example of Goethe’s Egmont: while the tragic hero achieves his fulfillment as an autonomous, free and selfconscious individual, the hero’s conflict with History, as an absolute secular power, ends with his existential defeat (death), and, at the same time, with an imaginary (utopian) victory of the subjective principle he represents.

KEY WORDS: hero, ethos, daimon, individuality, self-consciousness, history, destiny, instrumental reason, victim, utopian.

The tragic conflict in Egmont is an irreconcilable one; the antagonism unfolds between the hero, Egmont, representative of the subjective principle that he defends in an imperative manner and the forces of History emerging as destiny. It ends with an existential defeat (death) of the tragic hero, and, at the same time, with an imaginary (utopian) victory of the subjective principle he represents.

1. The defeat (death) of a tragic hero Egmont stands for the subjective principle striving to reach the level of self-consciousness through the internal conflict with instances of destiny (i.e. instrumental reason) on the one hand, and through the plot, by confronting the antagonists, representatives of History as destiny, on the other. Both aspects of the tragic conflict come to an end with the hero’s authentication as an autonomous, free and self-conscious individual and at the same time with his complete downfall (death). The main reasons for this outcome are the hero’s

130

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

inability to put up a defense– in his development from the level of ethos to the level of a Shakespearean individual - against the forces of History as destiny, his vain efforts in that resistance to apply the method of instrumental reason himself and last but not least, his wrong belief that his allies and those who he represents will not resign themselves to the logic of instrumental reason.

1.1. The defeat of ethos and the individual Egmont’s inability to make a stand against the antagonistic representatives of destiny is hinted at the initial stage of the conflict. The Regent, as a moderate and cautious representative of the absolute power, attenuates her initial concern for the hero, in a conversation, starting with a remark: “His conscience has a convenient mirror“, immediately after reaching the conclusion that his charisma has a negative effect on the public: REGENT: ... he is alone responsible for the whole mischief that has broken out in Flanders. From the first, he connived at the proceedings of the foreign teachers...

(I, 2) The Regent’s objection is justified, not just from the point of view of instrumental reason, but also reveals some deeper motivations: Egmont’s attitude, namely, towards the growing religious “heresy” among his countrymen consists in individual punishments and general tolerance. This exhibits a discrepancy between his innate broadness of spirit and his awareness of public responsibility which prevents him to comprehend the logic of the unpredictable consequences of collective historical forces. Being convinced in his own unassailability, the hero truly underestimates the Regent, even though it will eventually turn out that she is the one, and not Egmont, who understands why and how will “the horses of time and carts of fate” materialize in the shape of Alba’s occupying cavalry.

REGENT: First, he will produce a commission, coached in terms somewhat obscure and equivocal; he will stretch his authority, for the power is in his hands; if I complain he will hint at secret instructions...

(III, 1) The encounter of the hero with Alba is a typical example of an emancipated individual’s inability to resist instrumental reason. The preparations for the encounter that the Duke of Spain completed is worked out with a precision of a battle strategy, whereas the extent Egmont’s naive self-confidence becomes obvious when he fails to attach any importance to reasons accounting for Orange’s absence. The Duke, on the other hand, exercises pressure combining an alluring expression of recognition to the hero (“The King desires your counsel and your opinion“) with insinuations about the abetting passivity of the Dutch nobles who Egmont represents on the occasion: ALVA: To contemplate a mighty evil, to flatter oneself with hope, to trust the time, to strike a blow, like the clown in a play so as to make a noise and appear to do something, when in fact one would fain do nothing...

(IV, 2) 131

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Such pressure gives rise to a tension in Egmont between striving for individual freedom and a deep sense of loyalty to the system of roles, more precisely, to the hierarchy they are a part of, still present –– the tension that the hero is trying to discard in good faith by advocating tolerance: „Let the King proclaim a general pardon......and it will be seen how speedily loyalty and affection will return, when confidence is restored. “ However, Alba’s pressure intensifies beginning with warnings, suspicion and threats, eventually exacerbating and openly demanding unconditional obedience, so that there is nothing left to Egmont but to demonstrate blatantly his criticism of the King, a holder of the universal and absolute secular power: EGMONT: In order to govern his subjects more easily, he would crush, subvert, nay, ruthlessly destroy their strength, their spirit and their self-respect.

(Die Kraft seines Volks, ihr Gemüt, den Begriff, den sie von sich selbst haben, will er schwächen, niederdrücken, zerstören, um sie bequem regieren zu können.)

The hero’s arrest that follows shortly after the previous scene is the expected resolution to the conflict between free-will and coercion, but at the same time serves as encouragement to the hero to quit acting as if “sleepwalking“.

1.2. Incompatibility of ethos and the individual with instrumental reason Torn apart between loyalty to his public role and his fearless self-confidence, the hero himself, in his discussions with Orange, tries to rely on the method of instrumental reason: thus, he elaborates the claim that retreating before Alba’s assail will cause massive reprisals on the populace and his alternative proposal amounts to hardly more than a loyal wait-and-see, to knowledge without action, which driving him into the state of paralysis becomes a moral dilemma: EGMONT: Your own act will render certain evil that you dread.

ORANGE: Wisdom and courage alike prompt us to meet an inevitable evil.

(EGMONT: Das Übel, das du fürchtest, wird gewiß durch deine Tat. ORANIEN: Es ist klug und kühn, dem unvermeidlichen Übel entgegenzugehn.)

Even less success in making use of instrumental reason the hero demonstrates during his encounter with Alba. Although his remark that the Spanish “protection of orthodoxy” is but a disguise for material interests is rejected by Alba’s reference to the sovereign right of the “King’s will”, he nonetheless tries – upon claiming the autonomy of the Dutch citizen as the “King’s individual”- and prior to openly accusing the king – to justify his freeminded attitude by referring to a thesis closely related to instrumental reason: EGMONT: And just as natural is it , that the burgher should prefer being governed by one born and reared in the same land, whose notions of right and wrong are in harmony with his own and whom he can regard as his brother.

132

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

ALBA: And yet the noble, methinks, has shared rather unequally with these brethren of his.

(ALBA: Und doch hat der Adel mit diesen seinen Brüdern sehr ungleich geteilt.)

Although Egmont’s statement refers to the “brethren” in the sense of common (Dutch) understanding of individual freedom, the Duke’s ironic reply is not just a warning, since “Egmont’s true brothers are the rulers irrespective of their ethnicity, because it is with them that he shares common interests“1, it is also a convincing reason to believe that individual emancipation and instrumental reason are incompatible.

1.3. The allure of instrumental reason Since his actions are guided by certain principles and by a firm conviction about the inseparability of thought and action, Orange, Egmont’s ally, understands far more accurately than Egmont the forces at work when individuals are concerned, and not less those that transcend them, thus in order to realize his visions of unifying individual freedom with national autonomy, he is prepared to act “wisely and boldly“– i.e. to exploit every possibility made available by the method of instrumental reason: ORANGE: Egmont, our interests have for years weighed upon my heart; I ever stand as over a chess-board and regard no move of my adversary as insignificant...

(Egmont, ich trage viele Jahre her alle unsere Verhältnisse am Herzen, ich stehe immer wie über einem Schachspiele und halte keinen Zug des Gegners für unbedeutend.)

The citizens of Brussels compare the Duke of Alba to a “spider“, Orange is, by contrast, characterized fairly abstractly as a “chess player” and depicted as a somewhat milder advocate of pragmatism. His proposal to retreat to a safe position is not motivated by cowardice, but by a pragmatic conviction that surpasses (the egmontian) dilemma about drawing a line between public and private responsibility: ORANGE: We are not ordinary men, Egmont. If it becomes us to sacrifice ourselves for thousands, it becomes us no less to spare ourselves for thousands.

(II, 2) In the course of analyzing the type of behavior at issue, Alt observes correctly that Orange’s actions based on tactical assessments of the right time, falls into the scope of instrumental reason as “an arsenal of modern behavioral techniques (Verhaltenstechniken)“2.

It turns out that the conduct of the citizens of Brussels, whose rights the hero stands up for, is, in the final analysis, conditioned by instrumental reason. These include a group of craftsmen and shopkeepers, middle-class citizens, differentiated by name, profession and typical feature – a rash tailor Jetter, a cautious stickler Soest and boastful Buyck – act1 Irmgard Hobson, “Oranien and Alba: The two political dialogues in Egmont“, Germanic Review No. 50, George Mason University, Fairfax (Virginia) 1975, 270.

2 Peter-Andre Alt, Klassische Endspiele:das Theater Goethes und Schillers, C. H. Beck, München 2008, 161.

133

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

ing jointly in accord they function as an entity of a unique collective character. Presented as credulous and verbally bold, as a rule, just like the citizens in Julius Caesar, but at the same time driven mostly by their own practical interests - in that part resembling the commons from Coriolanus – theatrically, they demonstrate a functional upgrading of the elements of Shakespearean pattern. At the very beginning of the crisis, the citizens of Brussels led

by Jetter and Buyck pinning their hopes on Egmont close the meeting with a moderate policy slogan: “Safety and peace! Order and liberty!” (“Sicherheit und Ruhe! Ordnung und Freiheit!”). Later on, reacting at the growing religious commotion and anticipating the hero’s increasing self-confidence (Act II, Scene 1.), they express their sentiment – influenced by the demagogy of Vansen, the clerk – with a rather sharper slogan: “Liberty and privileges! Privileges and liberty!” With the arrival of Alba’s army, their vehemence turns into anxiety and their assertive rhetoric gives way to a meek bystander’s comment: “This is the end of our privileges.” (Act IV, Scene 1.). Finally, after Egmont’s arrest, it becomes clear that the citizens’ faith in their hero is rather limited: their proclamation of principles are being disclosed as tools of selfish, material interests, and those interests, eventually, give way to fear for life. At that moment, the difference between the hero’s illusion of the “emancipated community” and a real-life collective portrait of the citizens of Brussels, who Fuhrmann adequately describes as “people in the narrow sense of the word or the well-off (Besitzende)”3, becomes clearly exposed. Refusing Clara’s request to charge at Egmont’s dungeon (Act V, Scene 1.), the citizens abandon the streets and the fight for their rights making the point through the conservative carpenter invitation: “Lets get out of here!”

2. The (imaginary) victory of the subjective principle Despite the hero’s existential downfall, the subjective principle that he stands for still gains an imaginary victory over History, as an absolute, secular power of coercion. The major causes of such an outcome are the following: the antagonists, who represent History as destiny, are unable to raise the method of instrumental rationality to the level of a universal principle, whereas the hero has the strength to reach self-consciousness, showing that through the reality of individual self-denial for the sake of the idea of universal emancipation one gives meaning to both the reality and the individual.

2.1. Reason, principle and ideological stance The impossibility to establish instrumental reason as a value of principle – and thus History as a universal secular power of coercion – appears on every level. The citizens of Brussels, whose attitudes are based on instrumental reason, that is to say, on pragmatic interest, find themselves eventually in the situation of total passivity and in absolute obedience. Orange, who considers himself “wise and bold” in his flee before Alba, demon3 Helmut Fuhrmann, Sechs Studien zur Goethe-Rezeption, Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2002, 15.

134

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

strates how limited instrumental reason is, lacking efficiency he simultaneously divests his action of any principled justification: reprisals follow and a part of the leadership (i.e.

Egmont) is lost.

Not even Alba, the paragon of instrumental reason, succeeds in raising the method to the level of universal value. Quite the contrary, he rejects Egmont’s traditional “ socialclass based” understanding of political equality with the thought that people “must be guided and controlled as children”; and precisely this is what enables the hero to grasp the direction in which the order of absolute power unfolds: EGMONT: And is it not fit that the many should confide their interests to the many rather than to the one? And not even to the one but to the few servants of the one, men who have grown old under the eyes of their master? To grow wise, it seems, is the exclusive privilege of these favored individuals.

ALBA: Perhaps for the very reason they are not left to themselves.

(EGMONT: Und sollen sich viele nicht lieber vielen vertrauen als einem? und nicht einmal dem einen, sondern den wenigen des einen, dem Volke, das an den Blicken seines Herrn altert. Das hat wohl allein das Recht, klug zu werden.

ALBA: Vielleicht eben darum, weil es sich nicht selbst überlassen ist.)

Alba’s response, no less than Egmont’s remark about “the few of the one” (“die wenigen des einen”), demonstrates the tendency of the absolute secular power not to function exclusively on the basis of some impersonal absolute will, but more and more on the basis of arguments offered by some group of counselors, oligarchs etc. – in other words, those people who are the executors of the instrumental reason, who are responsible only to the method they apply. Thus they become a new sort of representatives of destiny, legitimizing themselves integrating in their actions, according to Fuhrmann, “the will of the absolute ruler with the abstract rationality of bureaucratic administering”4. Alva not only fails to elevate instrumental reason to the level of universal value, he also transforms it into an ideological stance: the willingness to use some restricted means in an absolute (unrestricted) way in the name of some rather limited understanding of reality.

2.2. Clara and Ferdinand: different heirs The process of Egmont’s self-enlightening evolves, as we have showed, through open confrontation with the representatives of universal secular power (Alba), as well as through his conviction that the method of instrumental reason is incompatible with the subjective principle. An equally important aspect of this process is Goethe’s effort to show for the sake of who the hero sacrifices himself in order to understand reality and also to defend the subjective principle. In this context, the characters of Clara and Ferdinand gain importance.

4 Helmut Fuhrmann, ibid, 13.

135

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Perplexed about the existence of “two Egmonts“, the hero adopts an openly critical attitude towards his own individuality, and, not accidentally, Clara becomes a key witness to this transformation. Her not even remotely typical “melodramatic” question to a loved one: “Are you Egmont?”, encourages the hero to challenge the consistency between the private and the public, the individual and the collective. Such a course of action fully denies Schiller’s comment that “the intrusion of a love story spoils the dramatic interest”5.

Modeling Clara after Shakespearean female characters who become victims encouraging the hero’s individual emancipation, Goethe simultaneously functionally upgrades the elements of bürgerliches Trauerspiel – namely, the identity and function of Luise from Schieller’s Intrigue and Love (Kabale und Liebe). Since “the family in the bürgerliche Trauerspiel consists predominantly of a father and daughter”6, Luise’s character remains passive in part due to her own prejudices, and in part due to her father’s patriarchal “tyranny of love”.

Whereas in Goethe’s work, in the course of Clara’s dynamic transformation - from a typified “imploring woman” developing into an individual to become eventually “the goddess of victory” - a middle-class girl becomes Egmont’s closest ally and, at the same time, the guide on his route to self-consciousness.

Abetting Egmont’s dilemma about the two selves, a kind of preparation for facing Alba, as it were, Clara response to the hero’s arrest is a naive and idealistic inciting the citizens to rebel. Her invitation, however, becomes simultaneously the way for re-identifying the hero and (his individual aspirations) making him stand his ground: JETTER: Speak not the name! ’Tis deadly!

CLARA: Not speak his name? How! Not Egmont’s name! Is it not on every tongue?

Where stands it not inscribed? Often have I read it emblazoned with all its letters among these stars...Friend! Good, kind neighbours, ye are dreaming, collect you.

(Den Namen nicht! Wie? Nicht diesen Namen? Wer nennt ihn nicht bei jeder Gelegenheit? Wo steht er nicht geschrieben? In diesen Sternen hab ich oft mit allen seinen Lettern ihn gelesen... Freunde! Gute, teure Nachbarn, ihr träumt; besinnt euch.)

(V, 1) Yet, it turns out that Clara is a dreamer. At the very moment she praises and celebrates the hero as a symbol, as a common watchword of individual emancipation and collective hopes, surprisingly, it becomes evident that the symbol does not work in reality. The failure of Clara’s efforts to save Egmont with the citizens’ revolt implicitly announces the size of the gap between the real situation and hero’s delusion expressed by a “self-imposed fantasy” in the prison scene that follows. However, Clara’s depart from the dimension of “private happiness” into a broader social context has yet another function – in addition to denoting the failure – it is the first step of Clara’s own transformation into a symbol: 5 Fridrih Šiler, „O Egmontu, Geteovoj tragediji“, 365.

6 Erika Fischer-Lichte, History of European drama and Theatre, Routledge, London 2002, 155.

136

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

CLARA: As a waving banner, weaponless though, leads on a gallant army of warriors, so shall my spirit hover like a flame over your ranks...

(Wie eine Fahne wehrlos ein edles Heer von Kriegern wehend anführt, so soll mein Geist um eure Häupter flammen...)

(V, 1) In order to turn into an imaginary and untouchable “banner of the helpless”, or, according to Egmont, into an “angel from the sky”, i.e. become a symbolic entity, Clara has to sacrifice herself and drink poison. The primary motive of such an act is to prove her love for the hero, which is a variation of Shakespeare’s Juliet. At the same time, Clara’s rebellious sacrifice becomes a manifestation of her identity as the merging of the “imploring woman“ and the holder of the subjective principle modeled after Ophelia from Hamlet – there being a significant difference though: the multiplicity of Ophelia’s madness is replaced by a single conviction, the belief in the powerful idea of universal emancipation. Clara, thus, sacrifices herself not only for Egmont as an individual, but for Egmont as a symbol of individual and collective aspirations, anticipating with her act the hero’s own self-enlightening. Brackenburg’s comment (who was Clara’s fiancé “pushed away into the stream of life”) that Egmont will receive the wreath from a dead girl, gives the anticipation an additional dramatic dimension, revealing Clara as a messenger between two worlds: an ideal (utopian) and the real one.

Ferdinand’s visit to the hero in a prison cell is important for the confirmation of his thought - the possible redemption of reality through an idea. The original reason for the visit, as stated by Alba’s son – the young man’s compunction for participating in a plot that lead to Egmont’s arrest – will shortly prove to be an excuse for far more important a motive: EGMONT: How can the fate of a mere stranger thus deeply move thee?

FERDINAND: Not a stranger! Thou art no stranger to me. Thy name it was that, even from my boyhood, shone before me like a star in heaven. How often have I made inquiries concerning thee and listened to the story of thy deeds! The youth is the hope of the boy, the man of the youth. Thus didst thou walk before me...?

(V, 2) When Ferdinand reports that Alba’s sentence is final, thus shattering all hopes for Egmont’s liberation and immediately after expressing his admiration, he strengthens the hero’s resolve to understand his own life as a “mirror of collective hopes”. In that way, as Erica Swells notices, Egmont makes a crucial step towards overcoming the “discrepancy between the specific individual whom the play puts before us and the image to which he gives rise.”7 And in order to make the transformation complete, so that his name in Ferdinand’s and Clara’s eyes be turned into a star, that is to say, a symbol, the hero must, sacrificing himself, demonstrate the superiority of the idea of universal emancipation over reality.

However, beside this one, Ferdinand’s contribution to the hero’s final decision comprises 7 Martin Swales & Erika Swales, Reading Goethe: A critical Introduction to the literary work, Camden House, London 2002, 105.

137

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

yet another crucial implication - that even the son, the heir-apparent of the executor-inchief of instrumental reason, following Egmont’s example, discovers “an entirely different, more humane aspect of the historical knowledge”8 plainly foreshadowing the truth that any order based on absolute secular power, carries in itself the germ of its inevitable decline. Thus Goethe constructs a dramatic connection which he will much later describe in Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and truth) as the downfall of the likeable and victory of the odious that gives rise to a hope for “something different from both that will be adequate to everyone’s wishes”. Clara becomes the guide to Alba’s son converted into the potential heir of the aspiration towards universal emancipation. In the context of the hero’s tragic selfsacrifice, the victory of subjective principle is then depicted as a promise of an ideal collective reality; thus for the hero, as Friedrich Zengel concluded “whatever freedom looses in its external meaning, it gains in its internal significance“9.

2.3. Self-consciousnesss and imaginary victory Representing the subjective principle in different stages of the development of his tragic identity, Egmont follows the paradigm of Hamlet ultimately striving to reach the level of self-consciousness. But unlike the Shakespearean hero, he succeeds in his efforts.

The imaginary victory of the subjective principle is for him, at the same time, the state in which all doubts about the meaning of his sacrifice disappear and the authenticity of the individual is regained. The achievement of this objective requires from the hero to undergo different phases in developing his identity; first through the phase of ethos and daimon, and then through the one of the individual and his role. Goethe’s concept demonstrates that these phases are necessary but, at the same time, insufficient: Egmont is simply not able to efficiently stand up against History as destiny, neither at the archetypal level of ethos (innate self-confidence), nor at the level of the individual (unselfishness, broad-mindedness), The knowledge that sacrificing for the idea can give meaning to both the reality and to the individual constitutes self-consciousness but also leads to passivity. Denying reality, the hero demonstrates the limited scope of ethos, and simultaneously the Shakespearean individual “exploitation of the role“. Shakespeare’s Hamlet has doubts about the meaning of sacrifice as well as about the value of the individual, because for him the possibilities of meaninglessness are not limited (“for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come”).

However, maintaining his active position to the world, the Shakespearean hero opens up possibilities of meaning at the same time. Hence the advantage of Hamlet’s dilemma: selfconsciousness is not reached, but an active position in the world is maintained, that is to say the hero has an imperative attitude towards destiny. The hero in Egmont with his self-conscious action – his individual sacrifice for the sake of the idea of universal eman8 Jürgen Schröder, “Poetische Erlösung der Geschichte – Goethes Egmont”, u: Geschichte als Schauspiel – Deutsche Geschichtsdramen, herg. von Walter Hinck, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1981, 105.

9 Fridrih Zengle, Kontinuitet i preobražaj, Orpheus, Novi Sad 2005, 192.

138

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

cipation gives meaning to both the sacrifice and (his own) individuality; however, instead of infinitely open horizon of meaning, there is one unequivocal, restricted significance,. To conclude, the hero remains representative to the subjective principle, because he gives an expression to individual and collective aspirations by renouncing reality, but his victory being utopian and imaginary and his attitude to destiny increasingly passive should suffice to show that his position is far less imperative.

Fragment from the study The Hero and the Destiny (Poetics of the German romanticist tragedy)

svetislavjovanov.iti@gmail.com

139

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 821.111.09 UDC 821.111(71).09

Vladislava Gordić Petković University of Novi Sad Faculty of Philosophy Serbia

From the Wife of Bath to Generation X: Gender Identity and Character Development Summary: The paper examines various narrative strategies which serve to represent female characters within their historical, social or political settings.

Authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Emily Bronte and Douglas Coupland, pursuing various artistic interests and belonging to different backgrounds, are chosen so as to provide a multiperspective and a multicultural context for the analysis. The way gender identity develops along with the character development, and how the setting affects their progression and development, are some of the issues discussed in the paper.

Key words: characterization, identification, gender, narrative.

Introduction: The History of Characters What has traditionally been central to theories of character is the concept of identification, which has to mediate between the literary character as a formal textual structure and the reader’s investment in it (Frow 1986: 243). What readers invest is interplay of inference, deduction and interpretation, which largely depends on the process of narration, and on the proper construction of the story’s setting.

We shall focus here on the works of the writers who treat their characters either as functional devices of the plot, or fully shaped personalities positioned in their milieu. Our aim is to show both the psychological impact of the setting upon the character and the functional role of the character in portraying the setting.

The categories of masculinity and femininity have recently emerged as discursive constructs and socially determined categories important for the character analysis. Whether 140

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

female is always associated with submissive and passive, and male characterized as dominant and assertive, is to be shown in the analysis of literary texts coming from various historical, social and literary contexts.

Literary history and criticism have had little to say about the character ever since Aristotle stated that artists imitate men involved in action. Prior to the structuralist insights into the heart of this matter, characterization had often been defined rather vaguely: either as the depicting “of clear images of a person”, as a person’s “actions and manners of thought and life” (Gordić 1996: 99), or as the portrayal of “a man’s nature, environment, habits, emotions, desires, instincts” (Thrall and Hibbard 1936: 74-75). E. M. Forster’s distinction between “flat” and “round” characters, first introduced in his book Aspects of the Novel, is still the best known and widely used approach to the character analysis. However, it is valid only for narrative texts, since it is novels and shorter narrative forms that call for the growth of character in the first place. Using dramatic texts as his frame of reference, Aristotle justly sees the character as an agent supposed to perform an action. Although based upon the corpus containing both dramatic and fictional literary genres, the views of formalist and structuralist critics do not differ from the ancient philosopher’s, since they argue that characters are mostly functional. Boris Tomashevsky and Vladimir Propp even claim that the character simply does what the story requires her or him to do.

W. J. Harvey accuses E. M. Forster of a “deceptively light” (Harvey 1966: 192) approach to the matter, which has, in Harvey’s opinion, relegated the treatment of character to the periphery of the attention of modern criticism. According to Shlomith RimmonKenan (Rimmon-Kenan 1983: 187), there are three major weaknesses of Forster’s distinction: its word choice is problematic, since “flat” suggests being two-dimensional and devoid of depth, while many flat characters are not necessarily shallow or superfluous; the dichotomy is reductive, obliterating the degrees and nuances in narrative fiction; a flat character is seen as simple and undeveloping, and the round one as complex and developing, whereas a fictional character can also be simple and developing (like Everyman from the medieval morality play of the same name) or complex but undeveloping, as in the case of Joyce’s Leopold Bloom, who shows no sign of progress or change.

However, some structuralist critics have gradually moved away from the functional approach to the character. Tzvetan Todorov admits that a narrative text can either be plotcentered (apsychological), or character-centered (psychological). In psychological narratives action serves to depict character, whereas apsychological texts focus on the plot, using the character only as one of its functions. Roland Barthes gradually shifted from the functional view of character he had adopted in the sixties, to a psychological one, embraced late in the seventies. His shift in view might be taken as a relevant signal that the character is gradually gaining in importance, since Barthes and Todorov at least admit that in some narratives characters play a more significant role than elsewhere.

Bearing the theoretical and conjectural dichotomies in mind, Marvin Mudrick contrasted two extreme views of characters: 141

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

One of the recurring anxieties of literary critics concerns the way in which a character in drama or fiction may be said to exist. The “purist” argument points out that characters do not exist at all (...) that any effort to extract them from their context and to discuss them as if they are real human beings is a sentimental misunderstanding of the nature of literature. The “realistic” argument insists that character acquire a kind of independence from the events in which they live and that they can be usefully discussed at some distance from their context. (Mudrick 1961: 211) In Mudrick’s view, the “realistic” argument sees characters as imitation of people, relying upon mimetic theories of the text. When treating characters as if they were our neighbours or friends or speculating about their unconscious motives, we look for their past and present beyond the text. According to the “purist” or semiotic approach, the character becomes assimilated to other verbal phenomena of the text, and its specificity is destroyed. The character thus dissolves into textuality. As a way to reconcile and unite the opposing views we could quote Henry James’s definitions of character (“the determination of incident”) and incident (“the illustration of character”), where “the incident” obviously stands for the plot, or the event. Still, the problem of terminology persists, since we have to admit that character, no matter how dependent on the text, heavily relies on the traits borrowed from the real world.

Seymour Chatman’s notion of literary characters as narrative constructs which are not alive but lifelike, may be of help in literary analysis. Aware of the characters’ problematic status, he claims that they are more than agents, yet less than real people. Pointing out that each character can be described using the terms from the whole range of human experience (psychology, morality, astrology, etc.), Chatman takes the literary character as a personality, but declines to endow it with a life beyond fiction. He opts for a paradigm of traits, supported by Roland Barthes’s claim that reading narratives is a process of naming the characters’ traits. The paradigm of traits should explain characters by using an unlimited number of terms which are not hierarchically ordered, thus differing substantially from a linguistic one and its strictly positioned elements. The elements pertaining to the paradigm of traits rather act as a perspective of quotations.

Chatman’s approach has been valuable and of great benefit for the character analysis. However, its applicability lessens when a gender-oriented analysis is considered. His paradigm does not seem to be gender-sensitive, since it does not differentiate between approaches to the carefully inspected male characters versus neglected and pigeonholed female characters. Thus if following in Chatman’s footsteps, we might take gender stereotypes as valid for the paradigm of traits, and such an approach would lead to a biased attitudes towards characters, or even misogynist conceptions.

Renowned feminist critics such as Elaine Showalter avoid concepts of female imagination, preferring to observe the ways the self-awareness of the woman writer translates itself into a literary form and to trace this self-awareness within the tradition. Judith Fetterley’s book The Resisting Reader (1978) discusses mental confusion of the “immasculated” woman

142

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

reader, forced to identify against herself with male characters, whose essential experience is betrayal by the female, and forced to see women characters scapegoated and killed off.

The following examples of English, American and Canadian authors are intended to show both the psychological impact of the setting upon the female character and to investigate if a purely female paradigm of traits is possible at all.

Geoffrey Chaucer Revisited Chaucer’s characters do not engage in any kind of activity except in story-telling, and the lack of action hampers any development or change in their nature. This is partly due to the fact that the concept of a developing character is not common in the literature of Chaucer’s time; the traditional story-telling called for no growth of character, no progressive or temporal change. Although the portraits of Chaucer’s characters cannot indicate a change in mood or the flow of thought, they can still be rich in detail and very vivid, owing to direct narrative statements about the characters which determine personal traits and inform us about physical appearance, habits or biographical facts about the characters.

The reader is faced with an abundance of details which are drawn either from the narrator’s outer perception or from his omniscient glimpse into the interior of the character.

The two female characters in Canterbury Tales are not quite typical of their class and status. The Prioress’s grace, elegance, affectation of speech and manners, as well as Wife of Bath’s five marriages, apparently do not fit into mediaeval stereotypes. Chaucer depicts a prioress in terms and traits borrowed from the medieval romance, whereas an artisan woman from beside Bath city resembles a matriarchal goddess. Chaucer contrasts feelings embodied in the Prioress with senses of the Wife of Bath. While the former embodies fastidious sensibility, the latter is the pole of elemental vitality. The Prioress represents a woman who submitted to the institution of the Church, trying to fit her temperament into it, but she also subtly violates the laws of her order by keeping pets, overdressing and taking on to a pilgrimage. Opposed to Eglentine’s passiveness and subtlety are the Wife of Bath’s outspokenness, aggressive demonstration of her instincts, appetites and will power. The Wife of Bath makes the institutions of church, pilgrimage and marriage serve to her temperament: her radix trait is an uninhibited appetite for physical love and travel, which is seen in the first word in her prologue, experience, which is also the key to her morals and values. Another code of her personality is the desire for mastery, which is the dominant motif of her tale. The Wife of Bath’s doctrine of marriage is based on female supremacy, never stated openly but rather functioning as a reaction to the traditional view of marriage imposed by the church fathers and common law.

Chaucer manipulates with the mode of medieval romance in characterization of his heroines: while the Prioress physically resembles a romance heroine, the Wife of Bath uses a romantic setting in her story of the magical hag and the rapist. Both ways of using romance are tinged with irony. A prioress is not expected to look romantic, whereas the Wife of Bath uses the romantic setting in order to disguise the idea of female supremacy. Her 143

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

prologue and her tale are two versions of one story: both Jankyn and the rapist knight treat women with violence, and both are taught to do better than that; they win the woman’s kindness and affection once they come round to her way of thinking.

The Wife of Bath is well acquainted with Holy Scripture, and she deconstructs it in the greatest part of her prologue, picking and choosing the quotations and episodes which support her way of thinking. Her skilful handling of Scripture in the comic debate on marriage shows that she is a knowledgeable woman, but the issues of religion bring up another substantial contrast between the Wife of Bath and the Prioress: while the Wife of Bath embodies empirical knowledge of facts, the Prioress embodies blind religious faith. The latter is a person of limited mentality, credulous enough to accept naively a legend of a horrible murder of a child committed by Jews, and to recount it. No matter how cruel her story might seem, it is mostly an act of worship. This devoutness and piety is something the worldly Wife of Bath is incapable of.

While the Wife of Bath is excessively sex-appealing, the Prioress is feminine, generally an embodiment of the feelings. Her suppressed maternal instincts turn to the nearest object upon which she can lavish her natural affection - to pets. Chaucer vividly describes her appearance, her habits, likes and dislikes, but we learn practically nothing of her background. Does this lack of biographical facts suggest that the Prioress is a lifeless, unreal being? And, since we have a Molly-Bloom-like story of husbands and marriages, could we make another opposition, and say that Prioress symbolizes an ideal versus the real woman, deliberately called Wife of Bath?

For the Wife of Bath, her tale is her own setting. Much has been written about the “legendary tale of wonder” dealing with a knight who has to pay dearly for doing wrong to womankind, but we cannot say that the problems of the narrative have been solved.

Some passages in the Wife of Bath’s tale admirably befit the teller, but her heroine is not Alison in disguise. We can compare Alison’s methods of winning sovereignty with those of the loathly lady in her tale, but Chaucer’s character lacks reasonableness and persuasiveness of the loathly lady. The Prologue tells us something of Alison’s tactics before and after marriage: by her shrewishness she reduced her husband’s to complete submission and obedience, all except the fifth, the former “clerk of Oxenford”. Her struggle to subdue her partners does not make her a feminist figure, rather a figure of fun, since the issue of female supremacy was taken to be either blasphemous or ridiculous, and Chaucer chooses the latter option.

The Wife of Bath’s Tale consists of three sections: in the first, a knight from King Arthur’s court rapes a girl and is condemned by the Queen to find within a year and a day the answer to the question what is the thing that women most desire. The second section describes the knight’s encounter with an ugly hag who offers to solve the riddle on condition he should do whatever she asks: she demands marriage in turn for the answer, which is “sovereignty” (sovereynetee). The final part of the story shows the knight in dismay on his wedding night, when his wife offers him the choice between having an ugly but faithful spouse or a beautiful but faithless one. He yields the choice to her, and seeing her sovereignty acknowledged, she promises to be both faithful and beautiful.

144

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

The riddle motive is closely connected with the theme of sovereignty. The old hag poses a challenge to the protagonist. Her very existence is a contradiction: she is a puella senilis, both fair and loathly, both young and old, and she makes demands falling outside the pale of the tolerable, if not of the possible. The sovereignty she demands means domestic rule, but she needs the man, her counterpart in order to settle for her task and her nature. Thus Chaucer sends the message of contradictions united in greatness – the message more complex than his seemingly simple techniques of characterization.

Socially Structured Victorian Characters According to an analysis by evolutionary psychologists presented several years ago in The Guardian, the despicable acts of Count Dracula, the unending selflessness of Dorothea Brooke in Middlemarch and Mr Darcy’s personal transformation in Pride and Prejudice helped to uphold social order and encouraged altruistic genes to spread through Victorian society. Their research suggests that classic British novels from the 19th century not only reflect the values of Victorian society, they also shaped them.

The psychologists, led by Joseph Carroll at the University of Missouri in St Louis, claim that the novels from the period “extolled the virtues of an egalitarian society and pitted cooperation and affability against individuals’ hunger for power and dominance”, citing the examples of George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Dorothea Brooke who turns her back on wealth to help the poor, and Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula, who represents aristocratic dominance at its worst and asserting prestige by taking people over and absorbing their life blood.

What the team of evolutionary psychologists did was to apply Darwin’s theory of evolution to literature by asking 500 academics to fill in questionnaires on characters from classic Victorian novels. The respondents were asked to define characters as protagonists or antagonists, rate their personality traits, and comment on their emotional response to the characters. They found that leading characters mirrored the cooperative nature of a society, where individual urges for power and wealth were suppressed for the good of the community. It seems that in Victorian novels, dominant behaviour is stigmatised and the antagonists obsessed with ambition all lack the cooperative nature and pro-social behaviour.

A few characters were judged to have both good and bad traits, such as Heathcliff in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy. The conflicts they demonstrate reflect the strains of maintaining such a cooperative social order. The researchers believe that novels have the same effect on society as oral cautionary tales of old. “Just as hunter-gatherers talk of cheating and bullying as a way of staying keyed to the goal that bad guys must not win, novels key us to the same issues,” said Christopher Boehm, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Southern California. “They have a function that continues to contribute to the quality and structure of group life.”

The studies of Victorian novels have substantially changed throughout the decades. They are no more associated with simplistic and reductive models of morality or famous but elusive 145

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

“Victorian values”, or condemned as racist, imperialist or misogynist. The Victorian novel is seen as complex as the culture it comes from and the Victorians are seen more empathetically.

Wuthering Heights is the novel in which setting and mood are closely intertwined, to the extent that the characters become helpless in the face of nature and their own uncontrolled emotions. The novel focuses upon the dynamic and turbulent relationship between the passion and freedom of the mansion called Wuthering Heights and the socially structured conventionality of Thrushcross Grange. Both houses depict isolation and separation, each creating its own galaxy with its house rules.

“Wuthering Heights” is perched on a high ridge, overlooking a wasteland, inhabited by harsh and gloomy characters who had lived in the world of passion and ferocity long before it became the property of a demonic lover and a passionate avenger Heathcliff.

Throughout the novel, “Wuthering Heights” have been the stage of both unrequieted and unconditional love, violence, brutality, and inexplicable greed. The isolation of “Wuthering Heights” represents the isolation of Catherine’s heart, whereas the warmness and security of “Thrushcross Grange” represent the domesticity and status she desires. It is a symbol of social institutions and conventional values, Catherine’s road towards both her femininity and social status. She tries to love both the wild Heathcliff and the mild Edgar Linton, and tries to make both houses her home. The distinctions between “Thrushcross Grange” and “Wuthering Heights” (between Edgar and Heathcliff) parallel those between Catherine and Heathcliff. Two men in her life have turned into exact replicas of the powers of the respective houses they lived in.

Civilized only outwardly, Heathcliff remains demonic, and the increase of wealth and power never changes him substantially. His violent images and use of hyperbole express an impetuous will that cannot accept opposition and his rhetoric hardens as it gathers momentum to a language of absolute imperatives, his logic depends on a refusal to admit any compromise with passion, any form of mediocrity.

The World of the Homeless: Generation X Douglas Coupland’s novels deal with an “accelerated culture”: his characters are desperately trying to cope with rapid material changes in everyday life and lame spiritual insights offered to account for them. Focused upon the mass cultural phenomena (such as pop icons or the fallout of yuppies) and those genuinely tragic (such as high school shootings), Coupland is also interested in technology as a substitute for the divine, so that two of his novels present lives and opinions of Silicon Valley computer experts (Microserfs) and the offspring of the Google age (JPod).

Coupland’s characters share their creator’s awareness that the world changes much faster than human perspectives of it. Lost and confused, underemployed and overeducated, Coupland’s twenty-somethings find their mantras in pop songs and seek salvation in awkward possessions. Charming and sensitive Claire of Generation X, one of the most remarkable and sensitive female characters Coupland has ever written, goes to incredible 146

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

lengths to get such a bizarre thing as racks of antlers: dozens of them lie tangled in her flat, in “the room that technically ought to have been the dining room instead of an ossuary that scares the daylights out of repairpersons come to fix the appliances” (Coupland 1991: 85). Claire even places ads in the local paper, presenting herself as an artist, and “nine times out of ten the respondent is a woman named Verna, hair in curlers, chewing nicotine gum”, a woman who wants to get rid of the things left behind her ex.

Coupland’s characters indulge in endless contemplation of their anomie, mostly seeking refuge in platonic friendships, cartoon heroes, and funny memories. Families and relatives are usually estranged or on bad terms. Abe, one of the Silicon Valley programmers from Microserfs, claims to have come from “one of those ‘zero kidney’ families” – the family which made the agreement that if its member needed a kidney, they would react with: “Well, sorry... Been nice knowing you.” (Coupland 1995: 190). Although jaded and cynical, this young man earnestly mourns the lost values. Rereading his favourite Tin Tin books, Abe notices that the Boy Detective’s life lacks “religion, parents, politics, relationship, communion with nature, class, love, death, birth” (Coupland 1995: 191), and admits that he is curious about this either invisible or non-existent content.

The recurrent pattern of “the family of friends”, borrowed from sitcoms and soap operas, serves the purpose of creating a safe surroundings for the unstable young men and women.

Coupland has suggested on various occasions that inspiration for some of his novels might have come from teenage soap operas of the eighties such as Melrose Place. The self-confessed computer nerds of Microserfs call themselves addicts of the series: “We like to pretend our geek house is actually Melrose Place.” (Coupland 1995: 65). Shopping malls and pop music have been attached to the ideological framework of Coupland’s novels almost naturally.

Such cultural background of the characters ranging from the not-quite-fabulous threesome in Generation X to the star-crossed teenage spouses in Hey, Nostradamus! might make them look two-dimensional and devoid of depth. However, Coupland’s protagonists show some signs of progress or change, in spite of the fact that they never manage to change at the rate the accelerated world requires. Hey, Nostradamus! shows how painful and ineffective changes can be. Little before her tragic demise in the shooting in a Vancouver high-school cafeteria, pregnant and secretly married Cheryl Anway writes on her school binder the words “GOD IS NOWHERE GOD IS NOW HERE”, and thus anarchy and faith are put together with a little help coming from unreliable linguistic signs, language being only one battlefield of many. In their post-trauma or post-mortem quest for truth, the departed Cheryl, her loving husband Jason, Jason’s religious father Reg and Jason’s hopelessly loyal girlfriend Heather tell stories of paranoia, angst or religious zeal, desperately trying to untangle their lives. Misguided and shattered, they cope with their tragic losses the only way they can.

Although engaged in an in-depth analysis of profound crises and urgent problems, Coupland has often been accused of creating cartoon-like characters. His critics forget that the growth of the character which traditional novel calls for is somewhat impeded in the works of fiction which tend to be slowed by minute reflection or endless and often pointless discussions 147

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

in the manner of either Raymond Carver or Quentin Tarantino, in the books and movies which, similar to Generation X, abound in static first-person narrative reports of the immobile reality.

Estranged and bizarre characters either float from one cheap thrill and weird hobby to another, or stay immobile, unwilling to take risks. What we find in Coupland’s books is a genuine “technology” of character casting which is difficult to define. It is not easy to decide whether his protagonists suffer from inarticulateness, disillusionment and disenchantment, or emotional numbness.

Concluding remarks The analysis of fictional works dating from a variety of epochs and literary contexts points out that female characters have something in common. Whether it is a certain kind of inarticulatedness, a persistent air of disillusionment and disenchantment or a tendency to suffer from emotional numbness, it is not easy to determine. Victorian or postmodern, traditional or experimental, characters in the literary works we have tackled in this paper do establish a genuine female paradigm of traits.

Reference Chatman, Seymour. Story and Discourse. Ithaca: Cornel University Press, 1978.

Coupland, Douglas. Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.

3. Coupland, Douglas. Microserfs. London: Flamingo, 1995.

4. Gordić, Vladislava. Recent Approaches to the Theory of Character: Some Aspects of Characterization in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Godišnjak Filozofskog fakulteta u Novom Sadu, XXIV (1996): 99-103.

5. Frow, John. Spectacle Binding: On Character. Poetics Today, VII (1986): 227-250 6. Malone, Kemp. The Wife of Bath’s Tale. The Modern Language Review, LVII (1962): 481-491.

7. Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. Narrative Fiction. Routledge: London and New York, 1983.

8. Simple, Ian. Victorian Novels Helped Us Evolve Into Better People, Say Psychologists. The Guardian, 14 January 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jan/14/victorian-novels-evolutionaltruism, visited July 2013.

9. Thrall, William, and Addison Hibbard. A Handbook to Literature. Ann Arbor: Odyssey Press, 1960.

10. Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight. Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London.

London: Virago, 1992.

1.

2.

vladysg@yahoo.com

148

149

f o t o

A l e k s a n d r a

P e r o v i ć

a l e k s a n d r a . p e r o v i c @ g m a i l . c o m s t r a n a :

1 4 9 ,

1 5 0 ,

1 5 1 ,

1 6 5 ,

2 1 1 ,

2 2 3 ,

2 3 5

150

151

152

153

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 821.111(73).09 Acker K.

Senka Gavranov

University of Novi Sad ACIMSI Centre for Gender Studies Serbia

On a Construct Hunt: Destruction and Reconstruction of Gender in Kathy Acker’s Empire of the Senseless Summary: In the article, I analyze one of the numerous possible interpretations of narrative techniques Kathy Acker employs in her novel Empire of the Senseless, published in 1988. Specifically, I explore possible performative effects of her novel on what she sees as the existing dominant notions of gender, female bodies and sexuality in the so called Western world. I argue that narrative techniques and linguistic tools Acker employs in the novel to engage the reader to critically examine the inherited Manichean gender binaries and their consequences on social practices and people’s lives. Acker embarks on a literary adventure in order to expose naturalization and normalization of certain ideological and culturally constructed assumptions about binary gender division not only through the exemplary use of feminine pronoun for a generic person, but also through disruptive narrative effect of many voices, genre-mixing, plastic description of (sexualized) violence and destruction of images of female genitalia as a source of filth and bad smell. I argue that, when it comes to gender, sexuality and desire, Acker in this novel deliberately and boldly depicts the most horrifying images to the minute detail not allowing them to remain tacit and implicit in the culture, calling for a radical change. She firstly de-stabilizes what she has identified as dogmatic and despotic social system and then (re) construes the world familiar to us, her readers, stripping it of all euphemisms and sanitization, in order to fully destroy it and open a crack for the novelty to develop. Instead of perceiving gender and sexuality within boundaries of a cemented block called identity, Acker seeks a possible way of liberation through re-defining human beings in terms of a flux of ephemeral identities.

Key words: Empire of the Senseless, gender and sexuality, sexual identities, images of female genitalia in literature.

154

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Kathy Acker’s Empire of the Senseless, unlike most of her fictional narratives, features a plotline that actually can be summarized: two constructs, male Thivai, an addict on pharmaceuticals, and female Abhor, half robot-half black, are pirates and terrorists in Paris during and after Algerian revolution and on a quest to find a construct “Kathy”. Acker’s novel can be read as a (feminist) cyberpunk narrative which de-masculanizes the cyberhero (Stockton). Also, it can be interpreted in terms of emergence of a unifying literary voice in Acker’s fiction despite her adherence to the literary technique of self-effacement and her attempt to erase all traces of voice (Hume). De Zwaan focuses on intertextuality, appropriation and cut-up technique in composition of texts and interprets Acker’s work by close and side by side reading of Acker’s appropriated passages and the source texts.

Richard House applies informational inheritance theory and explores implications of application of Richard Dawkins’ memetic theory of culture on composition and reception of Empire of the Senseless. Moreover, a critic may concentrate on Acker’s exposure of and ironic commentary on Freud’s and psychoanalytical reduction of social, economic, political, sexual and epistemological categories to the familial “dirty little secret” (Deleuze and Guattari, 350). In addition, literary analysis informed by Deleuze’s and Guattari’s schizoanalysis and theory of desiring machines may assist in understanding Acker’s pursuit to define freedom against oppressive societal, cultural and, most importantly, (gendered) familial expectations and hierarchies. Layers of possible, probable and, by no means, absolute readings and interpretations of Empire of the Senseless are inexhaustible as her literary technique is open to a plethora of interpretations. Nonetheless, it appears that every analysis will necessarily fail to interpret numerous, let alone all, aspects of Acker’s literary (ad)venture.

Acker’s literary techniques in Empire of the Senseless can be summed up as “postmodern manifestation of fragmentation” (Hume, 491), which along with other aspects of Acker’s literary practice feature citations from inherited texts and re-workings of the [s]cenes based on texts by William Gibson, Jean Genet, Sigmund Freud1, the Marquis de Sade, Mark Twain, probably Juan Goytisolo, […]. In addition, we find echoes of Haitian revolution, voodoo, pirates, biker gangs and adolescent love in Paris

(Hume, 489) Centrifugal effect of Empire of the Senseless is accomplished through the use and combination of the specific literary techniques, genre crossings and transgressions as well as strategic (mis)use of language and sudden and repeated shifts of the linguistic register. I

1 In a segment of his article, Richard House analyses Acker’s ironizing appropriation of Freud’s texts and her parody of one of Freudian ready-made diagnoses in the chapter Nightmare City of Empire of the Senseless and parenthetically concludes: “Any diagnostic effort would be further undercut by Acker’s caricature of Freud’s confidence in his therapeutic skill: ‘I shall now by means of my profound rational processes find the explanation for my madness, and socially unacceptable human behavior’ [30].” House, 467)

155

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

argue, following Hume2, that the disruptive centrifugal effect of Acker’s text is easily interpreted by a reader conditioned by postmodern and poststructuralist theories and/or a reader concerned about certain issues such as social injustice, poverty or marginalization of certain communities and individuals. That is not to imply that Acker assumes a reader well versed in postmodern literary theory, social constructivism and/or a human-rights activist. Neither have I claimed that she anticipates any reader while writing. If we accept Richard House’s assertion that Acker’s experimentation with language and inherited texts does not require obedience of the material to the experimenter or theorist, then it is would be logical to conclude that the writer does not assume or expect any obedience from her reader as well. Moreover, she clamors for a radical abandonment of one singular and authoritative meaning: You have to have a sense of humor to read me. Some people ask me, “How can I make sense of your writing?” I then say, “Don’t bother. Don’t make sense. Eat your mind.”

As a novelist, I construct a world. I’m not concerned with what that world means, for to mean is to be something other. There are sets of arguments about sexuality and identity in my texts, but no absolute meanings.

(Acker 1995, 7) Although I do not assume nor contend that the writer is the ultimate authority in interpreting their writing, I maintain, similarly to House, that Empire of the Senseless bends reader’s interpretational habit of asking himself/herself (themselves) what the novel means, if such habit has been established. Instead, a reader enters the world of performatives, finding reading pleasure in tracing, deciphering and identifying what the novel does. Ultimately, it may also mean asking the question what Acker does in/through/by the world created in her novel. In this paper, I will trace and explore possible performative effects of her novel on what she sees as the existing dominant notions of gender, female bodies and sexuality. I will pay special attention to literary techniques and linguistic tools which Acker employs in the novel to engage the reader to critically examine the given and clean-cut Manichean gender binaries.

To a number of contemporary—twenty first century—readers, conditioned by the culture of sampling and editing, decades of postmodern (and) feminist theories, texts and social engagement, Acker’s writing might not seem as radically postmodern and experimental as it appeared in the 1988 when the novel was first published. Although reading through disruptive narrative effect of many voices may not necessarily represent an obstacle to a contemporary reader, Acker’s plastic description of violence, pornographic images, gruesome and disturbing descriptions of rape, lobotomy, forcible sterilization of (Algerian) women (by French) and alike might overwhelm a reader, including the contemporary 2 It is only one aspect of Hume’s interpretation, as she ventures into identifying a unifying voice in all Acker’s narratives demonstrating that seemingly disruptive multiplicity of voices as a literary technique has a unifying centripetal effect when viewed cumulatively throughout Acker’s literary production. I would be more inclined to view such centripetal force, if relevant at all, in terms of Acker’s underlying political views.

156

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

one. One may argue that her use of such images aims at merely shocking her reader, or, at best, shocking her reader into recognition. I argue that, when it comes to gender, sexuality and desire, Acker in the Empire of the Senseless deliberately and boldly depicts such most horrifying images to the minute detail not allowing them to remain tacit and implicit in the culture, calling for a radical change. To support my argument, I will analyze her literary images which expose, bring to the surface and destroy assumed and prevailing patriarchal narratives about gender, women especially, and children. In concluding passages of my essay I will address Acker’s strategy to create an opening to otherness and novelty after identifying violent social practices, sexualized violence especially, and destroying inherited constructed gendered reality. As it can be said for any category she destructs, when it comes to gender and sexuality, she is not so much interested in the possible and already materialized phenomena, as she is in impossibilities. She (re)construes the world familiar to us, her readers, stripping it of all euphemisms and sanitization, in order to fully destruct it and open a crack for the novelty to develop.

Apocalypse: Diagnosis of the System/World as Has Been “Humans was creepy disgusting […], revolting, humans not revolting” (Acker 1988, 73) In the opening chapter of her novel, Elegy for the World of the Fathers Kathy Acker’s novel identifies the main pillars of oppressive and control-imposing societal, economic and familial mechanisms, practices and institutions. Not only war, capitalism, acquisition and loss of wealth in either war or in peace, which Acker dubs as “the hiatus between wars” (Acker 1988, 46), judicial system, courts, the police and prison cells, but also marriage and family bonds are exposed as intertwined sites of coercion and violence. Therefore, in the first pages of the novel Acker’s reader is introduced to a dystopian diagnosis of a gangrenous socioeconomic and political system and prison-like culture which is not a mere writer’s prediction, possible or probable futuristic scenario or prognosis. Although it seems that her fiction is placed in the future, its temporal setting is now, today. The dystopia she constructs is not some distant and highly unlikely possibility or scenario we should fear from materializing in the near or far future. We live it.

However, following House, I contend that she is not trapped in “merely symptomatic navel-gazing” (House, 457). Instead, she bluntly presents anamnesis of the disease taxonomically naming and describing its symptoms, manifestations, and causes. She ventures into a literary enterprise of removing the veil by dissembling the façade and cosmetic sanitization usually used in the language of the media, educational institutions, medical and pharmaceutical industry, economic hierarchical structures and political establishment.

Still, she does not augment or hyperbolize. Instead, she heightens images from reality: identifies them, re-works them and then, through her novel, feeds them back into the culture, nakedly and fully explicated. She states what usually remains inferred, un-spokenof and, hence, unsaid and un-described in the news: for example what victims of rape go through to the most painful, horrific and disgusting detail. As it usually goes, un-said 157

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

remains un-confronted. In this sense, Empire of the Senseless is an apocalyptic3 narrative which bluntly, with no censorship whatsoever, confronts its reader with the world of violence, crime, wars, terrorism, lobotomizing medical interventions and rape. In the novel, Acker removes the sanitized discursive features from the public and private discourses to articulate an intricate network of sexual, economic and political coercion as physical attack on human body and forms of aggressive invasion in(to) human body-mind4.

Gendered Reality: “I Would Rather be Dead than a Girl” (Acker 1988, 181) Acker places special emphasis on the treatment of children in such world, especially girls and young women. In the opening chapter of the novel, “Elegy for the world of Fathers” young female childrens’ lives are portrayed in the confines of the family life. Abhor’s Nana (grandmother) was a prostitute at the age of ten because “[l]ike a lot of poor people do, her parents put her on the streets to pasture” (Acker 1988, 3) once they lost their family fortune fleeing from pre-Nazi ghettoes in Germany. Furthermore, marriage, “one form of collective crime” (Acker 1988, 7), is described in the novel as a way of augmenting family wealth and the only socially acceptable way for a woman to ensure basic living income for herself and the children. On the other hand, Acker ridicules the marriage as the criterion for judging the worth of a woman’s life/character and the only way for her to avoid negative social sanction and ostracism in patriarchal societies. Through a typical Freudian slip, a sort of a comic relief, Acker articulates her views on social and economic function of marriage through the words of Abhor’s grandmother: What’s this shit about you not letting my granddaughter fuck for money? I mean, get married?’ Grandma always got her terms mixed up. ‘Do you want you daughter to be a freak? After all, she carries our name.

(16) Acker’s feminism is specific and unapologetic in its refusal to give amnesty in the name of sisterhood to women who conform to and strengthen, thus re-enforcing, androcentric allocations of power and misogynous patterns of social interactions. For example, Abhor’s maternal grandmother is introduced as “dominating old bitch” (Acker 1988, 16) and this character exposes complicity of a number of women with patriarchal system of oppression of women.

3 I use the word “apocalyptic” in its original sense: removing the veil. “Middle English, revelation, Revelation, from Anglo-French apocalipse, from Late Latin apocalypsis, from Greek apokalypsis, from apokalyptein to uncover, from apo- + kalyptein to cover” (Merriem-Webster Online Dictionary) 4 Body-mind is my attempt to graphologically, by using the hyphen, represent the unity of body and mind Acker assumes in her work. She, by reduction ad absurdum, mocks Cartesian body/mind separation: “(Whenever I stop thinking, I step out of existing into nothing.)” (Empire of the Senseless, parenthesis in the original text, 61). My use of body-mind is analogous to the use of hyphen in representing space and time as a single dimension in theoretical physics: space-time.

158

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

In addition to the writer’s comment on the social function of the institution of marriage, the first chapter of the novel remains dwelling on the familial relations. Amongst other violent phenomena, it addresses the issue of incest. In this part of the novel, Acker is almost obsessively concerned with violence against children, especially sexualized violence against girls. In phantasy-like, nightmarish passages of Rape by the Father she relates how Abhor, the main female character, was repeatedly raped by her father during her childhood and youth. This chapter is a typical Freudian “ready-made” explication of human behavior and psychological characteristics, which Acker, following Deleuze and Guattari, criticizes as psychoanalytical reduction of human experiences by supposed and eternal entrapment in “mommy-daddy-me triangle” (Deleuze and Guattari, 51).

It is crucial to note that Abhor (female, half robot, half black) relates the story of incest through Thivai (male) and it is the only instance in the novel where such use of “ventriloquism” is stated explicitly in the title of the subheading: Rape by the Father (Abhor speaks through Thivai). By such arrangement of “voicing” - male speaks for female - Acker brilliantly and implicitly exposes phallogocentrism of Freud’s theory by insisting on gendered role division through the arrangement of characters’ task in narrating this story. She contends that psychoanalytical interpretation of a woman’s (childhood) experience is predominantly phallocentric, without much insight into a real woman’s experience from a woman’s perspective. Such interpretations are patronizing at best. Most importantly, the title of the whole heading of the novel Elegy for the World of the Fathers in which the rape by the father is narrated, signals the reader where such interpretations can be located temporally. They are past practices, dead. Elegy, even though in classical Greece it meant a song written in elegiac couplets, is generally seen as a mournful song commemorating one’s death. As no instance of elegiac couplet can be found in the heading Elegy for the World of the Fathers, it is safe to conclude that Acker, through interplay of the headings, titles and narrated images, demolishes the world of paternal, patronizing and patriarchal interpretations of women’s experiences.

Yet, she does not stop there. The use of a man’s voice to relate a woman’s experience has another dimension I will not further explore in this essay, but deserves to be mentioned.

The issue of woman’s (literary) voice and men’s language is extremely important to Acker and she insists on it in several interviews. Abhor (female), we learn later in the novel, is an analphabet. Last chapters of Empire of the Senseless describe Abhor learning how to write— using her own blood as ink. Acker seems to offer a liberating alternative to the dominance of patriarchal narratives about women’s experiences: it may be that writing, voicing one’s own experience, can liberate some space of inherited gendered reality in which it would be possible to accommodate women’s voices to be heard and experiences acknowledged.

Obliteration of a Representation: Dead Fish As mentioned earlier, Kathy Acker unearths the most horrendous, widely acceptable, as long as they are implied and not spelled out, underlying assumptions in the culture and states them explicitly to dismantle them. Jokes are one of the resources for tracing down 159

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

racist, misogynous, or classist stereotypes wrapped in a humorous language. The only instance when Acker retells a joke in this novel is after the scene when Abhor kills Dr. Schreber, in the subheading called Business which opens with statistical information about sexually transmitted infections such as AIDS, herpes, syphilis or gonorrhea.

There’s a joke that a man, I don’t know who this man is, steps on to a bus. He sits down on a seat and smells. It stinks. Since he’s a polite man, he doesn’t bear this stink. Finally, the stench has become so horrendous that, contrary to his desire never to be noticed, he whispers something to the bus driver. The bus driver, who’s Irish, screams out, ‘Will whoever’s holding a bag of dead fish please leave this bus.’ All of the women on the bus get off the bus.

(60) This joke is not Acker’s invention. One may hear it when socializing with acquaintances or retold or alluded to by stand up comedians. It does not mean that women literally carry bags of dead fish on them, but it implies that women smell like dead fish. Since the only biological anatomical difference between women and men is genital, the hearer of the joke supplies this inference and concludes that the vaginas emit dead-fish-like smell. Due to its cultural coding as a taboo, this image is rarely stated explicitly in the proper and appropriate public discourse which everyone can access and share. It is rather an un-explicated and implied assumption of patriarchal narratives. Acker takes the patriarchal image of the vagina and female body as a source of filth, germs and bad odour, heightens it, states it bluntly and then destroys it in her narrative. She does not mention dead fish once prior to telling this joke, but after this passage she uses it several times for different purposes and to achieve different effects.

This joke not only displays androcentric view on female genitalia, but also demonstrates complicity of women and their acceptance and internalization of patriarchal narrative about female body as all women got off the bus without being directly asked or forced to do so. They themselves assumed that it must be their bodies emitting foul smell.

Acker by no means defends women in the name of sisterhood, nor does she allow them to be lulled in the well-familiar and comfortable space of a victim. Instead she searches and opens a new space for her reader to find new sexuality, in his/her own terms and experiences, not through the eyes of old/dead white males or as she claims: We should use force to fight representations which are idols, idolized images; we must use force to annihilate erase eradicate terminate destroy slaughter slay nullify neutralize break down get rid of obliterate move out destruct end all the representations which exist for purposes other than enjoyment. In such war, a war against idolatry, ridicule’ll be our best tool. Remember, whore: Julien’s sarcasms did more damage than Nero’s tortures.”

(Acker 1988, 94-5).

Applying her own rule, on the example of the dead fish metaphor, she attempts to neutralize, eradicate or annihilate, just to use a few of her verbs, a dominant representation of female body and genitals.

160

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

In the next instance, dead fish metaphor is explicitly linked to the vagina when contra-positioned by the anus (“dead shark”) in one of the depictions of sexual intercourse in the narrative: “’My little dead shark. Better than dead fish.’ I whispered to her when I fucked her asshole.” (Acker 1988, 95). After this explication, Acker does not allow her reader to be lulled by the implied and not openly declared misogynous statement about female body and sexuality as it is in the joke. The reader has to confront it.

The following quotation is taken from a passage which the reader will almost automatically recognize as appropriated from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Relevant to our analysis is Thivai’s (male) description of an afternoon on the river: “Now and then, here and there, a breeze came to visit our boat, drifting through the lazy waters, along the smells of dead giant fish. The plum leaves and all sorts of magnolia blossoms, then more dead fish.” (Acker 1988, 191, italics mine). In this passage, Acker seems to be describing the olfactory and tactile sensations Thivai and Abhor experience while living on a boat, and the smell of dead giant fish fits naturally in the river setting. But, in the subsequent sentence, a reader receives another clue to read the dead fish image differently: “The insects wanted to live up my nostrils, but didn’t want nothin’ to do with Abhor” (Acker 1988, 191). The whole nature seems to be complying with and accepting the patriarchal presumptions about rottenness of female body, contaminated by the filth from its genital so that even insects refuse to get close to it.

Finally, only after learning how to write, Abhor ceases to smell like dead fish. She smells like fish. Writing, language, is, therefore, a tool for dismantling misogynous representations, refusing to live by millennia old mis-representations of female body, thus liberating oneself from internalized shame and disgust with one’s own body: Then I cut into Abhor’s four fingers with another penknife. There was blood all over the place and something or someone smelt like fish.

This was the end of Abhor’s first writing lesson. Making Abhor into a great woman writer obviously was going to take more blood than sweat.

(Acker 1988, 204-5, italics mine).

Policing Gender: “The Ceiling of Languages is Falling Down.”

(Acker 1988, 163) Richard House dismisses critique of materialist analysts and theorists, Jameson namely, who “tend to denigrate the postmodern text’s effacement of the real in its concern with textuality” (House, 457) on the grounds that postmodernism understands language and texts not as mere representation and reflection of material reality, but as “a proper venue for historical change” (House, 457). As I argued in the previous passages, Acker does not avoid or fail to represent particular material entities, social meanings and relevance awarded to them, and their (hierarchical) relations. Yet, her reader will eventually realize that she goes beyond mere photographic capturing of reality. Although she adheres 161

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

to certain political ideas and does so rather openly, it must be stressed that she does not write a political pamphlet or socioeconomic analysis informed by anarchist political and ideological agenda. She constructs a world, using language and available literary techniques and texts only to expose dictatorial impulse latent in the prevailing system of linguistic representations and dismantle both language/texts and material reality. Empire of the Senseless examines the role of language as the most efficient and omnipresent mechanism in policing gender division(s) and expectations, as well as other social hierarchical structures. A reader of Empire of the Senseless is explicitly confronted with the issue of language as a powerful tool of control when Acker asks: “Does language control like money?”

(Acker 1988, 164).

Acker’s use of generic third person pronouns might have been rather strange to her reader in 1988. Firstly, it must be noticed that she does not use many generic pronouns throughout the novel. Empire of the Senseless is narrated in either first person singular (a number of characters speaking in I’s), or in the third person singular and then “he/she” pronouns are used referentially pointing to or designating a particular character in the novel. Rarely does Acker speak about a generic person—any/every human being. However, in the instances when she uses cataphoric or anaphoric pronoun to designate a generic human being, she uses “she” instead of “he”, disrespecting culturally accepted referential pattern of defining male as a paradigmatic form for human beings: “No human could walk the streets without blood covering her limbs.” (Acker 1988, 7). Another example of anaphoric pronoun she uses when referring to a generic person is when Acker speaks about German romanticists: “They tore the subject away from her subjugation to her self […].”

(Acker 1988, 12). In 1989, Norman Fairclough, a linguist who analyses language in use in the sub-discipline of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), published a book Language and Power using feminine third person pronoun as a generic pronoun for all human beings. When explaining the analytical practice of any discourse analyst, Fairclough writes: “The chapter will conclude with some points about the relationship of the analyst to the discourse she is analysing.” (Fairclough, 141, italics mine). Like Acker, but in a non-literary text, Fairclough aimed to expose naturalization and normalization of certain ideological and culturally constructed assumptions and narratives through the exemplary use of feminine pronoun for a generic person. Kathy Acker wrote her novel in the period when many theorists, philosophers or linguists embarked on the analysis of language use and its relation to legitimizing unequal distribution of power. Acker’s, like Fairclough’s, use of this estrangement effect is by no means prescriptive. It questions axiomatic definition of (white) men as representatives for the whole human species.

Despite her concern about the language as a site and stake of social struggles, Acker is aware of futility of linguistic changes alone. Although transformation of the patterns of language use may affect certain social practices, linguistic change based on the acceptance of sets of axiological evaluations assigned to each of the two categories based on difference between sexes still acknowledges patriarchal structural binary (man/woman) as the unchang162

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

ing axiom and as such does not suffice in liberation struggles: “[f]irst rule for bikers said that a biker should keep his (I had to substitute her here, but I didn’t think that it changed its sense) bike in good condition.” (Acker 1988, italics in the original text, 213). Instead of insisting on shifting power between the two poles of the man-woman binary, Acker proposes a new transformational method: dismantling and refuting patriarchal assumptions altogether.

Unlimited self-defining: “I, whoever I was, was going to be a construct”

(Acker 1988, 33) Yet, Acker goes beyond diagnosing fallacies of “womanhood and femininity” as established and cemented by phallogocentric histories and cultural coding and enacted in social interactions. She questions the very biological foundation for sex differentiation. Establishing a set of rules for study of characters within the framework of narrative grammar, James Garvey identifies several norms for ascribing attributive propositions (AP) to characters in a narrative. Garvey defines these norms as “[t]he devices necessary to account for the multiple and indirect ascription of attributes to characters” (75) and provides implicational connections and relevant examples utilized in deciphering indirect attributions of characters in a narrative. The first example of implicational connections is relevant to my study: (a) logical: e.g. ‘x is pregnant’ implies ‘x is female’ (Garvey, 75).

Biological reproductive role division of humans is structured in a clear cut system of binaries: male and female. Regardless of the social and cultural construction of gender roles (including cultural roles in child rearing and nurturing) these strictly anatomical features of human bodies have remained fixed so far, at this level of the development and advance of medical and pharmaceutical sciences: females can get pregnant and males cannot.

In Acker’s narrative, in one of the probably most horrifying rape scenes in the novel, she deliberately confuses and mixes not only arbitrary and socially construed gender roles but also unchangeable and stable reproductive roles as determined and fixed by innately physiological sexual difference. The victim of the rape is male and afraid not to get pregnant.

Reducing this scene to a psychotic and surrealist dream-like narrative and reading it through Freudian lens reduces it to yet another ready-made diagnosis which is, as Deleuze and Guattari claim, played out in advance, even before a person was born: castration anxiety, men’s fear of feminization, crisis of masculinity and so on. We should leave margin for the psychoanalytical feminist interpretation according to which every person who is in the submissive position might be seen as a female (and thus might get pregnant). Yet, the fact that the main female character, Abhor, is not only half black but also is half robot certainly calls for a possible reading of the novel through cyberfeminist theoretical stance. Cyberfeminism is one of the tools and theoretical frameworks which assist a reader in avoiding Freudian reductionism or structuralist formulae, which Acker almost obsessively attempts to avoid.

Acker goes as far as to destruct, so far unchanging, biological determination and “anthropomorphic representation of sex” (Deleuze and Guattari, 294), clamoring for de163

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

humanization of sexuality. If humans and their society have so far managed to be murderous, then they must de-humanize. If war is a “mirror of our sexuality” (Acker 1988, 26), then sexuality and reproduction as known to humans must be destroyed all together, and displaced from the antagonistic context they have been placed in and built anew.

Modern medicine is also full of cyborgs, of couplings between organism and machine, each conceived as coded devices, in an intimacy and with a power that was not generated in the history of sexuality. Cyborg ‘sex’ restores some of the lovely replicative baroque of ferns and invertebrates (such nice organic prophylactics against heterosexism). […] I am making an argument for the cyborg as a fiction mapping our social and bodily reality and as an imaginative resource suggesting some very fruitful couplings.

(Haraway, 150, italics mine) Like Haraway, Acker envisions a world where imagined (im)possibilities can materialize, as Abhor states in the closing (or rather new opening) sentence of the novel: “And then I thought that, one day, maybe there’d be a human society which is beautiful, a society which wasn’t just disgust.” (Acker 1988, 227).

Reconstruction: “Genders Were Complex Those Days”

(Acker 1988, 180) In her attempt to de-stabilize what she had firstly identified as dogmatic and despotic social system and practices, Acker employs self-effacing narrative techniques such as multiplicity of voices and I’s, pastiche, intertextuality, plagiarism and appropriation of other texts, parody, sentence fragments, ungrammatical syntax and run-ons. She adheres to the convention of the genre only to suddenly abandon and erase literary and textual features of the genre and to introduce a new one. As mentioned at the beginning of my article, this novel can be viewed in terms of the quest narrative. Yet, midway through the novel, Thivai and Abhor completely abandon their mission/quest. Taming Thivai’s addiction to pharmaceuticals was initial incentive to fulfill the quest. His addiction and finding a construct “Kathy” are vaguely mentioned in the second half of the novel, even though they functioned as spiritus movens of the character’s actions in the first half. Reading Acker’s novel with an expectation that it will comply with the norms of the proper, classical quest narrative, or any other narrative, would simply seem futile, or at best frustrating5.

As the plot itself is de-stabilized through repeated establishment and abandonment of new plot-lines, Acker introduces episodic characters (voices, new I’s) with no apparent plot-driven motivation or function within the narrative. Even though her characters’ actions are not plot-driven, Acker’s playfulness with literary genres is not erratic, random or purely aleatory. As Acker shifts literary voice among (existing and new) characters, thus 5 It is outside of the scope of this study to further explore and interpret Acker’s treatment of the conventions of a/the genre, although it can be a starting point of a very fruitful literary analysis.

164

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

construing a community of vast nexus of I’s, she destabilizes singularity of the I—culturally coded and fixed as an unchangeable identity. In order to achieve complete destabilization of socially and culturally assigned identity/label to a diversity of voices and possibilities a person6 is, she introduces new I’s not to follow or further the plotline she started developing and unraveling, but to explore multiplicity of I’s. In other words, by introducing a new (ephemeral) character-I such as Agone, or Mark, Acker is adding yet another dimension to an already complex network of identities to achieve a cumulative effect of fluid and amorphous self-constructive being, as she pronounces early in the novel: “I, whoever I was, was going to be a construct” (Acker 1988, 33). Such formless, but limitless and polyphonic being, or a self-construct, the society attempts to reduce to and singularize into a clear-cut ready-made identity label: man, woman, black, white, aristocrat, middle-class, poor etc. Paradoxically and contradictory to common-sensical notions, a human may as well be a flux of ephemeral identities, but the cemented block called identity stops us from viewing it as more fluid. When it comes to sexuality, Acker fully explores such oxymoronic possibility. She is unapologetically courageous when throwing paradoxes at the reader.

Sexuality is much greater force to be contained, imprisoned and limited to enactments as a set of proper activities within a strict scenarios assigned to us by the mere fact of birth with either of the two genital organs.

Following Deleuze and Guattari, she attempts to envision a liberated revolutionary desiring machine which will avoid containment of productive desire, or to evade re-territorialization of desiring force: The truth is that sexuality is everywhere: the way a bureaucrat fondles his records, a judge administers justice, a businessman causes money to circulate; the way the bourgeoisie fucks the proletariat; and so on. And there is no need to resort to metaphors. […] Flags, nations, armies, banks get a lot of people aroused.

A revolutionary machine is nothing if it does not acquire at least as much force as these coercive machines have for producing breaks and mobilizing flows.”

(Anti Oedipus, italics mine 293).

By the end of the novel Abhor learns how to write while being in prison, then decides to join a biker gang and chooses not to follow Thivai’s (male) dream of becoming a pirate.

In the closing pages of the narrative, after the destruction of the inherited given genderreality, the female character decides to fully abandon following the male’s dream as her own. Abhor decides to find and follow her own dream. In the last chapters of the novel Acker introduces another not-plot driven character Mark, a “male homosexual I”. In her letter to Thivai and his suddenly acquired lover Mark, Abhor writes: “The whole world is men’s bloody fantasies” (Acker 1988, 210). Firstly, she includes Mark, a homosexual man, in her accusation of being oppressive against her, “because men always protect each other’s 6 Abhor, dressed in drag, lieutenant’s uniform: “I must have been two people. I must have been thousands of people.” (Acker 1988, 117)

165

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

asses when it comes to women” (Acker 1988, 209). But this letter is not a bitter feminist rant which concludes with self-pitiful sighs. “This is what I’m saying: you’re always fucking deciding what reality is and collaborating about these decisions./ It’s not that I agree with you that I’m a wet washcloth. It’s that I don’t know what reality is.” (Acker 1988, 210).

She rejects misandry, by even allowing a possibility that men maybe right in their understanding of women as wet washcloths. However, she demands back the wrongfully denied right to explore reality from her own (women’s) perspective and make decisions based on her own conclusions. She calls for abandonment of en-forced ready-made narratives and liberation through inquisitive and curious exploration of the world, and breakthrough to the impossibilities which had not and may never materialize.

WORKS CITED: Acker, Kathy. 1995. Paragraphs. The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, 28. 1: 87-92.

2. Acker, Kathy. 1988. Empire of the Senseless. New York: Gove Press.

3. “apocalypse.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 10 June 2009 <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apocalypse> 4. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. 1983. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P. 5. de Zwaan, Victoria. 1997. Rethinking the Slipstream: Kathy Acker Reads Neuromancer. Science Fiction Studies 24: 459-70.

6. Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and Power. London: Longman.

7. Garvey, James. 1978. Characterization in Narrative. Poetics. 7: 63-78.

8. Haraway, Donna. 1991. A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York, Routledge:. 149-181.

9. Hume, Kathryn. 2001. Voice in Kathy Acker’s Fiction. Contemporary Literature. 42.3: 485-513.

10. Stockton, Sharon. 1995. ’The Self Regained’: Cyberpunk’s Retreat to the Imperium. Contemporary Literature. 36. 4: 588-612 1.

sgavranov@gmail.com

166

167

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 821.163.41.09 Šalgo J.

Dragana V. Beleslijin

Matica Srpska, Novi Sad The Institute for Culture of Vojvodina, Novi Sad, Serbia

Types of Male Characters in Judita Šalgo’s Poetry and Prose SUMMARY: Starting from the possibility of combining the methods of narratology on the one hand with those of gender studies on the other, the paper explores the question of male sexuality in Judita Šalgo’s texts. Male characters in her prose (“Da li postoji život”, “Put u Birobidžan”, “Kraj puta”, etc) can be described as either heterosexual (Dr. Savić, the husband, Laslo Végel), latent homosexual (Haim Azriel) or men of weak gender traits (Nenad Mitrov, Miroslav Mandić, Count Marsel). In the group of heterosexual male characters there are two discernible subgroups: the figure of a seducer and the figure of the bearer of the patriarchal pattern. In the collection of poetry “Život na stolu” (The Life on the Table) we can notice the use of the method of character desexualization, also typical of the poetic and prose work of Slobodan Tišma.

KEY WORDS: Judita Šalgo, male character, sexuality, hegemonic male, weak character, homosexuality, homosexual panic, desexualization, neo-avantgarde, postmodernism.

As opposed to female, the construction of male sexuality in Judita Šalgo’s texts has been made more difficult by the fact that the reality context of her prose and poetry is – originally female, that is, that her work is of female authorship, that her narrative subject is regularly female and that they are mostly heroines; as well as by the fact that even today, same as a few decades ago, when Judita Šalgo wrote and published her works, we are living in the pattern of the male reign, in which the masculine subject has the privilege to speak about carnal contact and to observe the woman, and that female sexuality is easier to go into. Wolfgang Schmale writes that male sexuality has been rendered more 168

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

important than female (Schmale 2011: 22). In the article “Erotska poezija u rukopisnim pesmaricama XVIII i XIX veka” (“Erotic Poetry in the Poetry Collections in Manuscript in the 18th and 19 th Centuries”) Sava Damjanov remarks that the woman is a giver, she is the bearer of intemperance and debauchery, the man is the one who merely takes what is on offer, and his sexuality is shown primarily as a way of satisfying women’s needs.

Obviously we are witnessing a more respectful attitude towards the man, his intimate side is, for example, taken more seriously, it is approached with more respect: this is, however, a system in which if somebody needs to be outside the prescribed norms – then let it be the woman (Damjanov 2002: 248). The output of the autoreferential in Šalgo’s texts goes in the direction of the hegemony of autobiographicality, of showing some other characteristics of the subject and his sexual, or rather, gender conditioning. No matter whether we read the constructions 67 minuta, naglas (67 Minutes, Aloud), the novel Trag kočenja (The Skid Marks) or the short stories Da li postoji život? (Is There Life?), we read the woman who speaks, writes, presents. On androgynous nature, which cannot be reduced to a single sex/ gender (“Faraon” – “The Pharaoh”), I wrote in an article about female sexuality (Beleslijin 2011). Representatives of the male mode with different ways of expressing masculinity are: heterosexual men – e.g. the husband in the short story “O čoveku koji je prodavao kiseli kupus i imao kćer Lavicu” (“On the Man Who Sold Sauerkraut and Had a Daughter Called Lioness”), Vojislav Despotov in the short story “Tungsram!”, H. in the short story “Hektorov konj” (“Hector’s Horse”), Lásló Végel and Ottó Tolnai in the eponymous short story, the husband in the short story “Minotaur” (“The Minotaur”), Luka Grković in the novel “Kraj puta” (“The End of the Road”), doctor Savić in “Put u Birobidžan” (“Journey to Birobidzhan”), the driver in the novel “Trag kočenja” (“The Skid Marks”); a latent homosexual is for example Haim Azriel in the novel “Put u Birobidžan”; men of weak gender traits are, for example, Nenad Mitrov in the novel “Put u Birobidžan”, Miroslav Mandić in the short story “Irena ili o Marini ili o biografiji” (“About Irena, or Marina, or about a Biography”) and Count Poiters in the short story “Kako se grof od Poitersa preodijevao u razne haljine kako bi nepoznat kušao život u različitim staležima i zvanjima” (“How Count of Poiters Dressed-up in Various Ways in Order to Go Undercover and Taste Different Walks of Life”). Sexual identity of the fluctuating, semantic heroes, like most protagonists in the untitled “Priče bez naslova” (“Stories Without a Title”) (second cycle of the book Is there life?) cannot be determined because of the conceptualistic character of these texts, and of the unreliability of the narrative subject, who stands in the way of a clear ontological basis of the text and expresses a doubt in his own order.

Heterosexual man – a man of stable GENDER TRAITS In gender-oriented interpretations he is defined as a white European male, the protagonist of patriarchal order and a revered authority: warrior, conqueror, dominant figure. His build matches the early concepts of masculinity, and as for sexuality, this model of masculinity counts on a cultivated, preferably marital sexuality (Stevanović 169

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

2012, in print). Thus, we are denied the drama of marital sexual intercourse. However, it is very often his position that is the starting point for the determination of the Other, corresponding member of the black race or a minority, also of women, children (who are yet to be constituted in sexual life), the elderly, people with special needs, etc. Male mode is discontinued here – having reached a certain stage of evolution, it is closed, set in a certain genre and further, in a way of thinking, i.e. the prototype of “archetypal understanding of male identity” (Stevanović 2011: 226) and as such, the agent of his system, but also of the system of the reality of the very action he is caught in.

Doctor Savić is a guarantor of security for the female population suffering from lues.

He is also a stabilizing factor to Flora Gutman, whom he helps constitute a sexual identity.

However, as a figure of an unfinished novel, his role has not been presented as completely unambiguous and his actions are not always motivated: swinging between Savić – whom she loves, and Azriel – to whom she is intended, Flora ends being torn between the two by choosing to travel as an escape from the desperate situation. Savić remains only a potential husband, an object of her desire and she does not succumb to his wooing...

If the potential husband is not a figure who can meet the sexual aspirations of heroines, the formal husband is seen as a distinctly masculine figure. It is a short way from his decidedly opposing role in relation to femininity (“Tungsram!”) to violence and abuse (“Minotaur” – The Minotaur): as a character he is formed exclusively opposite the woman, according to her, in relation to her. As for the artist Vojislav Despotov, this markedly gender trait is at the same time an obstacle to the explanation of his poetics, of which Judita Šalgo certainly had something to say in the cited short story, just as his artistic nature is an obstacle for his personality to be projected from reality to fiction in a short story about a married couple’s quarrel. Two distinct poles of this short story have prevented a full and precise transformation of the documentary material into fiction, which has gone only half way – one could not return back into the context of reality just like that, and any further search for the meaning of a banal statement like the line

by Vojislav Despotov “Gasim se kao Tungsram sijalica” (“I go out as a Tungsram light bulb”), taken out of context of an interesting, provocative poem, is equally nonsensical as a discourse which would possibly be analyzed.

The quarrelsome husband in the short story “Minotaur” is seen from a female perspective. The hybrid monster born in an unnatural relationship between the queen of Crete and a bull, and consequently doomed, now has the function of a threat and unequivocal violence which the male principle demonstrates over the female one. Just as the mythical creature from Crete sacrifices young men and women, the heroine narrator of this, consistently fictional story is the victim of a mental mind game of one “Narcis Zlostavljač” (“Narcissus the Molester”) (Ahmetagić 2011), also escapes into a labyrinth in which more and more new questions are raised in order to sustain an illusion of holiday, the allure of the suite and other comforts and benefits of the package holiday. The short story thus underlines the uncompromising principle of hegemonistic masculinity which takes 170

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

you by force, which seeks a victim for satisfaction, but whose frustration is a result of the futility of proving oneself and social recognition (Bourdieu 2001: 72): I haven’t seen him for a few months, since the night of rocking in the cold, smokefilled compartment. We arrived at Novi Sad station and he told me, while the train was coming to a halt, hurrying in order not to be late: “Listen, I’ll go with you now and take some things of mine. I’ll pack my suitcase and go. You won’t ask me a thing. Because I can’t listen to you. I can’t look at you. If you utter but a word, I’m going to strangle you” (Šalgo 2007: 149).

Aggression is, besides the threat repeated several times, also made explicit in the gestures and body language: the husband seizes her hand forcefully, roughly. His surprise invitation to dinner in “The Park Hotel” seems to be a nice surprise, but at the very beginning of the encounter the narrator is the object of familial “devouring” (Ahmetagić 2011: 117–145). After she occasionally makes the topos of the journey to the hotel more complex by reminiscences of the period of quarrels and arguments over the phone, the narrator switches to the scene in “The Park Hotel”, where the couple meet the manager Pavlović and his assistant Milivoj, who introduces them to the beauties of a complex in the Mediterranean: however, the advertisement makes the unreachable price of the suite, which is not bought as property, but is only rented for a certain time of year, become an obsession of many who “buy” the marketing trick. Finding the money with which they could afford what the multicoloured pictures in the catalogue illustrate becomes imperative. The woman slowly realizes that the fatigue of the evening/dinner is just one of the forms of expressing the long-standing marital hatred and anger, a revenge for not knowing where his son is, manifestation of savage anger, equal to physical violence.

Torture by hypertherapy and being suffused with images gradually turns into masochism, the narrator becomes exhausted from collecting useless information, in spite of knowing she will never be able to use it. That is the climax of the sadistic lust that the man imposes on the woman as, in his opinion, a representative of the gentler sex: I was hungry, but the hunger was not coming from the stomach, but from the whole being. All of a sudden, I was empty as if I had never in my life thought, felt, experienced anything, as if I had had no life at all. As if my life was just about to begin over this thick table, over the tattered thick travel brochure, and the pictures of the blue and plenty. (Šalgo 2007: 152) At the same time when a myth is woven into the story as a secondary designation, the woman is drawn into the labyrinth of wishes, from which it is very hard to pull oneself out. At the same time, instead of gods whom heroes call for help in myths, older colleagues become experienced advisers and mentors to the younger and less experienced managers.

The figure of the seducer who uses all the means at his disposal to reach his goal is present in a number of texts by Judita Šalgo. He is at the same time also a counterpart

171

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

to femme fatale that we see in Judita Šalgo’s fiction (see: Beleslijin 2011). Promiscuous, inconstant, he flaunts his masculinity and tests its borders, pushing them further all the time. According to Peter Schwenger, “a man does not measure his manliness in relation to women, but to other men” (Schwenger 2005: 49). However, fluidity of the seducer originates from the need for self-identification and through the relationship with a woman/women, and this is what connects him with a man of weak gender traits. On the other hand, his pronounced masculinity makes him close to the hegemonistic type of masculinity. If myth as the primary designation often has the function of emphasizing the initial gender characteristics (“Hektorov konj” – “Hector’s Horse”, “Biću trojanski konj” – “I Will Be the Trojan Horse”, “Minotaur” – “The Minotaur”, “Faraon” – “The Pharaoh”), no matter whether they are further confirmed or challenged, then in the novel “Kraj puta” (The End of the Road) this role has been taken by historic fact. Alluding to the procuring role of literature known even to Dante’s inhabitants of hell, Luka Grković tells Olga Rot a sad story of Nenad Mitrov’s life supporting it with numerous verses. In the short story “Hektorov konj” (“Hector’s Horse”), the lover H. is the person who teaches sexual skills to the narrator, whose seduction powers culminate in the sentence which reads: […] the truth encompasses both stances: this relationship (just like H’s onebedroomed flat, which is visited by both his ex-wife and his lover of many years, much more often than by me), that relationship is, in fact, a sexual workshop in which literary details or even an occasional original idea, are put into practice patiently, without much excitement and without fear of failure. (Šalgo 1995: 58).

In the short story “Oto Tolnai i Laslo Vegel gledaju Miting solidarnosti 25. septembra 1988. u Novom Sadu” (“Ottó Tolnai and László Végel Watch the Meeting of Solidarity in Novi Sad on 25th September 1988”) Végel’s position of an observer is made more complex by a continual impression which Milica Grković, an activist at the meeting, and also the overall atmosphere at the meeting, convey to him. The heroine, given indirectly, being insufficiently known, causes not only curiosity, but also upsets, being an alien body (inhabitant of another town, another region), the other sex. In order to decipher her discourse more easily, Végel naturalizes her, throwing her into the context of femininity as such, as historically conditioned: When it comes to women, this feature, equally pathetic, still speaks more about their readiness for sacrifice, than about the chances for victory, speaks about the readiness to allow history to take precedence over life in spite of the nature’s intentions, even making use of it (Šalgo 1995: 82).

The character from the short story, a contemporary writer László Végel, transfered from the context of reality into fiction and, as such, subject to the author’s interventions, observes a woman, and a proof of the thesis that the historic character has succumbed to transformations is the fact that the object of his thoughts at that moment is conjured

172

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

up with the personal narrative situation. His initial, strictly observing position may be charactarized as one of a conqueror. On the other hand, the issue of a woman as a victim is also treated in Végel’s novel “Memoari jednog makroa” (“Memoirs of a Pimp”), in which men, the narrator and engineer, are usurpers, frauds, pimps and blackmailers. It is the tone of narration, the ease and coolness with which we learn the facts about blackmails and uses of women that point to the traits of the young man’s character, to his ruthlessness.

The man has the power, while the women, including Bea, Tanja, and especially Čipi, are the victims of his ruthlessness, his sexual exploatation. Čik, an elderly professor, is also the Other, an old man who is not familiar with the secrets of a pimp and voyeur, and that makes him a victim too, because he believes in the young man and wants to help him gain social affirmation, a life and career in the city, but his sacrifice is not so drastic as women are victims of manipulation – sexual in the first place.

In this text there is the ekphrasis of Johann Liss’s painting Judith and Holofernes, which, among other things,1 points to the departure from the traditional presentation of Judith with Holofernes’s head in one hand, triumphantly celebrating the victory. This painting, where Judith, femme forte is turned towards the victim and casts one last look at him, the narrator goes on to presume, may have inspired Végel to create a personal myth about a woman: It is an unusual look. Somewhat cold, stern, professionally concentrated look of a housewife who is checking if now, after the big, thorough cleaning, everything is all right. (Šalgo 1995: 83–84).

Furthermore, through the liberally experienced speech we learn that Végel knows that a woman does not need a victory – she is self-sufficient even in a defeat – but that each victory needs a woman. What else is Statue of Liberty at the entrance to the New World but a gigantic Judith with Holofernes’s head like a bloody torch in the hand raised high. (Šalgo 1995: 84).

The woman’s triumph is a bloody, Pyrrhic victory, which is seen in, among other things, the man’s sacrifice – the roles have been swapped. Judita Šalgo uses archetypal relations with the remains of the respect for matriarchate to announce that in a new age, which does not have to stand for a historic epoch, but rather the time we live in, the society again, through a symbolic castration,2 could establish female domination, while the heroine Judita, as a bearer of male strength and valour, which she demonstrates 1 The painting also points to the intertextual relation to a play by László Végel, Judita.

2 Beheading a male may allude to castration. Regarding the fact that a part of male sexual organ is called “the head”, that it could also be seen as an animate, independent homunculus, who lives an independent life of a man, it is possible to establish a connection between castration and decapitation. On the other hand, the human body itself is of a phallic shape, which is seen in the figurines used for defloration, devirgination. Z. Mirković, Eros – pain, woman – god.

173

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

through female, conquering means3, quells the uncompromising rule of men, whose extreme aspect – exploitation, reducing the woman to mere usage, her consumption – Végel describes in the cited novel. However, the domination of the female principle is ambivalent – agile patterns of behaviour, such as the fiery speech at the meeting and the victory over the man, point to the woman’s supremacy, at the same time confirmed, but also decidedly sporadic, lonely, more like the exception that proves the rule.

The Weak subject Gender Trouble by Judith Butler, who sees gender as a construction and not as a sex, that is, biological causality (see Butler 2010), is the starting point of many searches for gender transgressions, which remained hidden from earlier readers, hidden by various interpretations, ideological or structural. Nowadays, it seems, such “troubles” loom from everywhere, and especially from the interpretative field, as if this is what they have been waiting for: interpretations of the weak subject and his (a)sexuality have become qualifying and ultimate. However, positive examples should also be stated: in Serbian literature today, that is the weak, desexualized subject of Slobodan Tišma, the absolute hero of our day, who, by his openness to the processes of hybridization, to frequent crises and identity checks, is rivalled by the heroes of Judita Šalgo’s poetry and fiction.

In the article “Tipovi modernoga subjekta (muškarci sa ženskim rodnim crtama)” – “Types of the Modern Subject (Men with Female Gender Traits)” Dubravka Oraić Tolić determines three circles of modern subjects. Besides the first, ruler’s circle, the bearer of hegemonistic masculinity, there is also “the opposition circle – a gallery of countersubjects, counterindividuums and countercitizens in modern philosophy, modernism in arts and parts of the avantgarde”; and the third, called “the grey zone of nonsubjects, nonindividuals and noncitizens controlled by the modern subjects of the first circle (women, children, the sick, foreigners, other classes and races, members of colonized peoples)” (Oraić Tolić 2005: 83). One of the protagonists of the novel Put u Birobidžan (Road to Birobidzhan), Nenad Mitrov, is equally present in the second and third circle. Just like it was modern art which was the first to distance itself from the central image of the modern subject, in the same way its representatives were defined early as opposing, antisubjects. In such context six modern hermaphrodites come to life: genius, dandy, bohemian, flaneur, Übermensch and Moglichkeitsmensch (ambivalent man) (Oraić Tolić 2005: 89). This kind of subversion of the chief type of masculinity has been seen as “confessing to impotence” (Stevanović 2012).

As the castrated hero is sexually impotent, disabled by a woman’s hand, the hero of the novel Put u Birobidžan (Road to Birobidzhan) Nenad Mitrov is a victim, incapable of resisting both the surge of passion (which is in the text “Dubine” (“The Depths”) denoted 3 Wolfgang Schmale interprets in detail the painting by Artemizije Đentileski Judith Killing Holofernes (after 1612), in which one can see the power, wisdom and virtue of the biblical Judith, who has freed her people (Schmale 2011: 143–144). Judita Šalgo will, just like the painter, underline the victory of the gentler sex over the stronger and thus in a way question the masculinity.

174

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

as harmful and for him, fatal, demonic), and Marija Aleksandrovna’s possible contribution to his death. His masculinity is compromised by the fact that in a way he is at the disposal of the woman and her whim. The letter from Nenad Mitrov is waiting for a reply, it is an invitation, just as l’écriture féminine is open, ready to deliver again (Popović Perišić 1988: 48). However, the juxtaposition of a weak subject – which is, being variously marked, the Other (humpback, Jew, poet, perhaps a sympathizer of communists at the time of Fascism), that is, an antipode of a hegemonistic, white, militarized man (Schmale 2011: 246), a victim of political persecution – and his violent death, the author makes him even weaker in the sexual sense in the first place. His poetry, brimming with a melancholy invocation of the final hour, and the cry for scissors as an instrument of breaking away from selfness (Konstantinović 1965: 183–193; Konstantinović 1975: 324–350) point to the fact that, due to the hard circumstances in life and melancholy, which overwhelmed him due to the exposure to manifold persecution (Stanford Friedman 2005), he is not ready to enter the process of evolution, but would rather lose the gender traits, which is a certain sexual involution, and quit his masculinity. Seduced, fooled, punished, wounded, his attitude towards life is passive, suffering and that is why the process of feminization going on in him is decidedly dramatic and painful, but also inevitable. Closeness to his mother, at whose feet he was buried, conversion of the name on the one hand and extreme subjectivity on the other, add to the impression of lyricism, confessional form, and elegy, as a sort of a characteristic of a female voice, of women’s writing (Dojčinović Nešić 1993: 27–34). However, Mitrov is not a misogynist, but a typical weak subject who asserts himself only through his relationships with others (mother, Marija Aleksandrovna, friends, his townsfolk). Paradoxically, he will be strong in his conscious decision to take his own life, the decision which will shed new light on his life so far, as it has been depicted in a chapter of the novel, but also as it was really like, which goes in the direction of reading this poet as and intellectual nomad, who is, according to Kenneth White: [...] a nihilist (Nietzsche’s “total nihilist”), the man who is looking for the East (for an “East” that actually does not exist), who is looking for a world (but who, like Husserl, continually excludes a thesis about the world), an anarchist (without a bomb or a flag), someone who is accompanied by an inner voice (like Socrates and not like Cagliostro), and a wanderer (as no journey has been completed), he is in the first place a new sort of intellectual, movable and complex, direct and quick, who does not belong to any kind of intelligentsia, who is not attached to any kind of ideology and who has almost no sense of solidarity, except in relation to the world (and even then – as salt mixes with water, phylocosmic feeling can be mixed with a bit of acosmic nihilism) (White 1994: 21).

On the other hand, Mitrov is a protagonist of the avantgarde, and Judita Šalgo is known for her literary portrayals of (neo)avantgarde figures (Rešin Tucić, Despotov, Mandić, Tolnai, Végel), so he is, as such, alienated, depicted in the gap between social, traditional 175

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

values (Poggioli 1975: 133–156) and conventions of love, which he is trying to follow despite the protest against the environment that rejects him. Such tormented nature as Mitrov’s (we bear in mind its documentary-biographical basis, but also the literary work of Judita Šalgo) belongs to the unfulfilled male mode encompassed by the process of symbolic feminization.

Count Marsel, from the short story “Kako se grof od Poitersa preodijevao u razne haljine kako bi nepoznat kušao život u različitim staležima i zvanjima” (“How Count Poiters Dressed up in Various Ways in Order to Go Undercover and Taste Different Walks of Life”), comes from Paris to Kanjiža to attend a literary seminar. A passionate reader of Proust and a dandy, he meets Miranda, a woman who awakens conflicting feelings in him.

Crossdressed, on the symbolic level he could represent a transvestite who changes form, who, by his crossdressing, is trying to change his own life, his essence. Dandy, according to P. Schwenger, “breaks away from everything that is not of his sort. He despises even the society which is his environment and which he manipulates perfectly skillfully” (Schwenger 2005: 48–49). This continual wavering in terms of identity, and the indecisiveness in terms of a corresponding form, but also a transgression of sorts on the part of the count, are manifested in the composition of the short story itself, which is also continually changing from the first person, more precisely, its epistolary form, into the third person, from fiction into its frame, from an attempt to start a story into its obstruction, and thus preserves a parodical-transvestite model of the literature of transgression (Herman Sekulić 1991). On the other hand, the word transgression does not mean the negation of prohibition, but its overcoming and completion (Bataille 2009: 53–58).

The nature of the relationship between the author of the title – Miroslav Mandić, his “heroine” Irena Vrkljan and, through her, her heroine, the writer Marina Tsvetaeva is also sexually charged. The multiplication of voices and of the identities of the subject of the short story could resemble the count’s dressing-up, but while in Marsel there is only an implicit, latent, converted feminization, at the same time the search for a female identity in Miroslav Mandić is pronounced. As the title contains a hint of transgression, which results on the grammatical level (by adopting the feminine grammatical gender), Judita Šalgo has felt and described his dual, fluctuating position, the limit where a man realizes his initiation and writing phase by becoming a woman in a symbolical-grammatical way.

On the level of composition, l’écriture féminine and challenging the gender positions with an inconstant narrative subject, who is ready for a demanding and unpredictable game of mistaken identity, will be touched upon by Judita Šalgo without much dwelling upon. The play of genders in this short story is but a play of pronouns, and a deeper sense is given by the possibility for Šalgo, as a lady writer4 to identify on an artistic level in the first place with a man writer, and for the common denominator of identification to be but the second word.

4 All the clumsiness of this term, but also the absence of a word in Serbian which would denote a woman who writes, was best described by Tatjana Rosić in the preface of the book Political Theories of Gender, Institut za književnost i umetnost, Belgrade, 2009.

176

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

The narrator of the story is fascinated by Mandić’s idea that “irreversible natural processes are replaced by unnatural ones, and that growing old, suffering and death transfer into the domain of art, declare it to be art.” In this idea, she connects the complex roles the woman has in modern society (biological, artistic, socially-useful), and then, using Mandić’s identity change, evokes the voices of Irena Vrkljan or Marina Tsvetaeva.

Dubravka Đurić notices a hierarchy of relationships between literary works, which she presents as a pattern: “Life and work of M. Tsvetaeva + life and work of I. Vrkljan + life and work of M. Mandić + life and work of J. Šalgo +…” (Đurić 1997: 119).

It was only in the winter of 1982, when he wrote: I am Gudrun Ensslin, Ljubica Sokić, Gertrude Stein, Christiane Ensslin, Tatiana Goricheva, Meredith Monk, Ulrike Meinhof, Tatyana Mamovna, Margarethe von Trotta, Anica Savić-Rebac, Rosa Luxemburg, Natalia Malachovska, Susan Sontag, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Isidora Sekulić, Lou Andreas Salomé, Naomi and Ruth, Mother Teresa, Billie Holiday, Patty Smith, Aleksandra, Ljubica Marić, Larisa Shepitko, Dubravka Ugrešić, Ksenija Atanasijević, Ljubica Kosovac, Nadežda Petrović, Jeanne Moreau, Nada Kolundžija, that Miroslav Mandić must have realized who he really was (Šalgo 1959: 51).

Identifying himself as the voice of more than one gender, Mandić will, deliberately or not, anticipate the issues of the Other, a category of femininity, which, in Barteaud’s and Baudrillard’s opinion, is becoming fashionable,5 but he will also push the arbitrary character of language as a system of signs to the limits, dissolving into being unrecognizable, with all the plurality of the being. In the cited book, and also in other texts, Mandić will transgress his gender identity, and also challenge his national identity, persistently declining to be anybody: Are you a Serb, mate?

No. Are you a Croat then?

No. A Hungarian?

No. What the fuck are you then?

I told him that I wrote and therefore did not care who I was. (Mandić 1987: 15).

5 Jean Baudrillard writes: “We are simultaneously witnesses of the emancipation of the woman and again of the growing influence of fashion. This happens because fashion has nothing to do with the woman, but with femininity. The whole society is being feminized as much as the discrimination against women is being abolished (it is the same case with lunatics, children, etc.); that is a normal consequence of the logic of being outcast): the notion ’to come’ (prendre son pied), used to denote experiencing a female orgasm, today enters the general use and is beginning to be used in any context. However, it should also be noted that a woman can be emancipated and liberated only as the power of pleasure. And also the power of fashion, just as a worker is free only as workforce” (Baudrillard 1991b: 111–112).

177

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

On the other hand, multiplication of female subjects, the images which Mandić identifies with, will be realized through language games, in which it is possible to establish alogical constructions with strict adherence to grammatical and lexical categories, or with their violation, which never reaches such radical proportions as in the poetry of Vojislav Despotov and Vujica Rešin Tucić (Negrišorac 1996). In Mandić the meaning is varied more on the semantic and less on the structural level.

His hypergrammar remains formally restrained, but that is exactly why the inconstant perspective of the narrator, that is, the subject, is accentuated. This brings about a change in the receptive code: how should one read the statements of an unreliable witness, that is, the narrator who declines to take a definitive stance? However, without delving into the models of perpendicular speech model, Mandić remains infantile, but not schizoid, perverted, but not sexually deviant, declarative, but not multidimensional, disoriented and confused, but not paranoid: he approaches his own complexity with a childlike joy, he opens up to everybody, as opposed to the mystification of the metaphysical poets; his art and multimodality resemble potpourri, travesty and exhibitionism, and less gloominess and obscurity.

Latent homosexuality Haim Azriel stands halfway between the two poles. He propagates and affirms Otto Weininger’s ideas in a radical fashion. On the other hand, like no other character in the novel, he has the privilege of interpreting Weininger’s work because “as a man who is fascinated and attracted by the nature of masculinity himself, a homosexual is completely enabled to gain insight into masculine nature” (Schwenger 2005: 49).

We could almost say – an insider. And not just that – he is a spokesman of the crisis of masculinity which gave birth to the Weiningerian antifeminism, as well as antiSemitism (Schmale 2011: 246).

“Europe has a need to be purged of women”, says Haim and takes a cigarette case from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Women feel that themselves. There is an act of self-cleansing. Sick, infected women are instinctively taken away just as in primitive peoples women are removed from the community when they menstruate. Women clean their houses and together with the dirt and disease, they remove themselves. This is a new method. An absolute one. Method of an ideal housewife. Just as the bee, stinging the intruder, is transformed into the sting and ends its life in it, the absolute housewife similarly, cleaning her home, cleans herself away in the end” (Šalgo 1997: 90).

Malice and cynicism detected in her tone, as well as passion and fervour with which Haim represents the view of the woman question, his antifeminism, will result somewhat later in an open advertising of the ideas of Otto Weininger, a genius of

178

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

antifeminism.6 He, whatsmore, openly cites him, without hiding his being impressed with him: “Every conversation about a woman”, says Haim Asriel in French, aware that besides the guest, Flora also understands the language, “needs to start with a feeling of indebtedness, a bow to the memory of a man, a tragic genius, whose work, unconventional, uncompromising and dark in an irresistible way, stirred up things in Vienna and some other European cities, and who killed himself at the age of forty-one (which I will be in a few days), because he could see no way of dealing with the woman inside him, nor with women outside him, on top of that, a converted Jew did not know what to do with the Jew in himself and with the Jews in general, not seeing a solution, the outcome of the Jewish question” (Šalgo 1997: 98).

However, Haim Asriel will not develop his already expressed passion for Weininger in the direction of imitation. Although he defies Flora with the words he utters, he does not go beyond provocation; thus, a bit later we learn that in a completely conventional way, in the salon, as it is becoming, he has proposed to Flora. Remaining to the very end a converted, disguised person almost like a transvestite, a woman trapped in a man’s body, which can be inferred from his dialogues, and also from the author’s comments which support such ideas, Haim, however, is not a character who can, like Flora, break away from the social order he belongs to, from the morals he grew up with, from the way of life which is natural to him and which determines him in terms of gender. Although in the beginning he is far more revolutionary and audacious in his ideas than Flora, he will later retreat into the conventional course of life, while she sets out into feminism and hysteria: Overcoming obstacles has worn him out and he, not understanding what had happened, suddenly retreated, got scared, changed, he frowned and bridled and at the worst possible moment revealed his immature, cold and cynical heart (Šalgo 1997: 138–139).

Haim is, therefore, a self-conscious parody of Weininger. He does not cite, but, with his own basically snobbish appearance, imitates the work of the person whose replica he would like to become. However, in his libido brimming with homoerotic potential, at one moment, probably because of homosexual panic, which, according to his interpretation, Weininger also felt, there is a change into a heterosexual guise, that is, a partial or permanent adoption of socially acceptable behavioral pattern, with a possibility that we are talking about a closet queen (Fuss 2003). Thus, Haim returns, or at least gives the impression that he does, to the course from which, it seemed, he was about to be derailed.

6 “I have a burning desire to write, thinking of Weininger who despises women and Jews. Milica expects me to continue my political games with Weininger. Like a waltz. Vienna, the angelic Vienna boys’ choir /?/ lascivious pleasures? Tall, dark-eyed – a saint? Women love saints. Rimbaud, tragic boys who reject love, his tormentors” (Šalgo 2007: 45).

179

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

(De)sexualization of the lyrical subject In the poem “Naglavačke” (“Headlong”) from the book Život na stolu (Life on the Table), in “Između redova” (“Between the Lines”) and “Povratni glagoli” (“The Reflexive Verbs”), the deconstruction of subject points to the original essence of being, the germ, the embryonic development. The lyrical subject of Slobodan Tišma says in a poem in the collection Marinizmi (The Marinisms 1995): I swim, but have no limbs / No hands, no feet of emerald / No hands, no feet of emerald / I am a big, cracked egg / Of an unknown bird / God’s blind, marble eye / Which floats on the black waves (Tišma 1995: 22).

While Tišma’s “powetry” is characterised by an inclination towards a weak self (Kopicl 1999: 506–518), in constant reversals and interruptions (Šuvaković 1996: 67) and an embryonic, desexualized anxiety (Beleslijin 2010: 123–129), in the works of the poet Vladimir Kopicl linguistic textualism gives way to a material manifestation of cyborgs as the only artificial deity, and consequently also the subject which imitates it (Beleslijin 2009: 55–61). In Katalin Ladik’s works, performative and literary practice has turned towards the outer manifestation of sexuality (Šuvaković 2010). Responding to the avantgarde imperative of being forever new (Poggioli 1998: 105–108) the poetry of Judita Šalgo in this collection in a way “betrayed” the timism and temporal art from the book 67 minuta, naglas (67 Minutes, Aloud) not mentioning it once, but she remained in the sphere of linguistic poetry, testing the limits of language and the Lacanian, as well as the identity of being through language. That is why it was rightly called new textualism (Šuvaković 2002).

Thank God, I’m spared from life, / On the desk – stamps, a label, / A sticker with my picture, oh, Judita, / Our heads are in the satchel .// (Šalgo 1986: 7).

Lyrical subject is all over the monuments with great force and he repeats the commonplaces as sources of stereotypes, social adequacy and conformism, but implicitly, while the poem deals with linguistic-poetic questions more openly, illustrating them with its form. The poem itself is in the shape of indeterminate form. In the process of exploring the limits of language and literature each game is designated as a misapprehension in advance, although only the multiplicity of meanings and unclear artistic perception can actually lead to any understanding. Thus, in the hierarchy of the codes and different discourses, literature takes precedence thanks to the process of using polysemy, as well as some new ways to overcome the trite linguistic processes by the sexualization of metaphors and ekphrasis as a method of dualizing the view. Neo-avantgarde artistic language practice, demonstrated by Vojislav Despotov and Vujica Rešin Tucić, is embodied in the poetry of Judita Šalgo, where, by using various language and meaning games, seemingly humorously and lightly, sometimes lasciviously, through pointing to synonymous or homonymous linguistic situations, simplistically understood sexuality actually disappears and the prerequisites for its transformations are fulfilled, and they move in the direction of

180

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

falling short of the original matrix. “Be yourself / Be an other self / That is the dilemma of this language / That is afraid of its own sound” (Šalgo 1987: 13). Thus an unbridgeable gap instantly opens up between your and the other self, which you communicate with, and this introduces the Other as a category, not necessarily opposing the subject, but as a category which suffers, which is even the object of violence.

“Melody” is vocal and visual poetry, which upholds the principle of symmetry and a form of communicating vessels, which it tells us about. Two voices, two subjects, the otherness which the subject addresses, and which is placed on the same level with its self, pointing to the inexorable similarities through symmetrical presentation of the two halves of the text, placed on the same level, in the same line, so that I and you voice meet in the end in the final line: “sex multiplex”. Thus, the voices first diverge (two lonely voices), and then come together, join into one, universal neuter gender, which could point to the degree of overcoming the subjective sexual discontinuity by connecting, or rather uniting with the other being, they satisfy the yearning for reaching the absolute, for an alternative of reconciling the differences and stereotypical limiting constructs. As George Bataille writes: Poetry leads to the same point as other forms of eroticism do, to unity, to an interplay of separate subjects. It leads us to death and, through death, to continuity.

Poetry is eternity (Bataille 2009: 23).

CONCLUSION Biography and bibliography of neo-avantgarde writers are often bound by interpolating citations from life. However, nowhere are literature and life so fundamentaly connected, so simbiotically affiliated, nowhere are there so many references to biographical reality as in the texts of Judita Šalgo and Miroslav Mandić. As Vasa Pavković notices, “this transfer into the identical identity of text and life, literature and biography, was of the greatest interest to Judita Šalgo” (Pavković 2006: 134). The palimpsestic short story “Irena ili o Marini ili o biografiji” (“About Irena, or Marina, or about a Biography”), composed of clippings from life and projects, unless, in the case of Miroslav Mandić, it was not about synonyms, points, again, indirectly, through a series of artistic practices – of conceptualism, concretism, minimalistic art, etc. – to the question of identity and Otherness. Anyway, the neo-avantgarde, as Miklós Szabolcsi sees it, operates between two poles: the sign type and the cry type, while artists who have a propensity for performativity, to which, besides Judita Šalgo and Miroslav Mandić, also belong Marina Abramović, Slobodan Tišma, Katalin Ladik, members of the groups Kȏd, Ǝ, and Ǝ -Kȏd, and more recently Maja Solar and many others, open up explicating their poetical stances, escaping the limitations of the language and conquering new artistic areas and media (Kopicl, Raković 1972; Radovanović 1989; Poniž 1984; Šuvaković 2007 et al.); on the other hand, writers who make their neoavantgarde tendencies solely part of literary trends, or their excursion into other artistic spheres is restricted to visual works, while the word remains the basic conveyor of the 181

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

message, like M. Todorović, V. Despotov, V. R. Tucić, develop the semantics of the poetic discourse, combining, among other things, a certain mysticism as a category of expression.

Equally decentered as the neo-avantgarde writers of the cry type, they do not expose their bodies, they do not open up outwardly, hysterically, centrifugally, but implode, and lean towards an imagined core, towards their axis, centripetally. In Mandić’s work the need for acquiring large expanses of land is more prominent than in some other artists: while Judita Šalgo changes positions (sits, lies, stands), and while the members of the Kȏd group tend to be in different places simultaneously, Mandić hikes, wanders, travels and thus has control over the earthly time.

Feeling the duality of her identity, belonging to a minority ethnic and religious community, persecuted at a moment in history as an object of irrational hatred and genocide (Goldberg, Reiner 2003: 175 – 200; Palavestra 1998: 161–213), Judita Šalgo, often displacing her own stronghold, no matter whether she is writing a poem, a short story or a novel, skillfully uses dualism and ambivalence. Her tense, vehement quest for identity, for, as it will turn out, only fragmentary ethnogenealogy (the Rot family, Bertha Pappaneheim, Nenad Mitrov and other representatives of the Jewish national community) will be characterised by simultaneous depiction and interpretation, description and metanarrative of reality, which it has built and which is, being essentially autoreferential, inclined to fragility and implosion as the final outcomes, cynically-final solutions. Frequently disasterous, catastrophic (frequently featuring a collective exodus) endings of her texts, clouds of smoke, fires and deep scepticism and pessimism, sensational news and newspaper clippings as a basis for further artistic processing, as well as various documentary materials, used for the purpose of naturalization of technique and creating an illusion of the real, will destabilize the discourse, that is, will reflect on his dispersivity – therefore the incompletion, open ending, second person, a co-author who participates in the creation of the story, and whose authority is at the same time both doubted and strongly believed in. Destabilization of the gender matrices will also become, as we shall see, one of the main thematic outcomes of both modern art and poetical-prose technique of Judita Šalgo. Her fluctuating sexual, sexualized and desexualized identities, as well as certain national conversions of her characters (pseudonyms, hidden identity, etc.) will be indicators of the decomposition of the patterns of the genre, but also the echoes of deep scepticism in relation to “gender trouble”, as a socially constructed category. The possibility of citing sexual identities (Otto Weininger, Nenad Mitrov, Marija Aleksandrovna, Larisa Reisner, Bertha Pappaneheim and other historic personalities), which the author is going to subject to a meticulous analysis, will be secured by the hybrid constructions which, since they arise from the author’s essential ambivalence, being either explicit (67 minuta, naglas – 67 Minutes, Aloud, Da li postoji život? – Is There Life?, Trag kočenja – Skid Marks) or implicit (Život na stolu – Life on the Table, Put u Birobidžan – Road to Birobidzan, etc.), embodied in parody, travesty, the heroes’ changing clothes (dressing up) and other ways of eschewing a uniform, linear organisation of discourse, cannot be interpreted as original, independent, or sexually unambiguous.

182

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary sources: Šalgo, Judita: 1986. Život na stolu. Belgrade: Nolit.

1987. Trag kočenja. Novi Sad: Književna zajednica Novog Sada.

1995. Da li postoji život?. Belgrade: Vreme knjige.

1997. Put u Birobidžan. Belgrade: Stubovi kulture.

2000. Jednokratni eseji, Belgrade: Stubovi kulture.

2004. Kraj puta: završetak romana Put u Birobidžan, Belgrade: Narodna knjiga.

2007. Hronika. Novi Sad: Studentski kulturni centar.

2012. Radni dnevnik 1967–1996. Novi Sad: Dnevnik – Akademska knjiga.

Secondary souces: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Beleslijin, Dragana. 2011. “Žena koja nestaje: vidovi ispoljavanja ženske seksualnosti u prozi Judite Šalgo”, Interkulturalnost, časopis za podsticanje i afirmaciju interkulturalne komunikacije, 1, pp. 94– 124. Đurić, Dubravka. 1996. “Istraživanje kodova književnosti (Judita Šalgo, Da li postoji život?)”, Naša borba, 29. VIII. ----. 1997. “Judita Šalgo: granica diskursa književnosti”, ProFemina, 9/10, pp. 115–120.

----. 2000. “Mnogostruki identiteti u poeziji pesnikinja: J. Šalgo, Lj. Đurđić, R. Lazić”, ProFemina, 21/22, pp. 225–235.

Gordić, Vladislava. 1998. “Judita Šalgo: priče o t(e)lu”, Reč, V, 18, pp. 114–120.

Gordić Petković, Vladislava. 2008. “Rod, identitet i ženski kontinent; sazrevanje i transformacija u prozi Sare Voters i Judite Šalgo”. In: Na ženskom kontinentu. Novi Sad: Dnevnik.

Pavković, Vasa. 2006. “Beleške o prozi Judite Šalgo”, in: Pogled kroz prozu, Novi Sad: Dnevnik, pp.

133–142.

Tertiary sources: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Ahmetagić, Jasmina. 2011. Priče o Narcisu Zlostavljaču – zlostavljanje i književnost.

Belgrade: Službeni glasnik.

Bataille, Georges. 2011. Erotizam. Belgrade: Službeni glasnik, translated by Ivan Čolović.

Butler, Judith. 2010. Nevolja s rodom, Loznica: Karpos, translated by Adrijana Zaharijević.

Beleslijin, Dragana. 2009. “Slika tela u poeziji Vladimira Kopicla”, Polja, 458, July–August pp. 55–61.

----. 2010. “Muško, žensko, embrion, knjiga – quattro corpi in cerca d’autore”, Polja, July–August, pp. 123–126.

Biti, Vladimir. 1997. Pojmovnik suvremene književne teorije, Zagreb: Matica hrvatska.

Baudrillard, Jean. 1991. Simbolička razmena i smrt. Gornji Milanovac: Dečje novine, translated by Miodrag Marković.

183

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 2001. Vladavina muškaraca. Podgorica: Univerzitet CG – CID, prevela Mileva Filipović.

Damjanov, Sava. 2002. Novo čitanje tradicije. Novi Sad: Dnevnik.

Despotov, Vojislav. 1996. Veseli pakao poezije. Novi Sad: Kulturni centar Novog Sada.

Dojčinović Nešić, Biljana. 1993. Ginokritika. Belgrade: Književno društvo „Sveti Sava”.

Fas, Dajana. 2003. Unutra – izvan. Gej i lezbejska hrestomatija. Belgrade: Centar za ženske studije.

Goldberg, David J., Rayner, John D. 2003. Jevreji. Istorija i religija. Belgrade: Klio, preveo Đorđe Trajković.

Gordić Petković, Vladislava. 2010. Mistika i mehanika. Belgrade: Stubovi kulture.

Herman Sekulić, Maja. 1991. Književnost prestupa – parodija u romanu Belog, Džojsa i Mana, Novi Sad: Matica srpska.

Konstantinović, Radomir. 1965. “Nenad Mitrov: Pobuna protiv demijurga”, in: Pesnici II, Novi Sad: Matica srpska – Belgrade: Srpska književna zadruga, pp. 183–193.

----. 1975. “Makaze Nenad Mitrov”, Treći program Radio Belgrade, autumn, 324–350.

Kopicl, Vladimir, Raković, Ana. 1972. Telo umetnika kao subjekt i objekt umetnosti.

Novi Sad: Tribina mladih.

----. 1999. “Fragment i nedovršeno kao književna strategija: Slobodan Tišma, volja za slabo ja”, LMS, 464, 4, pp. 506–518.

----. 2002. Pesme smrti i razonode, izabrane i nove pesme. Novi Sad: Orfeus.

Lenser, Susan. 2005. “Ka feminističkoj naratologiji”, Genero, časopis za feminističku teoriju, 6–7, pp. 81–103, translated by Biljana Dojčinović Nešić.

Mandić, Miroslav. 1987. Ja sam ti je on. Novi Sad: Matica srpska.

----. 1987. Ne, ne verujem da se ova rečenica ne čuje. Novi Sad: Književna zajednica Novog Sada.

Mirković, Zoran: 1999. Eros – bol, Žena – Bog. Belgrade: Rad. Mitrov, Nenad. 1927. Dve duše. Novi Sad: Slavija.

Negrišorac, Ivan. 1996. Legitimacija za beskućnike. Srpska neoavangardna poezija: poetički identiteti i razlike. Novi Sad: Kulturni centar Novog Sada.

Oraić Tolić, Dubravka. 2005. Muška moderna i ženska postmoderna. Rođenje virtualne kulture. Zagreb: Naklada Ljevak.

Palavestra, Predrag. 1998. Jevrejski pisci u srpskoj književnosti. Belgrade: Institut za književnost i jezik.

Poggioli, Renato. 1975. Teorija avangardne umetnosti. Belgrade: Nolit, translated by Jasna Janićijević.

Poniž, Denis. 1984. Konkretna poezija. Ljubljana: Znanstvenoraziskovalni center Slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti – Inštitut za slovensko literaturo in literarne vede.

Popović Perišić, Nada. 1988. Literatura kao zavođenje. Belgrade: Prosveta.

Radovanović, Vladan. 1987. Vokovizuel. Belgrade: Nolit.

Rešin Tucić, Vujica. 2001. Igrač u svim pravcima, izabrane i nove pesme. Novi Sad: Orfeus.

184

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

34. Szabolcsí, Miklos. 1997. Avangarda & neoavangarda. Belgrade: Narodna knjiga, 35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

translated by Marija Cindori Šinković.

Solar, Maja. 2008. Makulalalatura. Kragujevac: Studentski kulturni centar.

Stanford Friedman, Suzan. 2005. “Preko roda: nova geografija identiteta i budućnost feminističke kritike”, Genero, časopis za feminističku teoriju, 6–7, pp. 103–123, translated by Dubravka Đurić.

Stevanović, Kristina. 2011. Osvajanje modernog. Novi Sad: Akademska knjiga.

----. 2012. “Tipovi maskuliniteta u prozi Dragiše Vasića, Stanislava Krakova”, in: Susret kultura, zbornik radova Filozofskog fakulteta (in preparation).

Schmale, Wolfgang. 2011. Istorija muškosti u Evropi 1450–2000. Belgrade: Klio, translated by Vladimir Babić.

Stanzel, Franz. 1987. Tipične forme romana. Novi Sad: Književna zajednica Novog Sada, translated by Drinka Gojković. Šuvaković, Miško et al. 2002. Centralnoevropski aspekti vojvođanskih avangardi, 1920–2000. Granični fenomeni – fenomeni granica. Novi Sad: Muzej savremene likovne umetnosti. Šuvaković, Miško 2006. Studije slučaja. Pančevo: Mali Nemo.

----. 2007. Konceptualna umetnost. Novi Sad: Muzej savremene likovne umetnosti.

----. 2010. Moć žene: Katalin Ladik. Retrospektiva 1962–2010. Novi Sad: Muzej savremene umetnosti Vojvodine.

Schwenger, Peter. 2005. “Muški modus”, Genero, časopis za feminističku teoriju, 6–7, str. 41–51. translated by Ika Đurđević.

Tišma, Slobodan. 1995. Marinizmi. Belgrade: Ruža lutanja.

----. 2009. Quattro stagioni. Belgrade: Laguna.

----. 2011. Bernardijeva soba. Novi Sad: Kulturni centar Novog Sada.

Weininger, Otto. 2007. Pol i karakter. Belgrade: Feniks Libris, translated by Irma Šosberger.

White, Kenneth. 1994. Nomadski Duh. Belgrade: Centar za geopoetiku, translated by Jelica Mihaldžić, Bojana Miković.

Végel, Lásló. 1969. Memoari jednog makroa. Novi Sad: Matica srpska, translated by Aleksandar Tišma.

dragana.beleslijin@yahoo.com

185

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 73.071.1 Brâncuşi C.

Jasna Jovanov

The Pavle Beljanski Memorial Collection, Novi Sad Academy of Classical Painting, EDUCONS University, Sremska Kamenica, Serbia

Constantin Brancusi: Flight of the Divine Machinist

SUMMARY: Constantin Brancusi was one of the greatest 20th century sculptors in Romania and the whole world. After having received his academic education in arts in Romania he went to Vienna, Munich and Basel, finally arriving to Paris in 1904, where he spent the rest of his life. Taking part in the Paris art scene, he became friends with artists who also came from other countries. In addition to entering exhibitions in France, his works were exhibited in Romania, Munich and Venice, as well as New York and Chicago. In the USA, where numerous collectors wanted his sculptures, he held four solo exhibitions between 1914 and 1926. Formed in the spirit of the School of Paris, as well as on the contrasts between the Romanian national art and sculptural cultures from the ancient period and exotic lands and highly sophisticated modern art, he defined his ultimate goal as reaching the essence of the shape. He created sculptures of stylized and associative shapes mostly in stone, wood and polished bronze, dedicating the same attention to the pedestals, which he considered integral parts of the whole. Transforming his studio into a unique exhibition space, he made special arrangements of his sculptures, which he then photographed, often changing the lighting and thus adding those new values. He left his artistic legacy to the people of France. The goal of the text is to present the process of the artistic development, themes and ideas in the creative work of Constantin Brancusi through various moments in his life: his connection to Romania, his life in Paris, the short phase of India-related creative work, his exhibitions in New York and other American cities, as well as the motifs of his sculptures.

KEY WORDS: Constantin Brancusi, sculpture, modernism, School of Paris.

Romanian-born, the sculptor Constantin Brancusi (Constantin Brâncuşi, February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) produced most of his work in France, which earned him a place among the most important artists of the Paris art school. Very early he took part in

186

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

the avant-garde movement that had outgrown Europe, thus influencing the creative work of the American sculptors from the beginning of the 20th century with a part of his accomplishment. Brancusi, who grew up in a rural and archaic mountain region, developed as an artist in an unusual blend of a traditional wood carver and highly sophisticated modern artist (Lucie-Smith 2009: 95). He was born in 1876 at Hobitza near the town of Targu Jiu in Oltenia. Coming from a poor peasant family, a shepard in the Carpathian mountains showed interest in wood carving as early as 1883. The early experience made him always prefer stonecutting and carving to modelling in clay in his future work.

CRAIOVA, BuCHaREST, AND SO ON In 1884, attracted by the city lights, he tried to earn a living as an apprentice to a dyer, then went into the service of a grocer and finally became a servant in an inn. It was there that he demonstrated his skill for the first time when he made a violin from a piece of wood as a bet. That is how he met his first benefactor and began his education in art at the School of Arts and Crafts in Craiova (Partsch 2002: 247–249), where he learned to sculpt and carve wood and where his talent quickly came to prominence. In August 1895, he enrolled on a special course of woodsculpting which he completed in 1897, when he created the bust of Gheorghe Chitu, the founder of the School (http://socyberty.com/ history/constantin-brancusi-the-montparnasse-saint). In September 1898, he enrolled at the National School of Fine Arts in Bucharest, which he attended until 1902. Early sculptures by Constantin Brancusi originate from the period of his education in Craiova and Bucharest. Artistic heritage and contemporary art that Constantin Brancusi could become familiar with in Bucharest justified the selection of his final vocation – he was to become a sculptor. As a student of Ion Georgescu and Vladimir Hegel, whose work was based on academic background, and yet open to the first hints of impressionism and under Rodin’s influence, in his sculptures he depicted exactly what he was expected to: that he mastered the skill and that they were true to the original. A study of character in addition to several copies are a testimony of the previous (Vitellius, Head of Laocoon). He obtained the first financial support owing to the fact that, meeting the requirements of both the environment and time, he had learned to sculpt in the spirit of the academic art. Immediately after finishing school, he created his first impressive sculptures, the bust of Ion Georgescu-Gorjan (1902) and General Dr Carol Davila (1903). Following certain changes, the copy of the bust of General Davila was installed in front of the Military Hospital in Bucharest (http://socyberty.com/history/constantin-brancusi-the-montparnasse-saint/).

It was the author himself who destroyed most of his early works, as he continued to do so later, which makes the discussion on them difficult. “Every day I would sculpt another figure only to destroy it in the evening” – with a view of exploring his own aptitude and trying out different materials (Brezianu, Geist 1965: 20). However, it could be said that based on the preserved works, it is difficult to envisage the radicality of Brancusi’s future works as well as his devotion to the elements of archaic and folk tradition. Yet another of 187

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

the few Brancusi’s earliest surviving works, under the guidance of his anatomy teacher, Dimitrie Gerota, is a masterfully rendered écorché – a statue of a man with skin removed to reveal muscles and blood vessels underneath. This anatomical model was exhibited at the Romanian Athenaeum in 1903. Though just an anatomical study, the sculpture foreshadowed the efforts of a young artist to reveal the essence rather than merely stick to the outward appearance (Brezianu, Geist 1965: 17). The next stop on his way was Munich, being the logical goal of most young artists from the region. On the way to Munich he passed through Vienna, which he had already visited briefly in 1902, as well as Basel, but none of the cities invoked a desire in the young artist, craving for new experiences, to stay in. It was in this period that Brancusi’s personality, as well as his future works, acquired the tone of the archetypal: left with no money he continued from Munich on foot, just like the ancient traveling artists had done – with a rucksack on his back and a walking stick in his hand, resembling an eternal wanderer, as Gustav Courbet depicted himself in the painting Good Day, Mr. Courbet. Taking him as one of them, peasants helped him along the way (Lucie-Smith 2009: 95).

PARIS After his arrival to Paris in 1904, Constantin Brancusi remained its resident until the end of his days. In order to provide means for continuing his education at The Ecolé des Beaux-Arts, he did odd jobs including singing in a choir and serving at the Romanian Orthodox Church. In the workshop of Antonin Mercié, he was able to expand his knowledge of creating monumental sculptural ensembles with heroic themes and depicting allegorical and mythological figures. Determined to succeed, he hanged the following inscriptions on the walls of his first studio: “Don’t forget you are an artist!”, “Never give up!”, “Don’t be afraid, you will succeed!”, “Create as God, order as a King, work as a slave!”

(Lucie-Smith 2009: 95). As recommended by professor Mercié, in 1906 he applied for the Salon d’Automne (Autumn Salon) with three sculptures. His first exhibition since he had left Romania came to the attention of Auguste Rodin, who was in the jury. As a regular exhibitor he also entered the 1907 and 1909 Salons. Shortly after, he accepted Rodin’s invitation to accompany him to Meudon as an assistant. “Every day, I would create a sculpture in Rodin’s spirit. I could no longer bear being close to him, although he liked me.

Everything I did resembled his works. Unconsciously, I copied him but realized that I was producing copies. I was unhappy. Those were the most difficult years – the years of seeking to find my own path” (Brezianu, Geist 1965: 22). Finally, our cooperation ended with a proverb: “Nothing can grow under big trees”. The journey was also important because he met Edward Steichen, an American photographer and painter originating from Luxembourg. The first commissions followed: mostly gravestone memorials. Among them was The Kiss, installed in 1910 at Montparnasse, on the grave of a young Russian girl, unhappily in love, who committed suicide – which reflected the author’s future interests (Partsch 2002: 247). In addition, the Art Museum in Bucharest bought his first work.

188

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Brancusi found a studio in Montparnasse street and made friends with artists such as: Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, Fernand Leger, Henri le douanier (the customs officer) Rousseau. After the exhibition at the National Salon of Fine Arts in 1908, the critic Charles Maurice singled him out from other members of his generation. In the same year he entered the Salon des Indépendants as a regular exhibitor and in 1912 he exhibited at the Salon in Bucharest too. The acquaintance with Pogány Margit, a young Hungarian painter would result in a series of sculptures she modeled for and her portrait, generally seen as one of the most renowned portraits by Brancusi. The circle of his friends included Guillaume Apollinaire, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.

Still living in Monparnasse street, he moved studios to No 47.

EUROPE, AMERICA The year of 1913 was significant as a turning point: The First Step was created as the first figure in wood inspired by the African sculpture (Hohl 2002: 961). Brancusi exhibited at the International Exhibition in Kunsthalle in Munich as a Romanian representative. At the Paris Salon des Indépendants, he displayed the first in the series called La Maïastra. Besides, he entered the London Exhibition of Rejects where he met Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, the sculptor who would inspire the director Ken Russel to film Savage Messiah in 1972. The early deceased sculptor advised Brancusi towards further stylization and purification of shapes. Finally, with five of his sculptures he entered the International Exhibition of Modern Artists in New York known as Armory Show (http://www. artchive.com/artchive/B/brancusi) that gathered 300 European and American authors, who exhibited 1500 paintings, sculptures and pieces of applied art. The exhibition, most commonly referred to in the context of the painting by Marcel Duchamp called The Descending Nude, helped Brancusi to reinforce his reputation in America and attract benefactors, who contributed to the improvement of his financial status and making new acquaintances. In the year to follow, i.e. in 1914, Constantin Brancusi and Edward Steichen exhibited in the Photo-Secession Gallery owned by Alfred Stieglitz (Gallery 291), where the sculptor met John Quinn who was a passionate art collector and his to be. Quinn and Walter Arensberg bought a few sculptures at his second solo exhibition held in the Modern Gallery in New York in 1916 and during the period spent in America Brancusi attracted a couple of other benefactors. A series of other exhibitions in America was to follow: with twenty-one sculptures he entered the Exhibition of Contemporary French Art in the Gallery of Sculptures in New York; for the third time he held a solo exhibition in ”Wildenstein” Gallery in New York (1922). It was then that the idea of installing the Endless Column in Central Park in New York occurred to him. Brancusi installed its smaller version carved in poplar wood in the garden of Edward Steinhen’s estate in Voulangais near Paris in 1926. At the end of September 1922, he held yet another exhibition in New York but this time in Joseph Brummer’s gallery. As regards the exhibition, there was a confilict between Brancusi and American customs officers that did not accept 189

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Brancusi’s metal sculptures as works of art and placed a high duty upon their import as industrial items. After the complaint, the author won the case in 1928 and his works in Brummer’s Gallery invited additional publicity. The following year, the same exhibition was displayed in the Chicago Art Club. It was in 1933 when Brancusi exhibited at Brummer’s Gallery again. Also, he participated in the exhibitions Cubism and Abstract Art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and The Art from Our Era in the Museum of Modern Art in Chicago (1939), where he displayed the Column made of stainless steel in the shape of a skyscraper (http://www.centrepompidou.fr). It should be mentioned that Brancusi’s conflict with the American customs was not the only dispute of the kind.

In 1927, a year before he won the case in America, three Brancusi’s sculptures had been apprehended by the Romanian Customs only to pass the border in time to enter the exhibition called Salonul Oficial Romin; which earned him the first prize from the jury (Brezianu, Geist 1965: 24).

INDIA The fame that Constantin Brancusi enjoyed in America brought him the commission for building the Temple of Redemption for Maharajah Yeshwantrao Holkar II of Indore in 1931 (Arnason 2008: 154). The temple was to be a room without windows with an opening on the roof. In its interior, which was to be reached through a tunnel, the light would reflect from the surface of water in the pool and the walls were to be decorated with frescoes depicting birds. Three figures Birds in the Sky that Maharajah had bought from Brancusi earlier would be placed inside. The concept of the structure was to represent the very essence of Brancusi’s basic creative principles: idealization of aesthetic forms by integrating architecture, sculptures and interior design as well as evoking the spiritual. The work on the project brought him to India for the first time in 1936. At the time, just like in 1937 when he visited India for the second time in order to commence the construction, Maharajah, who was one of the richest people in the world, did not live in India but in the USA. Meanwhile, since Maharajah had lost interest in the construction, the temple remained only the idea and Brancusi himself finally quit thinking about the project in 1938. The complex was to include a monumental sculpture made of oak representing The King of Kings (1938) intended for its interior, which was the only segment of the temple that took physical form, remaining as a reminder of the entire concept. The sculpture is very specific because the work in wood itself results in a unique example: works in wood or metal depict archetypal forms such as birds flying or sleeping faces, while the personal contribution adds to a particular impression of spiritual unity.

Within the context, The King of Kings may be grasped as Brancusi’s attempt to transform the power of Eastern religion into sculptures. Its original title was The Spirit of Buddha, which enhances its significance taking that Brancusi had learned about buddhism from the texts by Milarepe, a Tibetan philosopher (Rid 1966: 79).

190

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

ROMANIA Inclined toward expressing his beliefs through proverbs, Brancusi claimed that ”Simplicity is not an end in art, but we usually arrive at simplicity as we approach the true sense of things” (http://www.centrepompidou.fr). The sculptor expressed the idea as early as 1906 in The Sleeping Muse, which was exhibited in Bucharest in the same year (Rid 1966: 80). Notwithstanding the fact that France had become his second home by then, Brancusi never broke strong bonds with the tradition of his homeland. Brancusi’s behaviour, the manner of speaking that reflected the archetypal register of the folklore heritage, enhanced the impression. He wore simple clothes, just like mythical forest creatures from the Carpathian hills, especially in his old age. He usually entertained his friends by performing Romanian music and treating them with traditional Romanian dishes that he would cook (Klüver, Martin 1989: 106–107). Finally, his inclination towards stonecutting and woodcarving, frequent exploitation of architectural ornaments and other elements of the Romanian tradition had been present in his sculptures throughout his creative life.

Moreover, Brancusi always showed readiness to represent Romania outside its borders: at the aforementioned exhibition in Munich in 1913; in 1924, the same year when he exhibited his Birds in the Sky at Thierry Salon in Paris, he represented Romania at Biennale in Venice. In the meantime, while travelling to Romania in 1921, the idea occured to him of erecting a monument in memory of the resistence to German invaders in the 1916 World War I (http://www.centrepompidou.fr). In 1918, i.e. a few years before he embarked on the journey, Constantin Brancusi created his first Endless Column, the sculpture that would vary, just like his other motifs, in terms of materials and dimensions. Constantin Brancusi himself referred to the scultpure as the Memory Without End. In the photographic images from his studio and a photograph by Steinhen from 1926 there are several versions of the sculpture, but the principle of repeating the simplified form of The Endless Column, which was finally installed in 1938, got its final and the most monumental form in Targu Jiu (Georgescu-Gorjan 2011). It was set as a part of the complex created between 1936 and 1938, where the column was commissioned by Aretia Tâtârescu, the president of the National League of Gorj Women and wife of then the President of the Parliament and later the Ambassador of Romania in Paris. The column is over 29 metres in height, composed of 15 undivided modules and two halves of a module, its height implying the theoretical possibility of streaching into infinity. Its appearance also encourages constructive thinking but does not observe it essentially: its steel, messing-coated elements, fitted with a metal rail that spreads along its inside, are threaded on the sculpture like pearls on a necklace (Hohl 2002: 994). With the ground replacing the pedestal and a simple abstract form of the repeating modules, The Column draws energy from the ground. Upon its erection, Brancusi installed a monumental triumphal arch in its vicinity, a stone structure that copies a simplified motif of The Kiss being named A Gate of the Kiss accordingly. The Gate is situated between The Column and a massive round table made of stone resembling the giants venue – originally a nameless ensemble but presently known as the Table of Silence.

191

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

The model for the complex was the Triumphal Arch in Paris, from which the triumphal line leads through Champs d’Elysees to the courts of the Thierry Park, with an Egyptian obelisk in between. The idea was much clearer then, at the time of its construction, when the three structures dominated a vast empty space than now, when for their most part they are situated in the center of the park. The motif of a kiss, which was repeated times without number in different sculptures and reliefs, originates from Brancusi’s concept of A Column of the Kiss and Temple of Love. Just as it was the case earlier that the motif had been modified to suit the occassion and the requirements of the style, when it comes to the complex in Targu Jiu, it was composed in the spirit of art of the totalitarian regime associated with the fascist ideology, which was in power in Romania at the time (Hohl 2002: 1020–1021).

Owing to the fact, the complex at Targu Jiu was left to degrade in the second half of the 20th century, to be reconstructed and restored as late as 2004. Thanks to the photographs taken by a chief engineer Ştefan Georgesku-Gorjan during the construction of elements and installation of the column in Targu Jiu, it is not difficult to apprehend the grandeur of Brancusi’s vision and complexity of the enterprise (Georgescu-Gorjan 2011).

MOTIF AND IDEA IN BRANCUSI’S SCULPTURES Constantin Brancusi started his education in art on academic foundations (Arnason 2008: 150). After having arrived to Paris and integrated in the most avant-garde community of artists, his attitude to the essence of artistic interpretation underwent radical changes. Close relations with Modigliani, Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, encounter with Henri Matisse’s sculptures, African traditional plastic, works of art originating from the Far East and Egyptian civilization formed his expression, which had previously been defined under the influence of Auguste Rodin, Adolf von Hildernbrandt, Camille Claudelle and other artists who he met at the beginning of his stay in Paris. Always surrounded by the avant-garde, he became friends with Marcel Duchamp, Tristan Tzara, Man Ray, Isama Noguchi, Erik Satie, Ezra Pound, and cherished his friendship with the community of Romanian artist and intellectuals living in Paris: George Enescu, Theodor Pallady, Eugène Ionesco, Emil Cioran, Paul Celan and others. At Paris salons, Biennale in Venice, the International Exhibition in Munich, Salon in Bucharest, exhibitions of contemporary and avant-garde art and solo exhibitions in the United States, his sculptures, by their mere entry, had a cruical influence on a large number of contemporary sculptors. The author’s specific relation to the material he used – whether taken directly from the nature, such as wood or different kinds of stones, or processed raw materials, especially cast metal which was subsequently polished, galvanized and weathered, only contributed to the fact. Brancusi himself used to say that the process of artistic creation represented a decisive fight with substance, even more so because he did stonecutting himself, refusing to leave it to his assistants like other sculptors did. In addition, around 1920, he began crafting bases for his sculptures with much care and originality because he considered them as important to the sculptures and significant to their artistic presentation. Brancusi’s sculptural work 192

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

consists of several thematic contents with versions in different dimensions and materials and different correlations with space. Most of his themes he chose in the period between 1909 - 1925 (Kiss, Bird, Muse, Endless Column, Roosters, etc.) and continued to exploit their options in the period that followed. In the genuine modernism that he mastered, there was no room for avant-garde thinking, although he was very much familiar with it. ”There are imbeciles who call my work abstract; that which they call abstract is the most realistic, because what is real is not the outer form but the idea, the essence of things” (www.aidanharticons.com/.../Constantin%20Brancusi). In his quest for the essence, the inner reality of things, an endless line, he expressed his observations with sculptures, photographs as well as statements like the aforementioned one.

DIVINE MACHINIST In the special edition of the magazine Camera Work, dedicated to Alfred Stieglitz and his photo gallery called What is 29?, Man Ray did not fail to refer to the artists who exhibited in the famous New York gallery. ”Grey walls of the small gallery are always full.

Whenever I visit it, there is something new. I am never disappointed” For him, Sezaine is a naturalist, Picasso a mystic realist, while Brancusi is a divine machinist (Klein 2009: 42).

Brancusi and Man Ray met a few years later, not long after the renowned American artist moved to Paris, drawn by a progressive artistic climate, in the beginning of 1920s. Although they worked in different media, Brancusi, who cut marble blocks and carved wood logs, and Man Ray, who was preocuppied with new possibilities in photography, were both attracted to abstraction, then being one of the current potentials of the contemporary expression. Although Brancusi showed his interest in photography much earlier, it came into his focus again in 1921, when Man Ray demonstrated different possibilities of photographic images and helped him to make and equip a darkened chamber. Photographs of Brancusi with Polard the dog date from the period, serving as evidence of the beginning of a friendship between the two artists and yet another germ that would develop in Brancusi into a unique artistic concept over the years. Hence, in 1916 Brancusi leased a studio at 8 Impasse Ronsin St.; until 1941 the original studio was enlarged with four new ones. The new, just like his previous studios, was not only a working space but also a home to live in for Brancusi. Fully dedicated to his creative work, from the earliest years the sculptor subjected his creative work as well as life to a unique concept; the fact that he was always surrounded with his sculptures is only one of its segments. Filled with finished and unfinished sculptures, wooden furniture that he made and material for his future sculptures, Brancusi’s studio was a work of art itself – a giant artistic enterprise. The whole studio was set around ”hybrid”, changeable groups of objects that Brancusi had arranged in the form of a giant scenography (Marcoci, Batchen, Bezzola 2010: 96–112). Photographs of the arrangements show that Brancusi did not create ”for his eyes only”. By exploiting the dimension of constant changes to the settings of sculptures and other objects in the studio, Brancusi achieved a continuous transformation of his own works and gave them a new 193

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

life in the photographs, not a changeable one though. His legacy (around 1,500 shots) tells us about a sort of virtual diary that noted every, even the slightest movement inside the opposing objects. That particular manner of selfquoting opens a vast area of possible interpretations of Brancusi’s work, simulataneously pointing to Brancusi’s high-levelled comprehension of contemporary, modern, but also avant-garde ideas that he alienated from in his statements. Although a close friend with many photographers, Brancusi insisted upon the autobigraphical character of the images. By shooting individual sculptures or arrangements, he often violated basic rules of photography: shifted the focus as he pleased or changed the point of observation depending on the effect that wanted to achieve. In addition, by directing beams of reflectors to a specific point of a perfectly polished metal sculpture, the effect he achieved was that its contours faded and the sculpture itself turned into a reflection of light. His presence in certain arrangements contributed to integrity of the photographs as conceptual creations in the same sense as selfquoting is articulated in the frame of postmodern poetics. On the other hand, since he was a sculptor, such use of photography opened an entirely new, exceedingly exact road to reevaluation of modern sculpture as well as sculptural modernism. mUSES AND FACES One of Brancusi’s favourite motifs was a female head, present in his work especially in the period between 1906 – 1912 and frequently depicted as an independent ovoid shape disconnected from the body. The artist found a symbol of the origin of life, the miracle of creation, as well as a typical goal of the quest for the essence of things in the shape of an egg, ideally rounded and dense. A precursor was The Sleeping Muse from 1906, in which, in Rodin’s spirit, polished marble emerges from a roughly processed base (Piper 2005: 394). Yet, the sculpture from 1910 in polished bronze, ultimately exposed with fluid lines, shows the author’s intention to eliminate any personal feeling in respect of the model and depict essential, universal and infinite characteristics of a human face in its basic form.

Originally, The Sleeping Muse was a portrait of the Baroness Frachon, who sat to Brancusi for a classical portrait from 1908/9 that had never been finished. The impression that the sculpture is to generate is concentrated in the oval shape of the head. Despite the exhquisite feeling of smothness of lips, eyes and hair, it was not produced by the artist’s hand but emerges from the material itself. The last portrait of the Baroness Franchon dates from 1912: the egg-shaped face rests upon her hand, which somehow anticipates yet another portrait painted in the same year, namely Madamoiselle Pogany. More than any other female character, the portrait of a young Hungarian art student is recognized as a timeless icon of the 20th century avant-garde modernism. It was presented to the audience for the first time in 1913 at Armory Show in New York. The portrait resembles an egg with two huge nut-shaped forms instead of eyes and a hint of the nose, ears and mouth. In its later version (1919, 1931) those hints disappeared too leaving just the egg-shaped form leaning against hands folded as if in a prayer. It is becoming obvious that alining the portrait 194

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

among the sculptures exhibited at Armory Show was not a coincidence: beside Madamoiselle Pogany in white marble (Arnason 2008: 151) in New York, Brancusi showed The Sleeping Muse, in white marble too, in addition to a version of Danaide – all three faces feature a consistently implemented process of abstracting, reducing the head to an ovoid form and marking elementary details. In case of Brancusi, a detail is not a factor of representation; instead it is promoted with sensitivity of the purified visual language. A slight indication of features in the later portrait of the Baroness Franchon, as well as it is the case with Madamoiselle Pogany, is a part of a unique form starting with hands and extending to the neck and the oval of the head. By neglecting realistic expression, Brancusi deliberately emphasises different parts of a face in order to create the image of essence – the spiritual state of a model. The first version of the portrait, unique in its authenticity of material and an amazing hybrid assimilation of the human and animal, was carved in white marble. A dominant interest in a female face, as well as consistent identification of the head with an egg motif, is interpreted as attachment to a unique thematic circle – conception, birth, life and death. In addition, the insistence on a female principle, without the dualism between male/female that is found in sculptures such as Torso of a Young Man (1924), points to the recreation of the primordial onset of magical/artistic through Brancusi’s devotion to an archetypal model of a mother Godess.

KISS Although his cooperation with Auguste Rodin was very brief, we gather the impression that the rivalry with a great French sculptor was a sort of driving force to Brancusi.

Hence, in the years that followed, he made sculptures such as the early Sleeping Muse, Prayer, Thinker or Kiss, that replicate famous Rodin’s motifs (Arnason 2008: 152). Simultaneously, they show the manner in which Brancusi expressed his poetics in a new, authentic language, whose perception of reality had nothing in common with the observed object. Originally, The Kiss was a gravestone memorial (1907) of an unhappy love – two people blended together in stone forever. Basically, it is a cubic form vertically divided by the separation line between the two bodies, where curved breasts and hair falling in the back differentiate a woman from a man. Other shapes – hands and a semi-circular line of hair ends – blend with the stone while nut-shaped eyes, as shown from the profile, are assimilated into one cyclop-like and scary. This simplification of shapes points to the influence of emerging cubism as well as primitive sculptures by André Derain and Paul Gaugin. In the visual key of primitive totem poles, formally departing from European traditions, Brancusi resorts to Plato’s myth of an androgen – a two-gender creature that the gods had set apart and who ever since had been craving to become one again (Pajin 2007: 60). Brancusi would repeat the motif that Gustav Klimt simulteneously painted on canvas (1907/8) times and again changing the impression with different fractures of stone surface and degree of geometry thus changing its poetic values accordingly: from the archetypal over associative to the very edge of abstraction. The degree of abstraction often depended 195

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

on the purpose of the sculpture. Thus, the motif used in the ensemble A Gate of the Kiss in Targu Jiu as well as in different versions of columns, became a decorative trademark of Art Deco (Hohl 2002: 980).

BIRDS In the period 1910 – 1944, Constantin Brancusi created 29 birds. La Maïastra, the first in the series (1910 –1912), was inspired by folk tales from the author’s homeland (Sidney Geist 1968: 113–114). La Maïastra represents a divine bird from a Romanian folk tale, which has magic powers. One of them is the ability to reunite separated lovers. A series of birds, based on a fairytale, is an authentic example of Brancusi’s quest and his attitude to the world. All his life Brancusi strived to depart from the world of creatures, to ”capture” the essence of flight as a symbol of reaching the spiritual. The first version of the sculpture is again one of the author’s first attempts to shape the place of a figure in space (Arnason 2008: 153). The sculpture in white marble rests on a special pedestal – an embraced couple hold a stone block on which La Maïastra is installed. In that way, the figure and its base are so firmly united that it is impossible to establish the hierarchy of individual segments. The weight of the stone block and rough rustic of the couple ”land” the sculpture of a bird whose curved chest discloses a neck reaching toward the sky. In addition, the base that resembles an Indian totem pole, discovers a special dualism between the magical archetype and modern reality. The motif had over time developed into a sophisticated shape of Birds in the Sky where the motif of a flight is superior to the look of a bird itself, thus determining the shape of the sculpture. The sculpture Birds, cast in bronze, whose gleamy polished surface cannot be defined by an eye, transforms the movement upwards: the substance, light and shape are simultaneously unique and inconsistent. It was with this series of sculptures that Brancusi approached Gaston Bachelard’s belief that ”the body of a bird is made of the air surrounding it while its life is the winning movement” (www.aidanharticons.com/.../Constantin%20Brancusi).

Among Brancusi’s birds the figure called Leda has a special meaning (Bazen 1976: 429).

Dating from the middle of 1920s (1926), it did not live to be multiplied in a series. Instead, the only replica of it cast in bronze, made from a marble model, remained in the artist’s studio.

Installed on a triple base – a thin plate made of shiny nickle that rests on a smaller and a bigger cube made of two types of black stone – it embodies the myth of Leda, who caused Zeus to turn into a swan in order to seduce her, in an image of the swan. It is actually the bird whose body is related to a hybrid identity between the male and female with a phalus-shaped neck and a body with female attributes. The bird and woman, male and female principle, are united in a unique movement. In a different light at a studio, installed on a reflecting metal surface, Leda expresses contradictions with multiple meanings and transforms into an inherent presence of light. Dualism of the meaning and transformation of shapes resulted from changing the relations and rhytms of light as well as the angle of looking in order to produce a photographic image that would inexorably and definitely preserve the altered state from oblivion.

196

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

A Pagan in Technopolis Even today, Constantin Brancusi still intrigues with many aspects of his own vision of the outer reality. Before starting the discussion, there is a problem with his name: although Romanian-born as Konstantin Brankuş1, taking that he created in France for over five decades, the world history of art knows him as Brancusi, which is also the reason his name is spelled as such in this paper. Heretically ready to break every rule that sculptors had observed from the ancient to his time, he never hid his admiration for Gothic cathedrals, especially the one in Chartres, monumentality of the Egyptian sculpture, carved columns of Cluny, or unknown sculptors from Africa, India, China, Tibet and Turkestan (Brezianu, Geist 1965: 24). With his heart full of customs and legends from his homeland, he joined the then most avant-garde community of artists in Paris that lived in La Ruche in Monmatre, shortly before he moved studios to Monparnasse. The Romanian folk tradition remained one of his first inspirations (Грујић 2002), which is why Paul Moran said that Brancusi ”was more of an artist than Parisien and less of a Parisien that Romanian” (Golubović 1967: 14). More than half a century after his death, we could say that he truly was a citizen of the world – one of the first European artists who was equally, if not more, famous in America where art collectors of the modern art craved for his solo exhibitions.

The surrounding of New York skyscrapers was probably an embodiment of the dream of his own modern studio to him, a forest of endless columns from which his birds would fly into the infinite universe. ”By coincidence, in the same year Brancusi had died, (March 16, 1957), the first spaceshuttle called Sputnjik was launched (October 4, 1957), which was the beginning of the space era because this was the first time that a man succeeded in launching an object into space, i.e. earth orbit. That is how Brancusi’s birds became the symbol of the era with their form that implied speed and infinite take-off in the same spirit as later monuments depicting the rocket flight and conquering the space’ ” (Pajin 2007: 62).

CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI: THE FLIGHT OF A DIVINE MACHINIST The sculptor Constantin Brancusi, who was born in Romania (Hobitza, Romania, February 19, 1876 – Paris, France, March 16, 1957), created most of his works of art in France, which earned him the status of one of the most distinguished artists of the Paris art school. Very early he joined the avant-garde movement that was active even outside the European borders, so that his work had a great influence on American sculptors from the beginning of the 20th century. While growing up in a rural and archaic mountain region, Brancusi developed his artistic expression from an unusual combination of a traditional wood carver and highly sophisticated modern artist. He started his education in the School of Arts and Crafts in Craiova (1894–1898), only to enoll at the National School of Fine Arts in Bucharest afterwards (1898–1902). One of his earliest works, created under the guidance of his anatomy teacher, Dimitrie Gerota, is a masterfully rendered ana1 Constantin Brâncuşi, spelled in Romanian as Brankuš; ”the French version” of the surname would be Bran-KU-SI.

197

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

tomical study; the statue of a man with skin removed to reveal muscles underneath which was exhibited in the Romanian Athenaeum in 1903. Though just an anatomical study, the sculpture foreshadowed the efforts of a young artist to reveal the essence rather than merely stick to the outward appearance. In the course of his studies, he won numerous awards and then, with a meagre amount of scholarship he set out for Paris on foot in 1903, to arrive in 1904 after passing through Vienna, Munich and Basel. In Paris, he studied at The Ecolé des Beaux-Arts, in the studio of Antonin Mercié. Only one of his sculptures from 1905 is preserved. It is called Pride and represents a young girl’s head cast in bronze from the plaster sketch. It was one of three pieces exhibited at the Autumn Salon in 1906. In 1907, Brancussi briefly worked as an assistant to August Rodin and then pursued his own career. After 1906, he continued to exhibit at the Salon but also entered other group exhibitions in Paris. He made friends with many of his outstanding contemporaries such as Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, Fernand Leger, Henry Rousseau le Douanier (Customs Officer), Pablo Picasso, Guillaume Apollinaire, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Marcel Duchamp, Tristan Tzara and others. Under the influence of Andre Derain, he generated interest in the African sculpture. In 1913, he entered the International Exhibition of Modern Art known as Armory Show, in New York, the USA as well as other important group exhibitions of modern art in New York and Chicago. He held solo exhibitions in New York in 1914, 1916 and 1926. Brancusi’s independent career as a sculptor in Paris began with the sculpture Kiss, a gravestone memorial at the Montparnasse cemetery. As early as then, his abstract style which features clean geometrical lines that balance forms inherent in his materials and symbolic allusions of representational art was distinct. Constantin Brancusi studies with sculptors of academic orientation, and still developed his style under the influence of the Romanian traditional forlk art, Egyptian and African sculpture, the Far East art and avant-garde movement of the 1920s. His most famoust works of art include The Sleeping Muse (1908), The Kiss (1908), Prometheus (1911), Madamoiselle Pogany (1913), The Newborn Baby (1915), A Bird in the Sky (1919) and The Column of Infinity, known as The Endless Column (1938). Brancusi defined most of the motifs for his scultpures in the period 1909 – 1925 and kept on elaborating on them in numerous variations. Around 1920, he began crafting bases for his sculptures because he considered them as equally important segments of his sculptures. He carved them in wood or stone or casted and carefully polished them. Owing to his worldwide fame, he was commissioned for a meditation temple in India by a Maharajah of Indorea in 1933, which never materialized. In the town of Targu Jiu, where he had spent most of his childhood, he finished a monument in memory of the World War I in 1938. The Table of Silence, A Gate of the Kiss and Endless Column were created in honour of the brave Romanian civilian victims who stopped the German invasion in 1916. When he met Man Ray in 1921, Brancusi became engaged in photography. Mostly, he made photographs of different sculptural ensembles in his studio, believing that a photograph tells more of them than words. In 1952 Brancusi obtained the French citizenship. At the initiative of James Johnson Sweeney, the first retrospective mu198

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

seum exhibition of Brancusi’s works was held in the Musemu ”Solomon R. Guggenheim” in New York in 1955. According to his last will and testament, Brancusi’s studio at Impasse Ronsin as well as its entire content were bequethed to the French (1956).

literature 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

Arnason, H. H. The History of Modern Art (Belgrade: Orion art, 2008).

Brezianu, Barbu and Geist, Sidney. The Beginnings of Brancusi, Art Journal, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Autumn, 1965), 15–25.

Bazen, Žermen. Istorija svetske skulpture (Belgrade: Vuk Karadžić, 1976), 429. Грујић, Вера. Константин Бранкуш (1876–1957). (Belgrade: National Museum, 2010).

Geist, Sidney. Brancusi: A Study of the Sculpture (New York: Grossman, 1968), 113-14.

Georgescu-Gorjan, Sorana. Istoria unui simbol naţional (Târgu-Jiu: Centrul Municipal de Culturá ”Constantin Bráncuşi“, 2011).

Golubović, Milan. „Konstantin Brankuši”. Polja, No. 107–8, year. XIII, July–August 1967, 14.

Hohl, Reinhold. ”Permanence and Avantgarde. Adaptation and Imitation of Tribal Art”. In: Sculpture From Antiquity to the Present Day (edited by Georges Duby and Jean Luc-Laval), (Köln: Taschen, 2002), 961.

----. “A New Technique: The Assemblage. The ”Higher Sculpture”. In: Sculpture From Antiquity to the Present Day (edited by Georges Duby and Jean Luc-Laval), (Köln: Taschen, 2002), 979-981.

----. “Sculpture Conquers Space. Monuments of New Era”. In: Sculpture From Antiquity to the Present Day (edited by Georges Duby and Jean Luc-Laval), (Köln: Taschen, 2002), 994.

----. “Abstarction and Figuration. Official Sculpture Under the Dictators”. In: Sculpture From Antiquity to the Present Day (edited by Georges Duby and Jean Luc-Laval), (Köln: Taschen, 2002), 1021.

Klein, Mason. Alias Man Ray (New York: The Yewish Museum, 2009).

Klüver, Billy and Martin, Julie. Kikis Paris: Artists and Lovers (New York: Hary N. Abrams Inc. Publishers, 1989).

Lucie-Smith, Edward. “Constantin Brancusi”. In: Lives of the Great Modern Artists (London: Thames&Hudson, 2009), 95-98.

Marcoci, Roxana; Batchen, Geoffrey; Bezzola, Tobia. The original copy: photography of sculpture, 1839 to today (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2010), 96-112. Обрадовић, Драгиша. „Запис о Бранкушу”. In: О уметности и уметницима (Врњачка бања: Ауторско издање, 2010). Пајин, Душан. „Лет и савршенство”. Златна греда, No. 66. Year VII, April 2007, 60–63.

Partsch, Susana. 20. Jahrhundert I (Stuttgart: Prilipp Reclam, 2002).

Piper, David. “Brancusi: The Kiss, 1910.” In: The Ilustrated History of Art (London: Bounty Books, 2005), 394, 395.

Rid, Herbert. The History of Modern Sculpture (Belgrade: Izdavački zavod ”Yugoslavia”), 79–82.

Websites 1. http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/brancusi.html 2. Hart, Aidan. Constantin Brancusi: His spiritual roots. (ww.aidanharticons.com/.../Constantin%20Brancusi) 3. http://www.centrepompidou.fr/education/ressources/ENS-brancusi/ENS-brancusi.htm 4. http://socyberty.com/history/constantin-brancusi-the-montparnasse-saint

jasna.jovanov@gmail.com

199

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 7.038.53:791]:305:316.647.8

Vera Kopicl

University of Novi Sad Faculty of Philosophy Serbia

Deconstruction of Gender Stereotypes in Video Art SUMMARY: One of the aims of this paper was to illustrate how a piece of art becomes an operational entity between the artist and the world, a certain kind of a social sculpture that reflects the fundamental result of the conscious social manipulation of power. What was clearly demonstrated is that all the authors analyzed express, via their work, the full extent of the trauma an individual experiences when faced with having their private, personal and intimate become the domain of the public and political life and decision-making, when it is transformed into a stereotype, or even a legally defined way of conduct. Among these phenomena, which are greatly highlighted in this paper, what is particularly noticeable and interesting are the consequences of the new conservatism in post-communist countries under the patronage of the church, which are visible in the pathology of the conflict of double standards regarding the morality of the democratic and the secular society. This is why the selected examples of feminist art are not only artistically grand but are also socially important, thus inevitably adopting both political strategies, and internal media attributes involved, the art scene.

Identifying the mechanisms of constructing stereotypes is also supported in this paper through analytical emphasizing of the fact that women themselves participate in maintaining these stereotypes and in doing so highlight them, where the very identification of this paradox gives grounds for the deconstructive discourse of the here analyzed artists, which is, by default, expressed in the first, I, feminine person, which, via the use of the selected motif-stereotypes, creates both a piece of art and a political meta-discourse in the form of art.

The necessity of moving across categories of gender does not, as far as the result of this research suggests, bring about its negation, but rather its new contextual determination, the fact that gender as a concept and social structure can be understood only in relation to other axes of identity, including active speech, self-reflection and self-expression, as well as its specific sub-type such as art.

Therefore, this analysis seeks to demonstrate that strongly canonized theories and categories cannot encompass the wide range of aspects of questioning identity, and that they, having their globalist and totalizing nature, certainly bear the risk of colonizing the experiences of others.

Key words: deconstruction, otherness, identity, irony, contextuality, locational feminism, editing, narrative, parody, performativity, simulation, subversion, stereotype

200

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

“Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories.”

Laurie Anderson According to Jacque Derrida, who predicated the deconstructionist method as a philosophy of the weak, marginalised and decentralised discourses, art is a mirror which reflects and exemplifies the chaos of the Western metaphysics.

The ideal of art as an autonomous practice sovereignly negated existence of sex- and gender - based differences until the middle of the last century. During the fifties and early sixties, the very female artists started to point out, through the feminist content of their works, the differences between their own artistic experience and the dominant discourse of the contemporary art scene at the time.

Being aware that through their involvement in artistic practice alone, they have exited the gender role stereotypes and entered the male culture’s space in which they have become equally creative and subversive phenomenon, the female artists problematise more and more pronouncedly their newly achieved specific status and discourse, whereat as regards gender perspective, provocation and overvaluing of the current order in art and society become the dominant artistic strategies.

FEMALE EXPERIENCE BRINGS OUT NEW ART THEMES, CREATE NEW LANGUAGES, DIFFERENT STRATEGIES. It seems that searching for the female identity starts with “etc.” on the Judith Butler’s performativity of identity, and that her theory of parody becomes a dominant art method with female video artists. Accordingly, pictures of giving birth, relationship with a child, menstruation, as well as photographs from family albums have been introduced in art and they have become artefacts, whereas “kitchen art” starts to appear almost as a separate art discipline.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES ALSO ENABLE FEMALE ARTISTS TO CREATE NEW MYTHIC SPACES. Breaking stereotypes, searching for identity within the predetermined roles, redefining the myths and archetypes in patriarchal culture, history fabrication and representation policy in the men’s space, have been followed by creation of the alternative feminist media such as film or video, with accompanying visual media theory.

The leading female video artists such as Ulrike Rosenbach connect the symbols of women in the mythology and art history with the personal conditions, Marina Abramović positions her work within the contexts of other cultures’ mythologies. Unlike the previously mentioned, the Slovenian female artists Marina Gržinić and Aina Šmid use male film discourse as a matrix for their video art works, where via editing, they insert female characters as the discourse commentators, providing theoretical explanations for the piece of art.

201

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess; Donna Haraway It is exactly due to the polyphony that as an ideal space for the new art practice the female artists, more and more noticeably use video art, a form which encompasses the languages of various art traditions: avant - garde film, dance theatre, performance, documentary film, visual poetry, computer animation with all possibilities provided by digital non- linear editing.

Thus Donna Haraway, a theorist of the cyberfeminism, speaks of the union of women and machines as “seizing the tools into own hands to mark the world that marked them as other”.

The contemporary art practice and the accompanying theory show that otherness may also be viewed as a field of new possibilities in relation to already exhausted artistic and theoretical discourse.

Body art and performance of the seventies have become some of the most exclusive domains of the female art, while a body, within those sectors of art, had become an object of artistic exploration before it did in the feminist theory. The strategies of the female feminist theorists have also changed, so the otherness in the theories of Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray have become a space for new possibilities”..

Such ignoratio elenchi experiment, where the other becomes different, is possible with those artistic forms that do not have firm traditional frame, such as video art, which certainly proves that the policy behind the selection of the artistic language and theoretical discourse is also important.

GLORIFICATION OF difference; Hélène Cixous Glorification of difference and the new strategies of lucid playing with the very structures of monitoring discourses, through parody of them or ironic polemisation with them, proved to be much more effective tool than a speech made by a victim in a pathetic passive position.

This way, the female artistic experience gained within the new medium has also become available for theoretical study, not just promoting the feminist artistic practice but the accompanying theory as well.

The turbulent and transitional nineties pose a question whether it is possible to achieve peace within the imposed social roles, stereotypes, in such a manner as to deconstruct them by the individual’s awareness of the mechanisms of their functioning, by understanding the structure that has been created by a designator, or it is possible to have the life changed by artistic practice - as fluxus artists believed?

Certainly, such a specific trans-position of video art also requires an adequate change of artistic positions and discourses. We meet an artist who feels responsibility before the picture of reality again; therefore there is an incredible influx of documents and documentaries, and a need to announce, through the artistic creation, also a piece of information that is unavailable. It is interesting that during the process the female video suffers the greatest changes: starting with the body politics’ treatment (in the seventies), it has begun to switch towards the political engagement.

202

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

It is dominated by the works which, in the maze of the archetypes, search for the truth and enlighten a tragedy of an individual who, even when he/she stands still with his/her eyes shut in an empty space of escapism, actually faces the issue of identity of the human being, community and the very medium - equally.

Our leading female artists Tanja Ostojić, Sonja Savić, Milica Tomić, as well as other Eastern European authors such as Ema Kugler, Marina Gržinić and Aina Šmid, Kai Kaljo, Mara Trala and Alicja Żebrowska, bridge the gap of the 80-es and establish a relation with the conceptual avant -garde scene of the 70-es, connecting the reception of this artistic experience with the alternative end of the century phenomena and the changes in the discourse itself. The constant for the both periods is the theory and the politics of a body, a concept and a strategy, which, when connected with the new medium experience, transforms artistic practice into a subversive response of the power of the social repression.

If we accept a thesis stating that a body is a female continent, whereas in the contemporary art we talk about a conscious body, then, we can understand how video art and performances have almost exclusively become the female art space. In some cases it is difficult to separate the two artistic forms. In the social and artistic contexts, altered this way, the female discourse has proved to be more radical and open for deliberation on the even most sensitive themes such as collective guilt and the national identity, as well as the turbo-folk culture and the mechanisms of media manipulation.

The Western European female artists such as VNS matrix, Miranda Pennell and Janene Higgins are certainly not less radical in their deconstruction of stereotypes they are facing within the context that constructs them through the indirect violence of the post industrial society and the neo-conservatism.

Therefore it is undoubtedly necessary to take into consideration the contextual theories, and talk about the locational feminism, which primarily emphasizes the obvious difference between the experiences of Western and Eastern feminism.

According to Adrienne Rich, the universal theories bore within themselves a threat of colonising the experiences of others, therefore I talk about the women whose identities have also been constructed by their race, sexuality, national origin, class, cultural narratives ... in other words, I talk about the contextuality of identity.

MY BODY, NOT A GENERAL BODY; ADRIENNE RICH Therefore, to illustrate this, I have selected the works created by the female authors from various cultural and national contexts: “Grzech Pierworodny – Tajemnica Patrzy” (“Original Sin – The Mystery is Looking”) by Alicja Żebrowska from Poland, “We Hate You Little Boy” by Janene Higgins USA, “Ja sam Milica Tomić” (“I am Milica Tomić”) by Milica Tomić from Serbia.

The things those works have in common are that they were created during the same period, in the last decade of the 20th century, they won awards at “VideoMedeja” the International Women Authors’ video festival in Novi Sad, had similar results of the research 203

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

related to the audience’s reception, based on their outstanding success, in addition to certain cultural narratives recorded as part of the analysis conducted at the festival’s round tables, where all the works made the greatest impressions, probably due to the radical artistic strategy as well.

It is also interesting to see the way they have addressed the taboo themes and how they have argued with them and with the hypocrisy of the social and cultural context, as well as with the perception of their own sex where a woman /victim maintains the existing system of values while bearing stereotypes herself.

Creations of Alicja Żebrowska (Poland), Milica Tomić (Serbia) and Janene Higgins (USA) have been defined by the context and it is only possible to communicate with them and fully understand them if the context itself has been learned. A real understanding lies in the process of their mutual conditioning, and this is where some kind of social sculpture is created, where the essential consequence of the social manipulation is reflected, demonstrating the way the authors, via their work, make visible the trauma an individual experiences when having their private, personal and intimate become the domain of the public and political life and decision making, when it is transformed into a stereotype, or even legally defined code of behaviour.

The works of these female artists have also been characterised by the nature of the local art scenes they have belonged to. The critics consider Polish video art the most interesting scene of the European contemporary art, Seattle is the centre of the American underground art, while during the 90s, in Serbia, video represented the most significant part of the art engaged in the resistance towards the regime. The strong alternative scenes are the result of the repressive environments which have endangered a self in various ways; however the mechanisms used have been the same - the creation of stereotypes through the mainstream culture.

The feminist theory frequently deliberates the political strategies as well and emphasizes that we always have to bear in mind who we address: epistemological narrative of the audience that perceives these pieces of art.

Both Judith Butler and Luce Irigaray would easily recognise their theories on the strategy of imitation and parody of the patriarchal models and power of irony, performativity, in the video art works of the Polish artist Alicja Żebrowska, American Janene Higgins, and Milica Tomić (S&M).

Bodies that mean something; Judith Butler Alicja Żebrowska, “Original Sin / The Mystery is Looking” video art work/ installation single channel, VHS, 5 min. production 1994 Poland

204

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

The video art work “Original Sin – The Mystery is Looking”, Żebrowska featured for the first time at the exhibition «Antibodies», of the Centre for Contemporary Art, in Warsaw.

Institutions responded instantly, by accusing the work of undermining morality and being a pure pornography. The state also initiated the lawsuits, unusually quickly, in order to stop the «Antibodies» exhibition and prevent it from guest performing abroad.

The church conservatism’s pressures, in the post communist Poland, created new forms of censorship, unforeseen in the democratic societies. By prohibiting projections, closing galleries, and even issuing the court orders, the state-church censorship, in fact, provided this feminist scene with an aureole of the engaged art which, using the women’s issues, opened the problems of the Polish society in the domains of the freedom of speech, basic human and artists’ rights.

Such a stormy reaction was a result of the fact that the exhibit happened in the year of great expectations, when a lot eventually happened, and when the legal and political moves defined the religious position of the whole nation. Based on the mutual agreement between the Polish Government and the Vatican, the Church acquired the privileged position, without any provisions to guarantee separation of the church and state. In the same year, the Parliament adopted a strict and restrictive law against abortion and it became one of the burning problems of Polish democracy.

The video “Original Sin” is not just a naturalistic game of facing and breaking the stereotypes; it is primarily a brutal story on manipulation, the private that becomes political in the lives of all those women who experience illegal surgeries, proving the Foucault’s theses that the dominant system of power always controls sexuality. It is a horror movie composed of topics that led to absurdity of reality of secretly performed abortion and the pathology that followed it. The theme is, in fact, the way to cover this sick paradox, by monitoring discourse, through noble actions of the League of Polish Families (the parliamentary party), the stereotypes surrounding the permanent models of maternity and family values. The very acknowledgement of the construction of this social mechanism represents a “Leap in awareness“ for the artists, crossing the border of a symbolic circle, and a way to deconstruct it.

The artist’s feminist intervention has suppressed the religious and the asexual archetype of the female avocation. The video zooms in a vagina, masturbation with a vibrator, medical vaginal douche, and at the end a Barbie doll is born, pulled out by a hand in a rubber glove.

The video was featured in a room filled with scents of apples, and while the first picture shots were projected the artist was impatiently chewing an apple. The use of an apple places, one beside another, a direct body extremism and unconditional anti idealistic comparison of the women’s sexuality with the Biblical parable of the Book of Genesis, the one that made Eve - a woman - the only one responsible for giving in to the Original sin, the fall of human kind and the expulsion from Eden.

The suppressed religious values agree with the new consumer values demonstrated by the creation of the Barbie doll, and also by the fact that a woman herself bears the stereotypes.

In the annex that accompanied her video art work, the artist herself explained her artistic creed as follows: 205

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

“What our faith in the assumed things depends on? Is it our conviction, the power to persuade others or the number of the acknowledgements? Let’s analyze the issue more closely: the original sin (if we follow the well known picture) - the first act of evil, which initiated the whole complication.

There was not a need for the first people to have sexual intercourse in Eden, since there were individual samples of the ideal, permanent existence. A desire to experience something new, different, forbidden and their mutual, the rebellious deed could be nothing but a sexual intercourse, and it led to creation of new human beings, and then evil was established. Therefore it was an act of fertility, which was the beginning of all evil, for the evil exists only in the interpersonal relations, as an indicator of the opposed interests.

The old myths have become obsolete – the human being now becomes “the evolutive myth”.

Having established an artistic connection between a female body, religion and suffering, actively and vividly, she has achieved the effect of a documentary and managed to intervene in the public domain, via her work, which is best proved by the attempts of prohibition and sanctioning of the A. Żebrowska’s work.

Placing a female body next to the religious symbols has become such a common motif in the Polish art of the nineties, as a symptom which signalises the sick parts of the public life, indicating symbolic violence. ... ...> 1993.

The Żebrowska’s work links the body art tradition of the urban post industrial society with the post communist context, where the primary body functions are alienated and pushed to the margins of the symbolic display and use. Thus, she has developed her artistic deed into a ritual, therapeutic, in other words, existential performance. The artist has deprived herself from a middleman in order to provoke and express, using a direct act and manipulation, the feelings of existential terror, fear, suppressed emotions and desires.

Izabela Kowalczyk, in her text “Feminist Art in Poland Today” suggests that the scene functions in a specific political environment proving that there is a big discrepancy between feminism in the West and East. The changes are all the more traumatic since the church censorship has continued with the manipulation, the previous ideological structure performed, which was liberal only by its strong rhetoric on the equality of women’s rights. However, at least the fiction created by the communist government existed at the time, unlike the repressive laws of the new democratic republic under the patronage of the church, which represented the headquarters of the opposition during the years of fight against the communist regime.

Thus the feminist art in Poland has become the centre of the engaged scene confirming the thesis that the fight for women’s rights is the fight for human rights, and in this case, due to the censorship, the fight for freedom of speech and artistic freedom as well.

206

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

ALL VIOLENCE IS THE ILLUSTRATION OF A PATHETIC STEREOTYPE; BARBARA KRUGER Janene Higgins “We Hate You Little Boy” (single channel, BW, 1998, 4 min.)

Text and sound: John Duncan Actors/Actresses: Sean Craig, Laura Ellis, Fernwood Mitchell Camera and editing: Janene Higgins Janene Higgins is one of the most interesting authors of the new media art scene in Seattle. Her experience alone, in the nature of media starting with the populist, commercial culture of the magazines such as Esquire, Working Woman, Fame, Vanity Fairwhere she has worked as an assistant to the art director of the media, which creates and maintains the stereotypes, and builds new myths, the impact of which is measured in the millions of copies, all the way to the underground video art scene and performance - has enabled her to build her poetry, using the language of the media, by unveiling the hypocrisy and pathology of the imposed social roles and taboos.

The video “We Hate You Little Boy” was created in cooperation with the performance terrorist John Duncan, where Higgins used the soundtrack from the Duncan’s project “Crna soba” (“The Black Room”) (an installation in the American hotel in Los Angeles, 1980) which displaced from the original art context enters into an unusual multiple dialogue, at the same time continuing with its primary artistic intention.

Duncan’s text: “We hate you, little boy... just go out and die... we hate you... die...” which in addition to the stated, contains about ninety even darker “lines”, Janene Higgins used as a template for the video in the underground film style, with the central picture dominated by a figure of a blue boy innocently playing in the backyard. Across the idyllic, typically American middle class picture, runs the cited Duncan’s text, written in capital letters, and accompanied by the deformed human utterance.

It is only now that, taken from the Black Room and pulled into the idyllic picture of a family home, as some kind of psychotherapy, the text reveals a trace of an essential trauma. A humiliation of the young boy is in fact a manifestation of a helpless parent, demonstrated through the short flashes of images of a hysterical woman and a tired man.

On the other hand, Higgins imposes the opinion that behind such idyllic pictures of the family backyards, the Black rooms hide, and she confirms the reciprocity by presenting the Duncan’s text and her picture on an equal basis.

The effect of art de-aestheticization has been achieved by the film that resembles a home video, whereas she uses the association to set up a thesis on the aestheticization of life.

207

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

A procedure of so called personal cuts, where unlike the global history, a personal history takes the stage, Higgins has deepened through her partnering “duo works” with other artists or through entering into already existing piece of art or discourse in the spirit of post modern nomadism.

The problem of “the American forms of family and community tyranny” has been more and more frequently put in the focus of the modern feminist theories, which also deal with the analysis of the American form of patriarchy.

The largest share in creation of the petty bourgeoisie family stereotype has had the commercial culture industry, which has, in decades, created a cult of a family as a ground for realisation of the American dream, the central myth of a society that goes beyond the importance of the racial, national and religious.

The first association evoked when watching “We Hate You Little Boy” is the American movie industry which repeats a picture of a bourgeois family, as a leitmotif. It is exactly at this first associative level that Higgins sets up the basic thesis on deconstruction of the mass culture mechanism related to the maintenance of the social stereotypes, with the main aim to fit an individual into the collective identity.

The author achieves surprise effect through recognition of the matrix, the extremely visible becomes invisible, and through the establishment of the rational attitude towards the mechanism of manipulation.

Using the text, which she writes across the picture, she breaks the codes of normal behaviour in the civic society, introduces provocative forms of life and ironically and satirically brings them to the point of paradox and absurdity. The visual disorder itself, shown by the piece of art, rhetorically emphasizes a new social sculpture during the process of its creation.

Mismatch between a word and an image has a long tradition in visual arts, while in the feminist art, visual and verbal constituting and functioning principles are important, due to the effect of discrepancy and irony as artistic strategy where a piece of art becomes a mediator between an artist and the world, it becomes an operational subject. Additionally, the video of a child playing, with violently insulting verbal comments, also indicates estrangement between the physical and linguistic registers.

In short explanation that accompanied the video, stating that suppressed emotions cause inexplicable fears, the author establishes a different attitude towards the personal/ collective relation. According to Higgins, the issue of the individual’s autonomy and freedom of personality is the issue of freeing oneself from fear.

Epistemological narrative of the audience becomes a participant in the dialogue with the piece of art as well, placing its experience with collective stereotype in the game where various possibilities of constitution of identity are mutually ironized and parodied.

The verbal violence, the sound and text taken over from the Duncan’s installation, have been interpreted as a sign of male inferiority, powerlessness in the relation with woman, and the social construction of gender as well, where a role of the father is equally burdensome as a role of the mother.

208

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Strategies of the feminist theory and politics should certainly deal with the deconstruction of gender, the social roles of men, which labelled this way create a possibility of their own caving in, and when they denote power, with the issues concerning fear, manipulation and freedom of personality.

The fact that this type of art still operates within the underground scene and that Janene Higgins, who lives and works in New York, places her works through a distributer from Seattle, who is specialized to promote American underground scene, indicates how difficult it is to cross a border of a circle, particularly the one created by the media and commercial culture as the most powerful guardians and producers of the stereotypes, even when you are familiar with them as much as this artist who used to be a part of the mechanism.

NATIONALISM IS A DISCOURSE that is ALWAYS MARKED BY GENDER: SamantHa RAY Milica Tomić “Ja sam Milica Tomić” (video, installation, loop) Sound: M. Tomić Camera and editing: 3 D studio, M. Tomić, SME, 1999.

Like nationalism, a gender also represents a social construct, and their symbiosis creates powerful, socially desirable stereotypes which endanger other constituents of an identity.

I am Milica Tomić. I am Korean.

I am Milica Tomić. I am American.

I am Milica Tomić. I am Croatian.

I am Milica Tomić. I am Serbian.

I am Milica Tomić. I am Romany.

I am Milica Tomić. I am German....

Thereby Milica Tomić, through the act of piling up the possible identifications, while keeping her name, ruins in fact, the very context and the very notion of the national identity.

Like the American artist Cindy Sherman, she builds some kind of a female prototype that, while fitting into each of the statements about the national identity, leads to its negation. The prototype gets an iconic dimension through repetitions, and transfers into the artificial interface, dominated by a non- identity.

The speech is followed by a model that was taken over from mass media - her posture is unchangeable, still, her head raised a little bit as anchorwomen do, whereas the styling imitates the stereotype of a model, a mannequin, while she slowly turns towards the camera as if she is turning towards a mirror.

209

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

Each turn and each statement about the national identity are followed by the traces of violence, which also become a picture of the identity, where being a subject with its own name and nationality means that you are a subject , the reason for wounding.

The artist herself testifies about the various phases of designation: name Milica (the medieval Serbian duchess) and the identity of an orthodox Serbian woman connect general and personal history - and how her intimate identity has been identified in various contexts, starting with the period of communism, modernisation, nationalism and the Balkan wars: “My name is Milica and I got it in 1960. I was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, the country that entered a phase of sudden modernisation during those years.

However, in the early 80s, I started to meet people who pronounced my name with fear.

During those several years when I got acquainted with people who pronounced my name with fear, all of a sudden, I started to feel as if I was stabbed with an arrow of urgency to equalise the following elements: I=MILICA= A SERBIAN WOMAN=AN ORTHOD OX CHRISTIAN The thing I considered to be my most intimate identity, the fact that I was an Orthodox Christian Serbian, in the late 80s, set a hypnotic pendulum of the state politics in motion, which led to the mass hallucinative effect of the collective identity, leaving no space for those who did not feel Serbian or Orthodox Christian. Moreover, the ideologists of such policy claimed that the intimacy of the personal identity was biologically conditioned, written in the genes, and the Serbs who did not share the feeling were scoundrels (bastards) with genetic defect, and they should have been destroyed since they represented a wound on the healthy body of the Serbian society. It is then that I discovered that my own, intimate identity, was in fact carefully constructed trap perfectly catching its identity prey, regardless of whether I, Milica, a Serbian Woman and an Orthodox Christian, was ready to declare or at least relativize it. Facing the impossible choice: wound or a healthy body of the nation, I decided to privately keep the identity of an Orthodox Serbian, and to speak publicly from the viewpoint of a wound” (Milica Tomić).

Through this act of speech the artist undermines the very statement that pertains to the unity of the national identity per se, devolving it by deploying the process of multiplication.

In the light of this, Milica Tomić also defines her artistic position of postmodern nomadism, according to which an artist is transnational, and illustrates it in the title of her work, which does not contain any determinants of the national identity, and as a nomad she takes over different roles.

However, this nomadism of various identifications is also a public demonstration of non-acceptance of the political manipulation of the collective identity. The artist does not 210

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

address the audience as subjects being of different sex and nationality, the audience members are instead brought to the point where they address her work as different subjects.

According to Griselda Pollock, the term “misrepresentation”, derived from the theory and practice of the feminist film, implies inversion of the identification process, undermining the expected models of the positive narrative. In this process, as object of marking, Tomić sets the very context of forced identification, in order to deconstruct its mechanisms through marking.

Like Jo Anna Isaak, who sees the effect of “the ruin of representation” that is based on the omitted, as a goal of misrepresentation; and it is exactly the absent that becomes important to the artist in her research on the means that assist creation of a subject and a body, whereas the whole history of discourse of the national identity is omitted and in the dark emptiness where the subject’s body turns, lies the issue of designation of the constituents which determine the national affiliation. If the firm, natural constituents do not exist - then construction is everything. creation of a universal, totalitarian theory is wrong and it fails the reality, probably always, AND now for sure; DonNa HaraWAY In the end of the last century an intimate identity became a political issue and accordingly an instrument of manipulation.

Deconstructing the mechanisms of the monitoring discourse means marking the stereotypes used for exercising the power of manipulation. As Lacan would put it, recognising the elements of the structure the designator establishes and propagates via symbolic, but also in the spirit of the Guattari/Deleuze’s thesis on the discourse as a political and psychiatric, at the same time.

The universal female issues and the archetypes of birth giving and parenthood, position of the church, violence, identities, and social stereotypes features in the works analysed above, have been determined by the context they communicate with, and only if one understands their mutual conditioning, one may fully read the art of Alicja Żebrowska, Janene Higgins and Milica Tomić.

I agree with Foucault, who claims that the female intellectuals do not fight to achieve power but to act locally, and by conquering a language, in this case the language that constructs the stereotypes, to make it possible to destroy and change the dominant structures; I also agree with the J. Butler’s theory on the performativity of identity, according to which we live through different identities, and when one of them prevails it becomes violent.

The essence of contemporary feminism is primarily reflected in the attempts to break free from identification, since the previous experiences have proved that in the interaction between resistance and power, marginalised identities have, in fact, participated in the identification regimes they have intended to confront.

211

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

Anđelković, Branislava: Uvod u feminističke teorije slike, Belgrade, Muzej savremene umetnosti, 2004.

Barthes, Roland: „Alegorijski impuls: ka jednoj teoriji postmodernizma“, Delo, Beograd 1989, no. 9-12.

Butler, Judith: „Od parodije do politike“, Ženske studije, Beograd 1990, no. 4.

Bonitzer, Pascal: Površina videa, Beograd, Institut za film, 1997.

Coui, Elisabet: Osetiti sećanje i priče drugih, Zbornik, Novi Sad, VideoMedeja, 2000.

Friedman, Stanford Susan: Preko ginokritike i ginese: geografija identiteta i budućnost feminističke kritike, Tulsa 1996.

Gržinić, Marina: Telo pod komunizmom, Zbornik, Novi Sad, VideoMedeja, 2000.

Haraway, Donna: „Manifest kiborga“, Feminističke sveske, Beograd 1997, no. 1.

Irigaray, Luce: „Spekulum - Svaka teorija je uvek bila prilagođena ‘muškom’“, Ženske studije, Beograd 2003, no. 6.

Isaak, Jo Anna: „Women: The Ruin of Representation“, Afterimage, 1985, no. 6.

Kowalczyk, Izabela: „Feminist art in Poland today“, N. Paradoxa, 1999, no. 11.

Krauss, Rosalind: „Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism“, October, 1976, no. 1.

Leszkowicz, Pawel: Feminist Revolt: Censorship of Women’s art in Poland, ###http Bad Subjects, 2005.

Pollock, Griselda: Feminist Film Practice and Pleasure, London 1983.

Sretenović, Dejan: Video umetnost u Srbiji, Beograd, Centar za savremenu umetnost, 2000. Šuvaković, Miško: Pojmovnik moderne i postmoderne likovne umetnosti, Novi Sad, Prometej, 1999.

VideoMedeja, Zbornik, Novi Sad, JUZVU VideoMedeja, 2000.

Virilio, Paul: Mašine vizije, Novi Sad, Prometej, 1993.

kopiclvera03@gmail.com

212

213

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 75(496.5)

Mixhait Pollozhani

State University of Tetovo Faculty of Art Macedonia

The Image Censorship in Albanian Soc-Realistic Painting Summary: The socialist realism in form of an artistic doctrine of the communist ideology, along with other instruments of propaganda, invented the censorship of image. After it had been implemented in the soviet soc-realism in the time of Josef Stalin, the censorship became a very efficient tool for the propaganda in Albanian soc-realism as well. Precisely the theme of the article: Censorship of image, will testify that with the strengthening of the personality cult, censorship also became very active during the 70’s of the previous century in Albanian art through glorification of the figure of the Albanian communist leader, Enver Hoxha. In Albanian painting, another version of its own kind of the censorship of the image emerged, which was used for political purposes in an aggressive way. After the suicide (murder) of Mehmet Shehu in 1981, he was proclaimed an enemy of the state, and his figure began to be erased from some paintings. For that reason the painting “The Moscow Conference 1960” of the author Guri Madhi was censored and revised three times. Meanwhile “The Declaration of the Republic” of Famir Haxhiu, was announced inappropriate and for that reason it was made in a clean version by Vilson Kilica.

Key words: Censorship, cult, personality, art, doctrine, ideology, communism

This kind of visualization shows that the political course of the communist doctrine, through the unprecedented brainwashing of the citizen led the Albanian society to a very big spiritual paralysis. This kind of philosophy of the Albanian communist party confronted the Albanian art with an esthetic sterilization. So, not only did the instrument of the censorship ruthlessly damage the art, but in that way it was used as a means of falsifying the historical truth of the NLW (National Liberation War) of Albania.

214

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

The search for the aesthetic in the ideological world resembles a trek through the story of psychological drama, which can only be caused by a politicized art doctrine, as it was in socialist realism, which was utterly obsessed, and was, even to absurdity, possessed by dogmas and propaganda, and more or less by feelings and the secrets of the heart. This means that soc-realistic canon was more inclined towards the mimetic rather than the ontological in art.

As these kinds of ideologies function outside of the soul, for that very reason they become merciless in the no-alternative life-giving of prearranged painted holy ideals, so their creators often place themselves in truly hopeless situations. In reaching the goals that have been set, ideological followers, which inevitably become hostages of their own dogmas, put in use all possible and impossible mechanisms to accomplish the utopias, and having no conscience, often bring into question even the absolute truth. Art became a victim of this totalitarian thinking, while censorship proved to be a very efficient instrument in its (mis)use.

The power of censorship Censorship exists from a long time ago and becomes an unavoidable phenomenon in the centuries-old social development of humanity. Through time, it gained new shapes of action and reached a status of political apparatus of the state, whereas it enabled control and gave help to the governments. This gained power was expressed through control and authorization of certain state instruments for suppression of words, paintings and all kind of acts that are considered to be anti-state or are not to taste of those who are in power. It was like this before, but unfortunately, it is the same today, it is misused both when it is needed and when it is not.

It is commonly known that the censorship is intensified, especially at the times of social unrest, where the governing structures in the name of high state interests, with the purpose of preserving the public peace and order, impose orthodox methods of censorship in political and cultural life. Most prominently, it is practiced and conducted through censorship in visual culture, which nowadays takes more and more application in all its work. Of especially great interest is its use in fine arts, and that is also the subject of this topic, which is about image censorship1 in Albanian soc-realistic painting, which was not only (mis)used in the imposing of communist ideology, but also became and instrument of the misuse of history.

The article, which comprises a special chapter in my doctoral thesis under the title: “Socialist Realism (1945-1950) in Fine Arts in Yugoslavia, Albania and Bulgaria”, done at the University St. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje, is an attempt to convey a part of painting created under the censorship of “Enverism”, which reinforced the “personality

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_Soviet_Union: The censorship of the image or the Visual censor in the Albanian soc-realistic painting was copied from the Soviet Union, which was installed in visual arts during the rule of Josif Stalin. It was used for political purposes, by removing inappropriate personalities and the politically persecuted, not only from photographs, posters, but even from paintings.

215

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

cult”2. That happened during the 70s, since 20th century in SR Albania is probably one of the rare examples of art demotion by politics.

Soc-realistic painting in Albania was created between censorship and fantasy. Regardless of strong dogmatic thinking, the liberal fantasy of some Albanian artists never stopped acting, as attempts of a constant struggle to abandon the imposed ideological framework in Albanian art. This means that in spite of the isolation with which Albanian society was faced, and the impossibility of direct contacts with the modern artistic achievements worldwide, Albanian artists did not stop mounting resistance, to gain greater creative freedom at least.

But even so, the party’s reaction was quicker, as always, and the government aggressively reacted to any kind of more liberal tendencies, so this time it was a lot sharper, closing in on them, so in the next few years the development of Albanian fine art was put under complete control.

In the next ten years in Albania exclusively dosed and controlled dogmatic art was created, full of schematic cliche elements, which almost became daily in art realization, known as the phase of Enveristic communism aggressively entered against any kinds of liberal tendencies.

Glorification of history through painting The most open different art expression appeared in the exhibition opened in 1971, and in some other exhibitions in the following years. However, experimenting in Albanian art,3 following the example of the south European trends, which meant the release or abandonment of the method of soc-realism, lasted for a short period of time and without any notable results.

As it is pointed out above, in the IV Plenum of CK of PTA, held in June 1971, the avant-garde movement4 of Albanian art, supported predominantly by the generation of young artists educated at the Albanian Art Academy, was interfered by the communist government, and the same was proclaimed anti-communist.

This was a motive for the Albanian communist government to continue with the harsh political measures, so during the next years, a certain number of artists, writers, directors, and musicians were unremittingly repressed and persecuted. Their creative destiny depended on the cruelty of the people, who probably did not even have anything to do with art culture, and were least interested in art, because they were more affected by the loyalty to their communist superiors, as well as the execution of party directives.

With the “unsuccessful Albanian Spring”5 the end of all hopes also arrived and once and for all the canons of the most orthodox dogmatic communism in art were abandoned, and this means that the chances for Albanian artists joining the worldwide modern art trends were suppressed for a better future.

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality: The terms “cult of personality” and “personality cult” were popularized by Khrushchev’s Secret Speech of 1956.

3 Çika, Leon, Drishti, Ylli, 2005, 34-35.

4 Elsie, Robert: 2001: (373-374) 5 Çika, Leon, Drishti, Ylli, 2005: (35)

216

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

If somewhere after the 60s art in Albania continued to develop almost completely cut off from the happenings in the developed southern countries, after 1974 Albanian art continued to be created completely isolated even from the rest of the socialist world. It got more and more impossible for the artists to get in contact with the original works of the famous, old and new world authors.

Their contact with foreign art was not possible even in a legal way, as it happened with music or literary works, because all the doors of modern fine art worldwide, were nearly closed. So, painting was more and more becoming a hostage of schematic modeling, so artists were put in a hopeless situation. Through painting even history began to be glorified.

The artists that ventured in the adventures of a more liberal expression at the beginning of the 1970s were faced with unprecedented consequences. Also, there was a significant number of artists who, in order to show their loyalty to the party, continued, with an even more vigorous tempo in creating paintings, to adhere strictly to soc-realistic canon. With that attitude, the path towards the Albanian variant6 of socialist realism opened even more, and according to the academic Luan Starova, it meant persistent propagation of “naive maniheism”, “credulous triumphalism”, as a type of “messianic promises”, in achieving their “goal”, not only in the field of fine art but also in the entire Albanian culture.

There were artists who continued strict adherence to soc-realistic art doctrine, accepting and applying the suggestions of party officials consistently. The figure-image of Enver Hoxha, that more and more occupied cult features, became one of the main concerns of party promotion and certainly because of that he was a lot more present in art. Thus, quite openly the so-called official artists7 were promoted by a way of court artists, whose activity was not formally official, but practically functioned that way.

Only a certain number of artists had the right to shape the image-figure of the first Albanian communist leader, Enver Hoxha, while a lot more rigorous were the criteria according to which were chosen the artists in front of whom the leader posed. Among the artists who had this opportunity, who also left paintings – artistic creations with his image-figure, of the older generation there were the sculptors Odise Paskali and Shaban Haderi, and of the younger generation Muntaz Dhrami, while famous soc-realistic painters were: Wilson Kilica, Zef Shoshi and later Sali Shijaku.

Even though there are more undiscovered works, this time we will take only the two most important examples into consideration, to show the improper truth which the painting of socialist realism in Albania has experienced.

The image censorship on a painting composition Undoubtedly, one of the most productive painters of that period was also the painter Guri Madhi, who was just politically rehabilitated and right at the embers of the great purges that 6 Starova, Luan, 1994, 1-15 7 According to the writing of Albanian press and the stories of Albanian artists that we contacted, among which was Wilson Kilica. The painter Zef Shoshi, author of some paintings dedicated to the figure of Enver Hoxha, in our conversation denied that had the opportunity to have Hoxha sit for him, but he confirmed that the communist leader sat for the painters Wilson Kilica and Muntaz Dhrami.

217

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

swept through the country. He presented some significant works, among which was also the great composition entitled “The Moscow Conference”8 (Mbledhja e Moskës). The painting attracted attention, not only because it was marked the most symbolic painting of Albanian soc-realism, but also because of its underlying destiny, which represents pure political absurdity. This is a typical, maybe even the most extreme example of how politics in the most unscrupulous and roughest way intruded into an artwork, similar to the “image censorship” in the Soviet art. But this painting was significant because it keeps the original version of the cruel function of Albanian socialist realism in itself. The destiny of this painting composition also hides in itself the truth about the relationship between the artist and the government, within a totalitarian communist regime, which was in power in Albania at the time. One of the most important historical moments is fixed in this painting, glorified by the extreme communist propaganda and was about the separation of Enver Hoxha and Nikita Khrushchev, which meant permanent separation of Albania from the Soviet Union, and at the same time with the remaining part of the socialist block.

The Moscow Conference, exactly the event in “Gorkovskaya Hall” gained very large dimensions in Albanian art. Among the numerous works of all fields of art, in the same year some significant literary works also originated. One of the most famous is considered to be the novel “The Winter of Great Solitude” (Last winter) of the famous Albanian writer Ismail Kadare.

There are also some very interesting but unusual connected stories9 regarding this painting.

The purpose of the actualization of such a great historical event for the party’s Central Committee was to affirm the personality of Enver Hoxha.

The composition “The Moscow Conference” was created nearly fifteen years after this historic event, significant for the destiny of communist Albania, happened, and in a quite tense atmosphere that happened soon after the liberal attempts in Albanian culture were foiled. This painting reflects the history of Albanian society in the period from 1960 to 1985. The event of the great fraternal separation of the Albanian nation from its bigger brother, Soviet Union, is covered in it.

Because the intention of the highest Albanian official was to use the painting for big propagandistic purposes, he set the criteria in advance stating how one should compose a painting dedicated to the famous conference of 81 communist parties from all around the world, held in December 1960 in Moscow10.

Considering the significance of the Moscow communist conference, in the further course of history of the Albanian people and the Albanian state, it was required that the 8 Andon Kuqali, 1988: The Painting represents a huge composition whose dimensions are: 210 cm 265 cm ; Drishti, Ylli. Varvarica, Suzana, (35); Bushati, Andi, 2009: www.tvklan.tv/off_art_emisioni.php 9 Galeria e Arteve figurative, 1978: See the introductory word: The work was created after Plenum IV of the Party of Labor of Albania, ordered in September of the year 1973, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Liberation of Albania and the inauguration of the new building of the National Art Gallery in Tirana.

10 According to the stories of his son, Pandi Madhi, the author was touched* by that correction, and because of his disobedience he was expelled from the communist party. The artist and critic Abaz Hado, in a documentary on TV-Klan of the author Andi Bushati, says “Guri Madhi presented the figure of Enver Hoxha without glorifying him.” See: Bushati, Andi, 2009: (01. 06); “www.tvklan.tv/off_art_emisioni.php,

218

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

painters tell the truth in an ‘artistic’ way, exclusively according to the Albanian delegation’s version of that dramatic act. The artist was required to stress the most dramatic moment when Enver Hoxha stood up and by pointing the finger warned the people who were present, with special accusation directed to Nikita Khrushchev, as traitors of real communism.

The author, Guri Madhi, in his canvas brings it in its own common distinguishable narrative way that fulfilled the composition, with countless characters portrayed. The composition’s action happens like in a courtroom, where Enver Hoxha is painted in the position of the prosecutor, while the others are the accused. During the pictorial performance of the composition, the author applies two layers, one concerns the approach toward the Albanian delegation, while the other concerns the rest of the people in the hall.

After the example of the French realist painter, Onore Domie, the images of numerous communist leaders are presented in caricature. They remained faithful to Khrushchev, frowning and being surprised, and painted with darker colors.

The portrayed figure of Enver Hoxha was there in front of them, in a standing position, in a superior way, accompanied by the three members of the Albanian delegation that sit on both sides of their communist leader. Also, a more decent presentation of the figures of the Chinese delegation can be noticed standing to the left of the Albanian delegation. This means that the author first put on the graphic – figurative aspect, which means that he did not dedicate enough attention to the aesthetic value of the painting.

The painting represents a pale colonistic edition, with modest colorful coating, with a domination of blue-greenish and dark-yellowish color. The stress of colorful symbolic and optimistic soc-realistic note is in the background, that is to say, to the central space of the composition, where the Albanian delegation is placed. It is exactly this painted version that matches the attitude of the Albanian communist leader, Hoxha, expressed at that conference, posing as the savior of communism from the American imperialism and the Soviet socialist revisionism. The symbolism of the light in the paint gets even religious connotation, because apostolic-pastoral features are carried through it It is obvious that the light in the painting is forced a lot, which sometimes seems baroque, because according to the interior arrangement of the “Gorgovskaya Hall” there are no such opportunities for natural lighting as it is seen on the canvas, because of the fact that there are no big windows. Since the portrait of Enver Hoxha was placed at that part, the author was forced to add more light, so in that way the right path that the Albanian leader chose, in his opinion the lighted path, would be symbolized.

Repercussions of the painting “The Moscow Conference” by Guri Madhi began after it was exhibited in November 1974 at the annual exhibition opened at GKA. However, because of the vicissitudes that this painting had experienced, its popularity rises today, not because of its aesthetic values, but because of its historical-documentary significance. The way of modeling the event was set under a powerful stroke of Albanian communist art critics.

Bigger remarks were directed to the way the figure of the Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha, was painted, representing a central figure of the composition. But despite 219

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

that, in the beginning the criticism was not always public or sharp. Even in the media of that time, the painting The Moscow Conference is mentioned completely superficially, which means that the suggestions of the superiors were also moderate. The real truth of reactions is certainly hidden in the original party documents that are still unavailable to the public11.

The author, Guri Madhi, was asked by the commission in charge of the cultural-art life in the country to perform some corrections12, because, according to their opinion, the painting was not finished and it was not proper for such an historic act of importance to Albanian communist party, while it was even less worthy of the figure of Enver Hoxha, who should be given a greater importance.

It was required that the figure of the Albanian communist leader look even more superior, in a figurative and artistic aspect. But as the author of the painting, Guri Madhi did not agree to perform corrections in his work, his colleague, a very successful socrealistic painter, Zef Shoshi13, performed them. The figure of Enver Hoxha is distinguished from the other portrait figures, because in its performance a special touch and a special figurative access is noticed. The figure of the leader seems far more photographic, if not more natural14. Also, it should be noted that the painter, Zef Shoshi, painted his own formal version of “The Moscow Conference” in 1980, where the figure of Mehmet Shehu and the Chinese delegation were cleaned, so aesthetically it looked more pale but politically it looked safer15.

11 Rama, Kristaq, 1975: (92) The famous soc-realistic Albanian sculptor, of the painting Moscow Conference of Guri Madhi, wrote that the combination is realized in a circular shape, with the figure of our leader in the central position, dominating the canvas, is resolved fairly. If in the upper part there is some kind of order and safety, in the lower part the circle closes with a disorganized costume graphic rhythm, disturbed faces and scattered papers. The painter tried to bring that atmosphere in the canvas. If in the lower part of the composition the goal is achieved, in the upper part, especially in the central part, where our delegation is positioned, a more careful and deeper work was required, not only on the aspect of colorful treat, but also in the painting of figures and their psychological condition.

12 Bushati, Andi, 2009: www.tvklan.tv/off_art_emisioni.php, When it was exhibited, the painting was declared unfinished. They required that the portrait of Enver Hoxha be painted in a more detailed way, They wanted photographic similarities of his figure, rather than artistic performance. Their remarks were that the portrait was painted paler than it should have been. As I remember, the face of Hoxha was painted with a yellowish color. At that exhibition the original variant of the painting of Guri Madhi was exhibited.

13 Maliqi, Toni, 2009: http://tonimaliqi.blogspot.com/2009/06lloqe-kavaje.html; In the conversation the painter Zef Shoshi confirmed the same, that the portrait of Enver Hoxha in the painting The Moscow Conference of Guri Madhi is his work.

14 Bushati, Andi, 2009: www.tvklan.tv/off_art_emisioni.php, According to the stories of his son, Pandi Madhi, the author was upset about that correction, and because of his disobedience he was expelled from the communist party. The artist and critic Abaz Hado, in the documentary on TV-Klan of the author Andi Bushati, says “Guri Madhi presented the figure of Enver Hoxha without glorifying it“. A normal and communicative person. But he was asked to present the face of the communist leader in a more militant way and more unrepeatable. The now existing portrait of Enver Hoxha in the composition The Moscow Conference is a work of Zef Shoshi, and the experts of his creation can recognize his way of painting.

15 http://tonimilaqi.blogspot.com/2009/06/lloqe-kavaje.html

220

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

In order for the absurdity to get bigger, it should be remembered that the vicissitudes of this painting do not end with that intrusion, because something similar to that happened in 1978, when Albania had a disagreement with PR China, because in the original composition the portraits of the Chinese delegation were painted, but it was required to erase them from the painting. This time the author accepted and he erased the figures of the Chinese delegation from his painting. The erased figures of the Chinese delegation were replaced with silhouette features outlined, but the original figures can be identified with X-rays.

The composition “The Moscow Conference” survived even a third attempt of its correction, as it was required16 in 1981, after the suicide of Mehmet Shehu, a long-time president of Albanian government, who also was a member of the Albanian delegation, and as the closest associate of Hoxha, had quite a noticeable position in the painting. But, thanks to the astuteness of the author, Guri Madhi, he avoided the worst, hauling himself with the explanation that if he did that, then the composition would lose its balance and it would question even the character of the painting.

Even though, from and aesthetic aspect, the painting does not represent a valuable artistic work, it is considered to be a most symbolical work, not only in the works of Guri Madhi, but also in Albanian soc-realistic art Unsuitability of a painting Another example also presents notable interest, but it varies somehow from the previous ones, which had the same purpose of revising the truth about an important historical event. During Albanian soc-realism, not only were people and artists declared ineligible, but also their artistic works. The act of the declaration of Albania as a republic, exhausted as a painting theme, shows the real political preoccupation, but also the unseen absurdity that is present in soc-realistic fine art in the following years of this communist state. This painting’s composition has its own authentic story because since the first painted version was pulled out from public, the second version was created, which had also experienced content and artistic censorship.

In the first painting: “The Declaration of the Republic” (1974)17 (Shpallja e Republikës) – the painter Fatmir Haxhiu, brings out one of the most significant moments of Albanian communism. Through a harmonized symmetric composition the author succeeded in catching the most exultant moment, when the highest Albanian communist leader leaves the building, where moments ago it was declared a communistic republic. The act occurs in the large square in front of the building where the winners were welcomed by the blissful, jubilant crowd.

According to the position of the composition, because it has been a long time since this happened in 1944, we can understand that it is about a well-studied topic. The composition 16 Veizi, Leonard, 2009: www.tvklan.tv/off_art_emisioni.php; Bushati, Andi, 01.06.2009; http://tonimaliqi.blogspot.com/2009/06/lloqe-kavaje.html: For about 13 years this painting was isolated from the public and was placed at the black fund of artistic works.

17 Galeria e Arteve figurative, 1978; Drishti, Ylli, Varvarica, Suzana: Monogafi

221

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

is quite compressed with grouped figures of people in the table on both sides, while in the center-middle the figure of Enver Hoxha is painted, in a military uniform, accompanied by his associates in the background, also wearing uniforms. In a more studious artistic performance, the solemn atmosphere is carried in a frontal scene position, where the ordinary people dominate: villagers, workers, soldiers, young and old, which with raised flags shout happily, while traditional folk dancers perform the “dance of freedom”.

The canvas as a whole represents a complete soc-realistic performance, which is described in small details, as it is the case with the dance group, which occupies a large space in the composition. Over seventy human figures compressed in the canvas, some of which are wearing older everyday clothes, carry a part of the authentic atmosphere enriched with an emotional colorful extension, expressed in the military uniforms, the traditional costumes which are features of the atmosphere created in those liberation moments.

Very often an impression that all portraits are painted with the same colorful intensity and tonification is created, that at one point the effect and the tonality of the color fades away. Also, we can notice the similar way of the performance of the figures; whether they are inside or outside, in the shadow or in the day light18, it creates more optimistic features, typical of a soc-realistic painting. Because of the successful soc-realistic figurative language, the painting “The Declaration of the Republic” was considered to be most representative, and because of that, the painting was put in the building of The National Parliament of Albania19, in 1981, and was declared as ineligible, and was put in the black fund of the gallery, and instead of it another painting was ordered.

In the last decade of Albanian soc-realism some unexplained political events happened.

Among the most dramatic events, without doubt is the mysterious death of the second man of the communist Albania, Mehmet Shehu20. Since then “The Declaration of the Republic”

by Fatmir Haxhiu was put in the black fund after the “suicide” of Mehmet Shehu, who was attacked as a reactionary and an enemy of the government. As its substitute, the painter Wilson Kilica was asked to paint another version dedicated to this significant event of Albanian communist history. He agreed to paint the canvas “The Declaration of the Republic” (1981)21, which consists of a different and more schematic version of the painting of the same theme. This also represents a big-size composition, where the figures 18 Rama, Kristaq, 1975: (90-91) 19 Mile, Alma, 2010: www.panorama.com.al/index.php 20 Mehmet Shehu (1913-1981) was for many years the Chairman of the Government of Socialist People’s Republic of Albania, at the top of the military apparatus and the notorious Security, who was first considered the closest associate, but later even Enver Hoxha’s rival. Initially, it was said that it was a suicide, but later came out the versions that it was a liquidation with political motifs.

21 Mile, Alma, 2010: www.panorama.com.al/index.php www.panorama.com.al/index.php; Bushati, Andi, 2009: www.tvklan.tv/off_art_emisioni.php; The author Wilson Kilica, confirmed the same thing in our conversation. As he told us, there was an order to replace the work with the same title of Fatmir Haxhiu, which hanged on the walls of the building of Albanian Parliament.

222

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

are grouped in three parts. In the central part, where the main event takes place, is the figure of the communist leader Enver Hoxha, who is wearing an officer’s uniform, leaves the building where the solemn declaration of the Albanian Communistic Republic happened.

This version of the Declaration of the Republic is also a big canvas composition, with a bigger number of figures of uniformed people and civilians in different positions, enriched with dynamics and gesticulations22. The colors are not so bright, the grey and white color dominating. The composition is balanced with three more figural groups, the organization of which is in the function of the main figure, which takes the central part of the painting, that is, the figure of the commandant, Enver Hoxha, wearing an officer’s uniform, escorted by his close associates and the honorary military guard on his left. While, on his right and left side, dominate some people and soldiers in uniforms.

The gestures of the people show that their leader is welcomed as a messiah, where attention is drawn to the reaction of an elderly lady with the way she experiences the appearance of the leader in front of the people, as if he was the savior. Another monumental figurative accomplishment paints the mood of the communist elite shown in the application of the soc-realistic requirements in the post-liberal years in the country.

Conclusion This way of visualization of similar themes shows that the new course of communist political doctrine leads to a bigger spiritual paralysis and peculiar brainwashing of Albanian citizens, which apparently succeeded in that, causing to the Albanian society unforeseeable consequences23 that will be felt for a long time. After that, follows a real terrorization conducted on Albanian artists and intellectuals, for example, the Stalinist method of political purges in the time of the creation of the Soviet federation in the early 1930s. These events present a huge step back for the entire Albanian art, especially fine art.

Now, from this perspective, after 20 years, when the Albanian socialist realism is out of figurative methodology, the question is often brought up about whether this figurative expression represented the reality as it was proclaimed by that same art doctrine!? After all, today it is considered to be a quantitative aesthetic product and with the examples presented in this work, one thing is certain: that the Albanian socialist realism, in its forty years of existence is shown as being most dogmatic and most orthodox, but also as more provincial than the rest of the soc-realistic art in the neighboring countries, such as Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.

22 www.panorama.com.al/index.php?id=28035; Alma Mile, Kilica: Enver Hoxha ka pozuar n[ studion e Mios, 08, maj, 2010; www.tvklan.tv/off_art_emisioni.php, Zone e ndaluar , Andi Bushati, Imazhet e pambledhura te Moskes, 01. 06. 2009 23 The author Wilson Kilica, confirmed the same thing in our conversation. As he told us, it was made as an order to replace the work with the same title of Fatmir Haxhiu, that hanged in the walls of the building of Albanian Parliament.

223

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

In this way, it can be concluded that if the socialist society conceived by Marx, experimented with by Lenin, implemented by Stalin, for the needs of the Marxist-Leninist ideology, among other things, also invented the socialist realism, their ideas, and with that method, Enver Hoxha, the most faithful ideological successor, finished them off, whose managerial philosophy not only brought Albanian art to aesthetic sterility, but also intended to change it, even to forge the historical truth of the NLW (National Liberation War) in Albania.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

Artet figurative shqiptare, 1978: Piktura, Galeria e Arteve figurative, Tiranë, Çika, Leon, Drishti, Ylli: 2005: (35) Mjeshtrit shqiptar në Akademitë Italiane, Tiranë Drishti, Ylli. Suzana Varvarica. Monografi me artistët shqiptarë të shekullit XX (Postcurriculum), Galeria Kombëtare e Arteve, Tiranë Elsie, Robert : 2001: (373-374) Historia e letërsisë shqiptare, Pejë Kuqali, Andon: 1988, Historia e artit shqiptar 2, Tiranë Rama, Kristaq: 1975: (90 – 91), Piktura e ndritshme e bukur shqiptare, Nëntori 6, Tiranë Старова, Луан: 1993/4, Социјалистичкиот реализам и балканските литератури, Скопје http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_Soviet_Union:, decembar, 2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality, mart, 2010 http://tonimilaqi.blogspot.com/2009/06/lloqe-kavaje.html, aprill, 2010 Klan, Revista Telegraf, Pse refuzoi Guri Madhi, të hiqte Mehmetin nga tabloja; 09 October, 2009, 04:27:00 Leonard VEIZI; www.tvklan.tv/off_art_emisioni.php 13. www.panorama.com.al/index.php?id=28035; Alma Mile, Kilica: Enver Hoxha ka pozuar në studion e Mios, 08, maj, 2010 14. www.tvklan.tv/off_art_emisioni.php, Zone e ndaluar, Andi Bushati, Imazhet e pa mbledhura te Moskës, 01. 06. 2009

mixhait_p@yahoo.com

224

225

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës UDC 316.75

Aleksandra Đurić Bosnić

The Institute for Culture of Vojvodina, Novi Sad Serbia

The Ideological Speech of Culture: Circulus Vitiosus Summary: The paper will investigate the aspects of the interdependence of ideology and culture based on philosophical (Mannheim, Althusser) and culturological (Geertz) insights. The ideological potential of culture, irrespective of its foretoken or qualifications, will be investigated as well as the nature of its formative capabilities in socio-psychological context. The hypothesis is that ideologicalized culture, which can be understood as a consequence, or in fact, both the outcome and the source of the re-created ideology or an ideology perpetually created from the start: symbolic forms as a sequence of “plausible images” are, therefore, those that enable mental comprehension or a perception of ideological constructs through the senses. If the ideological constructs are specific intellectual maps or landmarks, holders of certain attitudes to the world which at some point inevitably become an instruction for a concrete social activity, then the question of the postulates of values on which those constructs are based, may be among the primary ontologically distinctive questions of ideologies, as well as their practical emanations.

Key words: culture, ideology, ideologized culture, ideological constructs, state ideological apparatus, symbolic forms, criteria of truth, closed society.

There is a permanent, almost causal conditioning and interdependence between a closed society, closed culture and an ideology compatible with it. The ideological framework of a group, a social system, or a state is never just passively compatible with the culture that it promotes and develops. Their relation implies a double formative and active relation, first the relation of the ideology to culture and then reciprocally, the relation of the culture to the ideology. If it is the ideology that forms a culture convenient and efficient for itself, then it is the culture formed in that manner that is also responsible for the promotion, creation and sustaining of the ideological framework within which it was created. The ideological expression of the culture in this respect is a specific vicious circle: the existence of a particular ideological

226

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

framework owes its duration to the related cultural model which in turn, owes its own creation and unhampered development to this ideological framework. Current political and sociological theories deal with the “elusiveness” and the impossibility of the semantic determination of the term “ideology”. Following Antoine Destutt de Tracy’s definition of ideology as a “science of ideas” in 1796, ideology became a key term in Marx’s German ideology (1846/1970) with characteristic determinants which point to the essence of the term: ideology is ontologically intrinsic to illusion and mystification, its origin points to the system of classes as a reflection of interests and Weltanschaung of the ruling class, and finally, the function of ideology is the manifestation of the ruling power. The Marxist definition also includes the dimension of the “spiritual” effect of ideology: “The thoughts of the ruling class in each epoch are the ruling thoughts, i.e. the class which represents the ruling material power of the society is also its ruling spiritual power.” (Marx, Engels, 1974, 43, VI) One of the most impressive theoretical contributions to defining the concept of ideology was given by Karl Mannheim in “Ideology and Utopia”. In the most general sense, Mannheim defines ideology as a manner, structure and content of thinking which is socially conditioned and inseparable from the primary collective life experiences, aspirations and activities of social groups and as such, the thinking which is the holder of the collective Weltanschaung.

(Manhajm, 1978). According to Mannheim, the main goal of thought is the knowledge of reality which, in its ideal version, should be as comprehensive and encompassing as possible, and it should correspond to reality: “A thought must not have less or more content than the reality in which it stands.” (Manhajm, 1978, 96) A thought which is true enables orientation and adjustment within the limits of reality. Opposed to the thought which is true lies false awareness, which comprises ideas disabling existential orientation and its conceptual and categorical framework cannot be used by an individual for the adjustment to social circumstances. (Milić, 1978) If the main criterion of truth is its most adequate reflection of reality, then both ideology and utopia are two forms of distorted thought separate from the potential of truth, since they always contain more than the existing by way of transcending it. The common trait of ideology and utopia is the very possibility of the false awareness. Mannheim makes the difference between two separate forms of ideology: particular ideologies that represent ideas, systems of values and beliefs of individuals, groups or parties as opposed to total ideology which encompasses the entire Weltanschaung of a historic period, society and social class. The crucial thesis of Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge, which explains that it is impossible to understand the ways of thinking if its social origin is obscure, leads to several premises, which could be indicative for the investigation of the interdependence of culture and ideology: a) people think within particular groups, b) groups have a developed specific style of thinking, and c) the style of the thinking of the group is always a reaction to a typical situation which characterizes the position of the group. These premises show the dual determination of the individual: on the one hand, he arrives to a situation which is already formed, and on the other hand, within the found situational framework, he also finds the models of thinking and behaving which are already formed. In this respect, the question of the connection between 227

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

the existential states previous to the formation of a certain ideological code and their interpretation is one of the crucial questions for the understanding of the origin of an ideological doctrine. Namely, the question is, in what way certain socially structured states condition certain ways of the interpretations of existence, which are later to condition a certain type of socio-culturological reactions... According to Mannheim, human thinking is not constituted freely “floating in a space free of society”, but rather, it is the opposite, i.e. “always rooted in a certain place within the space”. (Manhajm, 1978, 80) However, among the norms of a social context, as well as among its immanent ways of thinking as orientation schemes (space/time), it is possible to differentiate true and false, real and deceptive concepts and beliefs. The concept of false awareness is explained by Mannheim in various contexts: “In the ethical sense, awareness is false when a wrong action is forced by wrong moral imperatives; in psychological sense, awareness is wrong when, through the established sense (of the world and existence) it is concealing, obstructing and preventing a new “spiritual” reaction and a new attitude of the individual; in theoretical sense it is false when it is offering obsolete and false norms and when it is “thinking” in categories which are impossible to use in order to manage within the existential framework. Therefore, in this contest, false ideological awareness could be defined as the awareness whose “way of orientation has not reached new reality, so that it is concealing the reality with obsolete categories”. (Manhajm, 1978, 95) In order to master a historical existential situation, it is necessary that the process is simultaneous with a certain kind of thinking: the thinking which, according to Mannheim, moves towards the current issues and which is capable of knowing the essence of the existing. The ideological practice which opposes this power to know the essence of the existing, according to Mannheim, is fascism. In the context of the fascist ideological code, politics is stripped off the element of knowing and is focused on one single function, i.e. to pave the way for action in two ways: at first by destroying “all those who are below”, all the referential points which make history experienced as a process and, by “paying attention to the soul of the masses”, particularly to their will to power and their instincts whose functioning it closely follows: “This psyche of the masses is completely subjected to the laws which are to a great extent timeless, because it was separated from history while the “historicity” of social psyche can be noticed only there where the socially and historically engaged man is taken into account”. (Manhajm, 1978, 137) A social and historical disengagement initiated and maintained by the action of false awareness is the basis of ideological manipulations. Mannheim notices that the basic ideas of such political and ideological manipulation are to be found as early as in Machiavelli: the “elan” of the great leader, the “realism” which demystifies”, the techniques of socio-psychological propaganda which he uses in order to “rule over the soul of the masses”, which he profoundly despises, as well as the tendency towards disintegration of the historical plan coupled with the theory of the necessity of immediate action. In the process of transformation of modern societies, in which open crises break out, and in which, according to Mannheim’s formulation, the path of evolution occasionally fails, and the individual has lost his orientation of identity, it is easy for “creations of the moment” to occur, as well as for the mass to form and for the possibility of dictatorship to be imposed. In 228

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

such “eruptive moments” the social context inevitably has a profound layer of the irrational, which in its essence is a-historical and rationally incomprehensible. This a-historical sphere is a sphere of “straying vital instincts”, which, although essentially incomprehensible, is open to manipulation with certain techniques. It is most frequently added to the super-historical and spiritual: “That which is not rationalized forms an alliance here with that which in our mind and spiritual life cannot be brought down to historical categories. But it is this point that offers the view to the sphere which, at least up to now, has been completely a-historical. It is the sphere of totally insidious vital instincts which, in their eternal equality, lie as a foundation under each historic event which we cannot understand, but which we can externally control with an adequate technique.” (Manhajm, 1978, 141) Between the two extremes of the a-historical and super-historical, there is the comprehensible, structured and formed artistically or in some other way. In his effort to demystify the attractiveness of the fascist-activist experience and strategy, Mannheim realizes that its secret is to be found in the fact that here the entire sphere of thinking is manifested as a play of illusions and is reduced to a paradox: although it is capable to use “myths” to animate the masses, this kind of political thought is incapable of giving scientific explanation of the political field or future: On the contrary, it is a wonder that man, in the bright light of the irrational, occasionally manages to gather empirical facts necessary to master the everyday life”. (Manhajm, 1978, 142) Mannheim’s distinction between ideology and utopia is indicative for this investigation, in the context of the problem of the mastering of “the present” and of “thinking as the play of illusion” as well as of certain techniques which are efficient. For Mannheim, the utopian awareness is the one which transcends reality and is not congruent with the “being” which surrounds that awareness, which turns into action, partially or completely destroying the current existential order. There are, therefore, two large groups of ideas which transcend existence. One is a group of ideologies and the other is a group of utopias. While ideologies are ideas that transcend existence but without realizing their content (exhausting themselves at the motivational level), utopias are ideas which, by transcending existence, alter the current historical reality using counter-action in the direction of their own design. As a criterion for differentiating ideologies from utopias, Mannheim suggests the category of realization: “Ideas which later turned out to have the task of obscuring by hovering above some past or potential social order, were ideologies; while those which were adequately realized in the succeeding social order were relative utopias”. (Manhajm, 1978, 202) However, it is often possible in practice that something, which in one period was impossible to realize, becomes reality in another.

This happens due to the fact that labelling certain contents as utopias is usually done by the representatives of the previous order or system. In other words, the dismantling, or “exposing” of ideologies as deceptions “incongruent with reality” as a rule, comes from the representatives of the system, order or the social reality which has just begun. Therefore, the concept of utopia is always determined by the ruling class, which is always compatible in values with the current order of existence. The concept of ideology, on the other hand, is always determined by the “oncoming class” as the class which is opposed to the current existential order. In the 229

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

historical sequence, but also in a concept of time and reality, utopian and ideological elements are not separated nor completely opposed to each other. Mannheim maintains that the utopias of the classes on the rise are often, and to a great extent, mixed with ideological elements.

In order to study the degree of mutual influences, conditioning or joint action of ideology and utopia, and to precisely determine the meaning of the term “the expression of culture”, the distinctive theory of ideologies and utopias points out to the discourse on “the principles of representation”, as well as to the question of the “means” of activity which have the potential to convert ideology into utopia by realization. Actually, Mannheim realized that “imagination dissatisfied by the given reality”, objectivised in myths, humanistic phantasies in adventure novels, had a tendency to construct “opposing utopias”, which destroyed the realized existence. (Manhajm, 1978, 203) The projections of human aspirations are affected by formative principles which are possible to articulate. Sometimes the projections are about time, (in which case Mannheim defines them as chiliasms) and sometimes they are about space (in which case they are defined as utopias). In this context, utopias are all transcendental concepts that have the potential of becoming realized and which are, therefore, capable of altering a certain socio-historical context. However, according to Mannheim, it is not always the same “forces”, “substances” and “concepts” in the human mind that take over the active utopian function as a function which by alteration destroys the current order: “The given existence in each case is destroyed by various existential-transcendental factors.” (Manhajm, 1978, 204) Each one of these alterations occurring during the formation is connected to certain sociohistorical circumstances and certain social classes as potential subjects, although quite frequently the main utopia appears as a phantasm of a “solitary individual” only to be absorbed in the political will of the wider masses later. Mannheim defines such cases as the “forerunners” which are characterized by the “pioneers’ effort”. This effort (at the beginning of the utopia) of a solitary forerunner points to the principle of formation which the inspired leader first used as a source for his ideas, which were later efficient, as socially rooted, also in the case of volition impulses of his followers. Although it is the “charismatic mind” of the individual where the new comes to existence, the starting point of the transformation is always found in the existing and most often as its opposition. The new, active effort of the charismatic individual will become a general stream only in the cases of the connection of the individual to the general stream which has been tuned to suit the “tendencies of the collective will”: “If, therefore, initially, only an apparently solitary individual forms a utopia of some class, then the utopia can rightly be attributed to the class whose collective impulses were harmonious with the achievement of the individual”. (Manhajm, 1978, 205) The problem between the initiation (by the charismatic leader) – adoption (by the collective) of the utopia extends its existing definition. Namely, for Mannheim an effective utopia is, as an individual awareness, capable of formulating already existing tendencies in the social space so that, formed compatibly, it returns into the awareness of social classes where it transforms into action. The gradual activation of social classes towards transformational action in its basis is always realized with connection to various forms of utopia: “The transformation of a modern utopia is a sociological 230

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

topic only because there is a narrow correlation between various kinds of utopia and the classes that are transforming existence”. (Manhajm, 1978, 205) The views of Louis Althusser are close to the concept of the ideological modelling of existence and subjectivity in “Ideology and State Ideological Apparatuses”. The ideology is here understood as a means by which social classes create, maintain and renew the vital conditions of their existence, while the subjectivity is gained with the very mediating of the “ideological interpellations” i.e. specific “summoning” or the inevitable labelling and positioning within the prevailing ideological discourse...

Starting from Marx’s theory of the state (and remaining in its constitutional framework), Althusser adds the explication of the new ideological reality to the existing dichotomy which establishes the difference between the power of the state and state apparatus naming them state ideological apparatuses. (Altiser, 2009) State ideological apparatuses differ from state repressive apparatuses in the Marxist theory. While the latter included the government, administration, army, police, legal system, prisons etc., state ideological apparatuses comprise realities which can be seen in the forms of determined and specialized institutions. The difference is also made by numerous state ideological apparatuses (compared to the uniqueness and singularity of the state repressive apparatus) as well as the fact that their major part in its “evident dispersion” is part of a private sphere rather than a completely public one, as is the case of state repressive apparatus. According to Althusser, there is a religious apparatus (clerical system), educational (the system of state and private schools), family, legal, political (system of political parties), trade union, information (system of the media), and cultural (system of art, science etc.). Although each state apparatus, repressive or ideological, functions simultaneously through violence and ideology, state (repression) apparatuses, according to Althusser’s knowledge, function mainly through repression (including physical violence). State ideological apparatuses, on the other hand, function mainly through ideology and only as a secondary means there is repression used “in a mitigated way”, secretly and symbolically: “(there is no pure ideological apparatus). Thus schools and churches use adequate punishment to discipline not only the shepherds but their flocks as well. The same is true of the DIA cultures (censorship, among other things), etc.” (Altiser, 2009, 31) Ideologized social reality is inevitably interwoven with a web of more or less explicit or implicit combinations: the plays of repressive and ideological state apparatus. This play is even more complex if, in their essence, the ideological apparatuses are more diverse. However, it is the ideology of the ruling class that enables the characteristic mutual ideological trademark. This ideology is always dominant and prevailing as it possesses the power of the state through the state repressive apparatus.

Particularly important for these investigations appears Althusser’s claim that the ruling class (or political option) is also active in the state ideological apparatus, “as long as the ruling ideology is realized in the state ideological apparatus in its own contradictions”. (Altiser, 2009, 32) That is, in order to contribute to the definition of ideology and state ideological apparatus, Althusser explains that none of the classes (or political options) can manifest or realize state power over a longer period of time if they do not simultaneously realize the hegemony over and through the state ideological apparatus. In this context, state ideological apparatuses tran231

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

scend the function of the cause of class (or political) struggle becoming an arena of severe class (political) conflicts in the struggle for power. However, for the ruling class or political option it is much easier and more efficient to rule in the state repressive apparatuses than in the state ideological apparatuses, because the latter are complex and “contradictory” and may be a source of resistance and attempts at ideological transformation.

Therefore, some of the characteristics of state ideological apparatuses which also determine their function are their number, diversity, relative autonomy and appropriateness for becoming a field for the expression of contradictions. Similarly, the very unity of state ideological apparatuses is possible through the action of the ruling class but in contradictory forms.

Here is another role, in this case a crucially important one, to be found in the mediating of the ruling ideology with which it secures the “harmony” (for which Althusser says that it is sometimes questionable) between state repressive apparatuses and state ideological apparatuses, but also among various state ideologies. Although he finds that all state ideological apparatuses produce the same result, Althusser claims the educational ideological apparatus of schools to be the dominant state ideological apparatus in capitalist societies: “It (school) takes children from all walks of life at a very early age, and then over many years by old and new methods, at the age when the children are the most “vulnerable”, confined between the state apparatus of the family and the state apparatus of the school, it imprints the “skills” wrapped in the ruling ideology (French, Arithmetics, Science, Literature) or simply the crude undiluted ideology (Morality, Citizen Education, Philosophy).” (Altiser, 2009, 43) Nevertheless, each state ideological apparatus contributes to the “result” in its own way: politically – through the straightforward compliance of the individual with the political state ideology (to the indirect, that is, parliamentary, direct or fascist and democratic ideological practice). Through information/media and culturally by “spamming” citizens with “daily dozes of nationalism, chauvinism, liberalism, moralism” or some other “ism” adapted to the dogmatic code of the ruling ideology and through the media (press, radio, television) and cultural and artistic production.

(Altiser, 2009) It is in the effort to analyze the relations and interdependence in the triad of state-ideology-culture, and in the investigation of the hypotheses about the establishing, reproducing and maintaining of the ideological expression of culture in the function of the establishment and conservation of the ruling state or social order (or the one in the process of establishing) that Althusser’s definition of ideology, as a concept of an imaginary relation of the individual towards their relative conditions of existence, seems sufficiently complex and indicative. On the one hand, it points to the imaginary nature of the ideological construct i.e. a specific construction as an attitude to the world which does not correspond to reality or does not correspond to it although its perception relies on it. Althusser calls such ideological types of interpretations “imaginary deformities” of the real world... “people” do not present concepts of their real conditions of existence to themselves, their real world in the ideology, but primarily, their attitude towards those conditions of existence which is presented for them there. It is that relation that contains the “cause” which explains the imaginary deformity of the ideological concept of the real world as well.” (Altiser, 2009, 56) 232

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

If that which is presented as ideology is not a system of real relationships which conditions and directs the existence of individuals, and if it is always an imaginary and therefore, interpretative relation of individuals to real relationships of existing, then Althusser is right to pose the crucial question of his theory: “Why is the concept which is given to individuals in their (individual) relation to social relationships, which rule their conditions of existence and their collective and individual lives, inevitably an imaginary relation? And what kind of imaginary nature is that?” (Altiser, 2009, 57) The answer to that question is suggested in the fact that the ideas or concepts forming the ideology are materially existent for the very reason that the imperative of realization is inherent in the nature of ideology: according to Althusser, the ideology is always existing in state ideological apparatuses and their practice. The form of practice of ideological constructs leads Althusser to another question important for the investigation of the problem in the context of ideology-reality-individual. Namely, what does really happen to the individuals who are ideologized and exist as such in the imaginary deformed concept of the world, which is in turn, conditioned by their imaginary relation to the given conditions of existence? The answer to this is related to the conditio sine qua non of every ideological aspiration, i.e. the alteration of the awareness of the individual. The ideological framework of concepts itself contains certain practical attitudes, which the individual adopts when participating in the ideologically determined and established practices, which are always the practices of the adequate ideological apparatus. However, the choice made by the individual within the offered ideological arsenal is, paradoxically, “conscious” and “free”.

Within the dominant ideological code, the individual makes his decision “freely” as to which ideological variety (which is always adapted to its natural contradictions) or which combination of varieties he will choose. This paradox of the ideology, which is false in its essence, is based on the assumption that every subject has awareness, that he believes in the ideas which the awareness arouses in him and that he inevitably acts according to the ideas selected in this way. The final outcome of this mechanism is that the “free” subject necessarily follows the imperative of transforming his “own” ideas into action of his material practice because “if he does not, it is not good”. (Altiser, 2009, 60) To the extent to which practice depends on ideology, ideology depends on the subject, that is, ideology constitutes subjects. In the basis of this constituting, as well as in the basis of ideology itself, Althusser finds two primary functions – recognizing or not recognizing as differentiating between “truth” and “error”. In this way, ideology interpellates, summons, i.e. labels concrete individuals as concrete individuals1: “We will find that ideology “acts” or “functions” by recruiting subjects among individuals (it recruits them all) by the very operation that we called interpellation and which can be visualized as a common daily police cry: “Hey, you over there!” (Altiser, 2009, 69) Interpellation, according to Althusser, is inseparable from the ideological mechanism of recognition: 1 For Althusser considers interpellataion as a term that deals with ideological recognition or summoning: interpellation, as a daily practice and a precise ritual takes a very “special“ form in police practice of “summoning“ which considers the interpellation of “the suspected“ (Altiser, 2009, 69)

233

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

“Supposing that the imaginary theoretical scene is acted out in the street, the individual that has been summoned in that way will turn around. By making this simple 180 degrees turn he becomes a subject. Why? Because he recognized that the call was “actually” directed at him and that it was “him who was summoned” (not somebody else). (Altiser, 2009, 69) Althusser’s phenomenological adventure in the field of the demystifying the conceptual definition of ideology, as well as its mechanisms, is indicative in many ways. Firstly, it is indicative as a distinctive explication of state and ideological apparatuses (among which, within the context of this investigation, systems of education, often in the symbiosis with culture, could be found as equally dominant). Secondly, in the detailed diagnosis, it is indicative of the two crucial principles for the establishing and sustaining of ideologies: the effect on the subject and his submission by way of “recognition”. Thus the effect of the submission of the subject expresses itself as the primary motive and the ultimate end of any ideological indoctrination. In this respect, according to Althusser, the imperative of ideology would be for the subjects to “act on their own accord” ceasing to be free subjects determined by the activation of initiative and by accepting of the responsibility for the acts performed, simultaneously becoming subjected to a higher authority, devoid of any freedom which is not the freedom of the acceptance of the necessity of submission. The ideological recognition always implies interaction and mutuality: the recognition of the subject and authority, mutual recognition of subjects, and, finally, the recognition of self by the subject as “the summoned” and thus, paradoxically, free and relieved of responsibility as relieved of the possibility to choose: “The individual is interpellated as a (free) subject so that he could devote himself freely to the orders of the Subject, i.e. so that he could accept (freely) his submission, i.e. so that he could himself perform all the motions and acts of his submission. Subjects do not exist if not through or for their submission. That is why they “act on their own accord”. (Altiser, 2009, 80) This acting “on his/their own accord” is most conspicuous and most evident in the ideological expression of culture. The most complex, and apparently, the most sophisticated (as they are the most implicit) summoning in it, most frequently in the form of fiction (artistic production), but also in the form of re-interpretation of reality (media, science, institutions), is done by providing the illusion of freedom.

Linking cognitive and expressive systems of symbols as extrapersonal mechanisms of the perception of understanding and reasoning in the world, but also as the means of manipulation with the ideological expression of culture, Clifford Geertz concludes that religious, philosophic, aesthetic, scientific and ideological-cultural forms offer a template i.e. a detailed scheme for the organization of social and psychological processes. (Gerc, 1998) If we accept Geertz’s thesis, according to which the forms of human behaviour are ruled predominantly by cultural and then by genetic templates (which are only a psychological context within which realisation and social activity take place), we also accept the assumption according to which symbolic forms and symbolic models formed by the individual are, in fact, the key constituents of his existence. In this respect, the ideological potential of culture, independent of its qualifying foretokens or other qualifications, appears as unambiguously formative in sociopsychological context. Thus, that which could be understood as a consequence, such as an 234

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

ideologized culture, is in fact, both the outcome and the source of a re-created ideology or an ideology which is perpetually created again from the start. Symbolic forms as a sequence of “persuasive images” are, therefore, those forms that enable the mental comprehension or sensory perception of ideological constructs: “Where the area is emotionally or topographically unknown, we need poems, namely road maps”. (Gerc, 1998, 301) If the establishing of a new ideological template of culture is preceded by the sense of collective uncertainty, tension, and loss of orientation signifying the incapability of perceiving the social context, due to the deficiency of the existing models, then it is clear that it is the new ideological and cultural constructs that eliminate the existing “conceptual confusion” and by which the weakened images of the preceding socio-political order is substituted. This is why the style of ideological expression of culture is inevitably vivid, tendentious and suggestive, always engaged in agitation and motivation: “Ideology labels the structure of situation by treating them with dedication. Its style is flamboyant, vivid, and deliberately suggestive: by objectivising the moral sense with the very means which are avoided by science, it intends to motivate action”. (Gerc, 1998, 318) Following our intention to single out some key points in the theoretical research of ideologies, Heywood’s attempt at a specific synthetic definition which determines ideology as a predominantly a display of the current order and its immanent attitude to the world, secondly, it is a vision of a desired social model as the projection of the future, and finally, it is a concrete instruction how to achieve the desired order starting from the existing one, we find a new, not quite thoroughly investigated field of values which are immanent to concrete ideological practices. Therefore, if ideological constructs are specific intellectual maps and landmarks, bearers of certain “attitudes to the world”, which at some moment inevitably become instructions for concrete action (with a clear goal to create a new, projected “attitude to the world”) then the question of the postulates of value on which such ideological constructs are based could be one of the primary ontologically distinctive questions of the ideology both as a term and its practical emanation. Thus the criterion of truthfulness as an affirmation of accepted and desirable social values of a civilization (ethical, pluralistic, tolerant, open, solidary, non-violent, intercultural) would be a criterion which enables evaluation and facilitates an analytical approach to certain ideological systems, as well. Such an approach prevents any offhand labelling of certain ideological practices, any biased or additional ideologizing of the ideology caused by a-theoretical intentions of potentially biased interpreters. If, after such a determination of the concept of ideology we accept as a fact the theoretical view that ideology has “a powerful emotional or affective character”, that consequently, it is always a powerful “means for the expressing of hopes and fears, friendliness and animosity, as well as of articulating beliefs and understanding”, (Hejvud, 2005), then we can see more clearly the possibilities, the legitimacy, but also the need (with a distinguished goal of a social and cultural diagnosis and prevention) for the differentiating between the ideological frameworks of closed and open societies and the closed and open systems of culture harmonized with them. In this respect, it is impossible and theoretically inadequate to evaluate some ideological practices as neutral and “neither good nor bad” per se. It is particularly true for the practices 235

ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

whose results and practical emanations have their clear historic foundation through realization: communism, socialism, liberalism, conservativism, fascism, nationalism. The problem of “presenting” of the existing projected order, in turn, points to the problem of the postulates of value underlying an ideological framework, which would, desirably, be rational, consistent and founded on facts, which most frequently is not possible because of the very nature of the ideological awareness, which is prone to modelling according to its own interests. It is clear that the ideological interpretations of confronted ideological constructs are always rational and stigmatizing and derogatory at the same time. Thus, for instance, for the conservatives, ideology is a manifestation of the arrogance of rationalism, it is unattainable and as such, tied to socialism and liberalism. For the liberals, immanent to ideology is repression and totalitarism, and its main exponents are communism and fascism. As opposed to this, for the fascists, ideology is a form which is too systematic, constricted, void of passion and insufficient so that it is substituted by the omni-permeating and super dominating Weltanschaung as a vitalistic and comprehensive approach to the world. Some of the most reliable criteria of the value orientation of ideology could be related to the type of both collective and individual identity which it promotes, as well as to their mutual relation emanated in the balance of the ethics of the private in relation to the ethics of the collective, in respect to the human rights and their violation, as well as to the attitude towards the centres of power and authority. Closed societies, in principle, and regardless of their ideological attitudes, which can appear to include extreme divergent theoretical paradigms and practices (e.g. communism, ethno-nationalism or fascism), have particularly repressive ideologies with clearly inverted systems of values: the ethics of “the goal which justifies the means”, of non-pluralist tendencies which promote the model of isolation from the world, uniformity and the forcibly imposed superiority of the collective, “blind loyalty or submission to the centres of power and authority, encouragement of intolerance, conflicts and, most often, militaristic tendencies. In such societies, the cultural systems become one of the primary modulators, transmitters and promoters of the adequate ideological framework, being its own creation, manifestation and materialization.

Literature: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Manhajm, Karl, Ideologija i utopija, Nolit, Beograd, 1978 Altiser, Luj, Ideologija i ideološki državni aparati, Karpos, Loznica, 2009 Adorno, Teodor, Žargon autentičnosti, Nolit, Beograd, 1978 Karl Manhajm 1893-1947 (ed. Dušan Marinković), Vojvođanska sociološka asocijacija and Mediterran publishing, Novi Sad, 2010 Marks K., Engels F., Dela, Prosveta, Beograd, 1974 Apaduraj Ardžun, „Kultura i globalizacija”, Biblioteka XX vek, Beograd, 2011 Gerc, Kliford, Tumačenje kultura (I), Biblioteka XX vek, Beograd, 1998 Hejvud, Endru, Političke ideologije, Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva, Beograd, 2005

sasabosnicdjuric@gmail.com 236

237

pêrspëctîvés

238

239

f o t o

K a t h e r i n e

S q u i e r

k a t h e r i n e s q u i e r @ s b c g l o b a l . n e t s t r a n a :

2 3 6 ,

2 3 7 ,

2 3 9 ,

2 4 0 ,

2 4 1 ,

2 5 1 ,

2 5 5 ,

2 6 3

240

241

242

243

pêrspëctîvés UDC 1(091)

Nenad Daković, Belgrade, Serbia

On the Historic Task of Philosophy I have been thinking whether to put the word “knowledge” in quotation marks. I have not, because it actually has no alternative in the way an essay does.

It is not difficult to write an essay, or perhaps it is. But it is rather difficult to write in the genre which was established, I believe, by Bora Ćosić, and whose name, or title is – “instead of an essay”. I am not sure that Bora Ćosić continued to exploit this genre, which is based on an endless substitution of essays, which is the form, or the language, of reality itself – all I know is that I have read Ćosić’s “instead of an essay” in The Helsinki Charter, in which I have been writing columns for decades, and consequently gave my column the same title, and it has remained so for a number of years.

As far as I remember, in this “instead of an essay” Ćosić himself lets life take precedence over the essay or maybe literature itself, so this substitute for an essay, and life itself, had a clear message that life is not only more important than the essay but also the only thing that matters, even if it is a single episode or affliction in life, which has been described, under this title, or in this genre, by Bora Ćosić. And what about the great and dramatic events in life which no essay, even with the awareness of one’s impotence, is able to depict?

I used the word “event”, as this is a philosophical essay and my intention is to say something, as is becoming at the beginning of an endeavour of this kind, about the relationship between philosophy and life itself, as if it were the genre whose title right now could be “instead of philosophy”. And we shall take the example

of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s philosophy or two styles of philosophizing, possibly the most influential in the 20th century, because of the fate of these philosophies and their numerous followers, one can perhaps see the historic task which awaits philosophy, or our still postmodern era, if that still is the “historic task” philosophy would have in our age. Anyway, when I speak about the so-called postmodern era, then we are talking about a “postmodern state” or the causality of time, rather than a clearly delineated philosophy, knowledge or style of philosophizing which is a characteristic of our age.

Here we will discuss the relationship between Husserl’s and Heidegger’s philosophy, of course, in the clearest and most popular way possible (to use the common phrase) and as it is expected from a philosophical author who dared to write about philosophy in a weekly, whose correspondent he has been for decades, albeit in the field of theoretical criticism, since the term “philosophy” itself has become debatable today, just like the task of philosophy itself in our day.

This can only mean that, besides the essay, philosophy today, too, has found itself in the position where it retreats before the challenges of life or survival, which our colleague, Mile Savić rightly called “challenges of the marginal” in his book, or the dangers and temptations of survival and existence.

Has philosophy today become free of this arrogant self-importance or “idealness”, which is the term Časlav Koprivica used in his book on Heidegger, Being and Fate, writing that the term “event” (Ereignis) in Heidegger, is 244

pêrspëctîvés

actually, a substitute for the most important ontological problem of foundation which Heidegger, coming after Edmund Husserl, was trying to solve, going further than Husserl, in this idealness or normativity.

Because, the problem with philosophy is, I believe, exactly in the fact that it cannot go on without this idealness, or rather, normativity. In other words, “event” is so contingent, despite its presumed philosophical normativity that it is not able to establish the “knowledge” which would be necessary, and therefore earn the dignity which undoubtedly scientific knowledge has today. Generally, and according to Lyotard, whose essay “The Postmodern State” started the philosophical postmodernism, this domination of science is the basic characteristic of the postmodern age. Philosophy is today in the shadow of science, if not even the ancilla of science, as was once said of the relationship between philosophy and theology.

Husserl was trying to solve this basic phenomenological problem of the relationship between contingency and necessity, science and philosophy, if that was a solution, by the so-called phenomenological reduction, that is “putting the world (“the world of life) in brackets” and “hypothesis about philosophical knowledge”, which is the philosophically necessary “knowledge”, independent even of the fact whether the world and the sciences which describe it really exist or not. It was a project which was faced with or was hit by a crisis when Husserl tried to solve the problem of the relationship of this hypostasized knowledge and the world of life and history because the transition to, or the link with the world after the phenomenological reduction was not possible, but at the same time “all philosophical stances have become possible” and “the dream of philosophy as a strict science has been dreamed”, as Husserl admitted resignedly. This is nowadays, I believe, a post-philosophical situation in which philosophy has lost a clear historic task of poetry.

This can be seen in the example of Heidegger, who, while trying to solve this epoch’s problem of the 245

relationship between philosophy and science, wrote that “science does not think”. However, this pathetic statement did not solve the problem. Not renouncing the necessity of philosophical knowledge, which was an unreachable ideal even for Husserl, Heidegger found himself in an impossible poetry that, solving the problem of phenomenological reduction and phenomenological renunciation of the Contingent, Historic and Factual, through the so-called “existential analysis” in the new philosophical terminology (Dasein and Ereignis – “being-here”, or “the being of being” and “event”) hypostasizes man’s existence itself into the “necessary” philosophical knowledge, attempting to regain the dignity of the historic task of philosophy.

I think that this project has failed because the “difference” between the factual and philosophical existence itself, anyway, as in the case of phenomenology, was a problematic basis of the project itself, which has thus lost its foundations. Heidegger’s metaphor about “event” has thus become a poetic and mystical milestone of this historic failure of the contemporary philosophy to solve the problem of its foundations and thus respond to “the urgent requirement of the time”.

“After Heidegger”, writes Agamben, “it has become clear that the possibility of a significant turning point in historic existence has vanished and that templ(at)es, pictures and customs are no longer capable of taking over the historic calling in order to force people to undertake a new historic task. Traditional historic potentials – poetry, religion and philosophy – have lost all of their political efficiency and have been transformed into cultural spectacles and private experiences. In the name of economy’s triumph, historic tasks have been dropped, or rather, reduced to simple functions of national or international politics.

Natural life, managing one’s physiology, taking on the burden and total management of biological life, that is, the animality of the man itself, seems to be now the last serious historic task and the only remaining (non)political mandate of people”.

pêrspëctîvés UDC 33:929 Sombart W.

Dušan Marinković

University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Sociology, Serbia

Werner Sombart and the spirit of capitalism Werner Sombart’s book Luxury and Capitalism is considered with good reasons as an exceptional contribution to sociological and economic theories of rise and growth of capitalism. Although in Sombart’s opus this work is on the borderline that divides the early works of the author from the mature, it is an integral part of a complex sociological theory about the spirit of capitalism, on a course traced by his magnum opus Modern Capitalism (Sombart 1919).

Sombart’s ideas are known to our public mainly through rather sketchy and fragmentary secondary sources, and this is not surprising, since it presents nothing peculiar regarding the reception of his ideas in other languages (except German), but a common characteristic in almost any well-developed national sociological tradition. His first and most widely translated work Socialism and Social Movement (1896[Zombart 1922]) is a work which may be considered not to belong to the mainstream of his sociological theory. This work in spite of being a significant and pioneering contribution in the field 1

1 In Serbian translation: Verner Zombart, Luksuz i kapitalizam, Mediterran Publishing, Novi Sad, 2012.

of sociology of social movements does not belong to Sombart’s spirit of capitalism. By contrast, Luxury and Capitalism can be considered as one of the rare works of the writer which may become central to contemporary sociology in an endeavor to reinterpret and reaffirm ideas of this important author in order to secure a place for him among the great classics of sociology which he most certainly deserves.

In addition, taking into account the substantial controversy regarding Sombart’s mature ideas on spirit, rise, development and destiny of capitalism, this work stays firm defying time and harsh criticism directed to the author for more than a half of a century. This work written with no less passion than his other works, represent a significant alternative paradigm (reference) to the most famous work about the spirit of capitalism – Max Weber’s Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism.

Werner Sombart was born on January 19th 1863 in Ermsleben in Germany into a family of wealthy industrialists and landowners. He studied law and economics at the universities in Pisa, Rome and Berlin. In 1888 he was awarded a doctor’s degree.

His mentors were the leading German theoreticians of the period Gustav von Schmoller (1838-1917) 246

pêrspëctîvés

and Adolph Wagner (1835-1917), who had a lasting influence on Sombart’s intellectual development.

After a short period in Chamber of Industry, he accepted a chair at the University in Breslau, although he received invitations from prestigious German universities in Heidelberg and Freibourg. In 1906 he accepted a professorship at the Berlin Business School, which was a less renowned educational institution than the University in Breslau, but much closer to the actual political, cultural, social and activist events which marked Sombart’s personal development. In 1917 Sombart, already a distinguished and influential German theorist, became a professor at the University Wilhelm Friedrich in Berlin, which was one of the most prestigious universities at the time (today Humbolt University, the name was changed in 1949), where he inherited the chair of his mentor Adolph Wagner. Sombart worked there, as one of the leading German sociologists and economists – at that time in Germany even better known than his friend Max Weber – until his death in May the 18th 1941.

THE GERMAN INFLUENCES: THE BACKGROUND AND THE NIETCHEAN TRANSVALUATION OF ALL VALUES The sociological theory of Werner Sombart was developed – it can be rightly stated – exclusively under German influence. It was as in Fichte’s case: his life was the life of his nation. On the other hand, the meaning of the phrase German influences is very broad and heterogeneous, for, it does not denote any conceptual, theoretical or methodological homogeneity. As a rule, the phrase refers to the German Classical Philosophy, from Kant to Marx, and to various neo-Kantian or neo-Hegelian schools of thought; however, German influences could be extended to the influential historical economic school of Schmoller and Wagner as well as to the unavoidable German historicism of Wilhelm Dilthey (1833247

1911), to the hermeneutics of his followers and to the methodological historicism of Heirich Johann Rickert (1863-1936) (the concept of ideal types). In any case, one must not sidestep Nietzche and the whole generation of thinkers under his influence who were, within the confines of German tradition, powerful critics of the dominant spirit of German Classical Philosophy. In this context Ferdinand Tönnies (1855-1936), the originator of the conceptual, structural and historical dualism of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, of community and society, must be mentioned. Besides, in case of Werner Sombart, into German influences one should include the various national and nationalist movements and a number of different socialist movements of the period. In the early period of his academic development, Sombart was deeply influenced by Karl Marx. Finally, Sombart himself, who belonged to a younger generation of the German school of national economy, together with Max and Alfred Weber contributed to building up the German influence of the generation who recognized the epoch through the concept of the spirit of capitalism. As Abram Harris rightly remarked, in one of the first comprehensive but belated American retrospective on the occasion of the death of Werner Sombart, he was four years old when Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864) inaugurated the German Worker’s Movement; he was eight years old when the age-old dream of the Empire under the Prussian military hegemony became a reality after the victory over France in 1870 -1871; he was fourteen years old when Bismark (Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismark 1815-1898) as a chancellor established the Realpolitik of the state and institutionalized the anti-socialist law, but, in the same time, institutionalized health insurance for workers and the first pensions; he was a student at the University in Berlin when in 1882, a year before his death, Marx was declared the leader of the German Socialist Movement; soon after that he witnessed the transformation of revo-

pêrspëctîvés

lutionary socialist ideas into reformist ideas of the German Socialist Party and social democracy; as a middle-aged man, Sombart witnessed the downfall of Germany after the defeat in the First World War and the collapse of the fragile social democracy of the Weimar Republic; finally, he was contemporary to the rise of German anti-Semitism to which he himself made a theoretical contribution, and witnessed the coming to power of National Socialist Party. “In a word, his life began with the decline of German capitalism, and ended when German Fascism reached its peak” (Harris 1942).

Of all the influences mentioned, and all the social, political and cultural circumstances under which Sombart’s sociological ideas reached their maturity, the Nietzchean idea of revaluation of all values must be singled out as the most prominent one. This idea connects him most intimately with Max Weber in the effort of their generation to define the epoch in terms of spirit – the spirit of capitalism. Whereas, on the one hand, Marx’s theory offered a relatively solid foundation for a structural analysis and description of functioning of capitalism, or of the period preceding, for, “this very word (capitalism –D.M.) Marx, in fact, never used” (Braudel 1989, 61), and of the socio-economic relationships within, the generation Sombart and Weber belonged to, wanted a shift of the national paradigm in the economic theory established by Schmoller. This shift was inspired by Nietzche and his revaluation of values. Thus a generation gap between the older and the younger school of nationaleconomics emerged. The younger generation was not satisfied with structural analysis only of the monetary economic system based on free market, market economy, private property and free competition covered with the blanket term capitalism, but searched for the causes and historic origins of the epoch or paradigm that was signified with the term spirit (of capitalism). In other words, they wanted

to understand the (possible) epochal changes which would mark the decline of old, established values that would no one question within the epoch, and the rise of new values, and the causes of revaluation. Schmoller criticizes Sombart, one of his best students, as to this very point: “what Sombart calls capitalism, I would rather term as a modern monetary form of economic organization which was developed within the framework of the liberal system of unlimited professional mobility, free competition and unrestrained desire for wealth-acquisition” (Werner Sombart, Die Kapitalistsche Unternehmer, quoted in Loader 2001: 637). In Schmoller’s formulation capitalism signifies but one, albeit dominant, element of the modern epoch, without any question regarding its origin and without any intention to recognize it as the unique spirit of the epoch which will inevitably go through so deep a changes till it eventually becomes unrecognizable.

It should be noticed that at this point, neither in Weber nor in Sombart the Nitzchean idea of revaluating of values appears in its pure philosophical, Nitzchean-nihilistic and mystical form, but as an organic integration with Tönnies’ dualistic analytical formula Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft – society and community.

This, to a high degree pessimistic (ibid:637), analytic and comparative model of explaining social changes and processes was used as an important attack strategy of the younger generation on the absence of moral dilemmas which distinguished the older school of German economic thinking. In other words, Gesellschaft, could not be understood in the old way anymore: as a morally neutral domain (subsystem) in which capitalism coalesces with the civil society, as a sphere depoliticized enough to be independent from the state.

The new generation, therefore, was ready to accept the view of capitalism as the spirit of Gesellschaft which destroyed the spirit of the organic Gemeinschaft. In Sombart this Nietzche-Tönnies combination receives a special methodological and analytical significance.

248

pêrspëctîvés

As a result of this, Sombart was able to see beyond the narrow horizon of strictly economic analyses. From this new vantage point the state is not a privileged domain that vouches the guarantee for security, stability and normativity. Nevertheless, he was not ready as Marx had been, Loader observes, to go so far as to regard the state to be an epiphenomenon (ibid: 637), a superstructure. Sombart (as well as Weber) believed that state is but a mechanism of the society (Gesellschaft) which contributes to the processes of dehumanization and rationalization. Fernand Braudel rightly says when he concludes that the relation of the state to capitalism is ambivalent: “Sometimes the state would support it, sometimes put it into a difficult position; sometimes let it expand, and sometimes destroyed its driving force” (Brodel 1989:77). Finally, Braudel is right when he claims that: “capitalism would not prevail, not until it identified itself with the state, when it became the state” (ibid: 77). Sombart asserts - referring to a French treatise wherein it is written that luxury is a resource not only useful, but also necessary for the progress of the state, (Zombart 2011:135) – that capitalism could not have developed bypassing the state or against it, as an absolutely depoliticized civil-economic sphere, but only under the aegis of the state. Although he discusses the factors that were directly or indirectly responsible to the rise and growth of capitalism, and not its definite forms, the connections between the state and capitalism could not escape Sombart’s attention. Thus luxury went in tandem with the state at first; the mass production of luxurious goods in the 18th century did not expand in the framework of capitalism, but was under patronage of the court aristocracy, that is to say, the state (ibid:191). All this led to the theory of the crisis of morality in modern society and modern capitalism. Since Marx’s structural analysis of the capitalist way of production did not offer an acceptable ethical model, but only a theoretical, economic and sociological, the younger generation turned to the Nitzchean 249

idea of revaluation of values. To understand the modern world, which Max Weber regarded as an iron cage of bureaucracy and rationality of specialists without imagination and sensualists without feeling, and Sombart as a world of exhausted souls, both Sombart and Weber added the Nietzchean element to the basic Gesellschaft\Gemeinschaft dualism\distinction.

“Both of them identified the revaluation of all values, the ideal type individual who breaks up the bonds with the traditional society based on routine, and secures the foundations for forming a new world.

Singling out the one who revaluates the values, Weber and Sombart offered an ethical model of transforming the present. True, the dynamic creation of that revaluation, capitalism, rigidified itself turning into an iron cage without any possibility of returning to some particular types of revaluation. Nevertheless, as a factor of destruction of the routine based system, it may serve as a model for revaluating the modern process of rationalization.” (Loader 2001:638) However, their trans-evaluators, the protagonists of revaluating the rigid, routine based, traditional world as having been presented in Weber’s Protestant Ethics, and in Sombart’s Modern Capitalism and in Luxury and Capitalism as well as in his other works, differ. Weber’s protagonist is the protestant, specifically Calvinist ethos, the ethos of vocation and its worldly asceticism (which has been often imprecisely covered with the name – Puritanism), whereas Sombart’s protagonist is not to be found in the sphere of religion, but exclusively in this world, he calls him the entrepreneur – der Unternehmer. Although, in his work The Jews and Modern Capitalism the Jewish people appear as the possible alternative to Protestantism, they had never got the role of the key-actor to revaluation in Sombart’s works. This heroic role, as he calls it in his controversial work The Trader and the Hero (Sombart 1915), was set aside for the creative, rational and venturesome spirit – the entrepreneur.

pêrspëctîvés

Parsons comments this in the following way:”the creative impulse is, no doubt, ascribed to the spirit of entrepreneurship. This spirit is responsible for the destruction of the old order of things and for the formation of the new one (Parsons 1928:650).

In this context one should bear in mind that there is a very interesting interweaving of mutual influences between Weber and Sombart; for, in spite of the fact that Weber explicitly never did give Sombart credit, it may be said with some certainty that his work Modern Capitalism inspired Weber to develop his thesis about the key-role of Protestant ethics in the rise and growth of capitalism, and after the book was published, Sombart wrote that “Weber’s researches are responsible for this book” ( he meant the book Jews and modern capitalism D.M.) (Sombart 2001: 134). Moreover, it can be rightly stated that Sombart’s entrepreneur has the same meaning and historical role in the development of capitalism as Weber’s Protestantism. However, it should be reminded once more that the concept of historical role of the entrepreneur in revaluating the old order had changed its meaning relative to the role of Jewish people in the rise of capitalism. Whereas in the book Jews and Modern Capitalism he claims that “ everyone who follows him (Weber-D.M.)should ask himself whether everything that Weber ascribed to Puritanism can equally be related to Judaism, and to a large extent, at that; moreover, it could be suggested that the same thing he calls Puritanism is in reality Judaism”(ibid:134). However, Sombart cannot simply identify or substitute the spirit of Protestantism with Judaism, namely, the spirit of the entrepreneur and his role is not the same as the role of Jews in the rise and growth of capitalism, because the Protestant and the entrepreneur are both men of vocation, whereas the trader does not have a clearly defined vocation (ibid :116), and precisely that is what Sombart ascribes to the Jews, but not to the Jews understood as a nation or to the “ Semitic race”,

but to Jews as a metaphysical property(attribute) of a specific Volksgeist (Harris 1942: 812), and to historical circumstances that made possible that the Jews become one of the dynamic forces in capitalism. The Jewish spirit, says Sombart in German Socialism (Deutcher Socialismus), can be found among the English, in the same way as the German spirit can among the Negroes, and the Negro spirit among Germans, albeit the number of such people is small.

In Jews and Modern Capitalism he adds that the Eskimos are different from Black people and southern Italians from Norwegians, and we do not need any anthropology to tell us that. (Sombart2001: 203). Therefore, the spirit of entrepreneurship is the spirit of revaluation of the values and that was confirmed by the organizational form of the new companies which obliterated the old order of associations in the middle-ages – the guilds, but, eventually, it turned into the very opposite of its entrepreneurial origins, into an iron cage without spirit. On the other hand, the trader spirit had its contribution in rising and growth of capitalism, but its role cannot be understood within the framework of the Nietzchean revaluation of all values. Since the entrepreneur is “quick on the uptake, fair in his judgments, clear in his thoughts…by contrast, the intellectual and emotional world of the trader is directed towards monetary values and business conditions” (Grundmann and Stehr 2001: 262). Therefore, although both of these ideal types carry the spirit of capitalism, only one of them, the entrepreneur, is really capable for revaluation.

THE LATE CAPITALISM: THE IRON CAGE WITHOUT SPIRIT The Nitzchean idea of revaluation of all the values did not influence only Weber’s and Sombart’s search for the factors that would destroy the old and build up a new order of things – the new hierarchy of values, but also both authors shared certain 250

pêrspëctîvés

skepticism and pessimism regarding what is usually considered to be the late forms of modern capitalism; Sombart even more than Weber. This skepticism and pessimism amalgamate both Tönnies’ idea of the impersonal Gesellschaft and the critique of modern culture. Perhaps the best example of this pessimism is an event in 1904. Then, on the invitation of Hugo Munsterberg (1863 -1916), a famous German psychologist of the time, who was, in the US, one of the pioneers of applied psychology, in the field of organizational and industrial psychology, Max Weber and Werner Sombart, together with a group of German academicians traveled to America and attended the Congress of Arts and Sciences in Saint Louis2. That was an excellent opportunity, after having delivered their lectures in the section for social sciences and economy, to tour across the United States (Weber traveled with Ernst Troeltsch [1865 – 1923] and his wife Marianne [Weber 1975]) and get first hand knowledge of the most highly developed capitalist country. In September of the same year Weber visited New York and, according to Marianne Weber, what he saw on the Manhattan impressed him as the spirit of capitalism that created the most impressive symbol of its own (ibid: 281). After that he visited Chicago, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia and other great cities. However, the immediate sensations and impressions from this long journey were not the same for Sombart and Weber; each of them saw America from the perspective of his own theoretical assumptions on which their different approaches to rising and growth of capitalism are based. Marianne Weber notices Max Weber’s genuine enthusiasm with what he saw from the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge accepting it to be the 2 For the sociologists it could be interesting to note that one of the vice-presidents of the organizational committee of the congress (Congress of arts and science, Universal exposition, St. Louis, 1904) was Albion Small, an outstanding pioneer of American sociology.

251

confirmation of his deepest beliefs about the connection of Protestant ethics and the American spirit of capitalism in action. However, there is a sentence expressing the constant skepticism in which the reader can fathom the deepest ambivalence regarding Protestant ethics actualized in the American spirit of capitalism: “How sublime man’s work is, and how small man has become!”(ibid: 283) What had been created outstripped the creator.

On the other hand, Sombart expressed his impressions from the journey to America in a much more radical fashion sending post-cards to his friends in Germany – post-cards from this spooky cultural hell, from this Wagnerian Gotterdammerung (twilight of the gods) of a culture (Loader 2001: 636). As a matter of fact, for Sombart this was a country of Jews, or rather, of Jewish spirit, whereas for Weber the country of Protestant sects. For Sombart it was the coming true of the doubts that the business would prevail over the entrepreneurship, that the spirit would not be free and creative any more, but captured in a rigid structure of a rational bureaucratic system without heroes and conquerors, without the protagonists of revaluating the values of the civilization. For Weber, it was a monstrous creature – the protestant ethics materialized in the most fully developed form of capitalism, and in the same time an iron cage without emotion and spirit, an action in its late form lacking the original values of its roots stripped of everything but its rationally defined end. Therefore, both of them shared with their generation, succinctly put, the faith of deep ambivalence and contradiction.

In the end let us remind the reader that Luxury and Capitalism is a work of a still optimistic Sombart, an author engaged in searching for the causes and conditions of coming to be of a spirit in an epoch we cover with a broad and often vague term capitalism. It is a work of an author about whom in the addenda to Marx’s Capital the following is writ-

pêrspëctîvés

ten: “This is the first time that a German university professor succeeded in seeing in Marx’s writings what mostly Marx therein really said, and declared that the critique of Marx’s system cannot consist in its refutation – this job should be left over to the pedantic - but only in its further development. Sombart is, understandably, concerned with our subject.

He examines the significance of value in Marx’s system and gets the following results: the value does not manifest itself in the relation of exchange of the produced commodities in the capitalist production process; it is not in the minds of agents of the capitalist production; it is not an empirical fact, but a fact of thought, a logical fact”. But there is more:” Neither Sombart nor Schmitt…do take sufficiently into account that the matter here is not just about some purely logical process, but about a historical process and about a thoughtful reflex that explains it…

(Marx 1973: 1878 – 1879). Sombart, of course, did very well know that the question about capitalism must be formulated within an historical framework; there is ample proof to it in Luxury and Capitalism, as well as in other books. This commitment to capitalism and its spirit could not be taken otherwise but historically. Finally, wasn’t Braudel right? Isn’t it correct that for Marx the issue was about the capital and not capitalism? Wasn’t Braudel right when he said that “Max Weber’s error was, for the most part, a consequence of his overstatement of the role of capitalism as the prime mover of the modern world” ( Brodel 1989:79)? Wasn’t Weber’s early enthusiasm which he observed the Manhattan with, the consequence of the very thing Sombart understood, but Weber did not: Amsterdam imitated Venice in the same way as London would imitate Amsterdam and as New York would imitate London (ibid:79). Braudel says that Weber thought capitalism is “nothing

more and nothing less than the creation of Protestantism…Every historian stood up against this subtle thesis (Sombart did too – D.M.) although they never succeeded in getting rid of it entirely” (ibid: 78). It should be borne in mind that Weber followed Sombart’s idea of exploring the unanticipated consequences of the Protestant ethos in the 16th and 17th century, but as Braudel says, taking the liberty to be a little bit subjective, the very notion capitalism gained currency only after Werner Sombart.

LITERATURE 1. Brodel, Fernan (1989). Dinamika kapitalizma. Novi Sad: Izdavačka knjižarnica Zorana Stojanovića.

2. Grundmann, Reiner and Nico Stehr (2001). „Why is Werner Sombart Not Part of the Core of Classical Sociology?”Journal of Classical Sociology. 1 (2): 257–287.

3. Harris, Abram L. (1942). „Sombart and German (National) Socialism”. The Journal of Political Economy, 50(6): 805–835.

4. Loader, Colin (2001). „Puritans and Jews: Weber, Sombart and Transvaluators of Modern Society”. The Canadian Journal of Sociology, 26(4): 635–653.

5. Marx, Karl (1973). Kapital. Beograd: BIGZ i Prosveta.

6. Parsons, Talcott (1928). „Capitalism” in Recent German Literature: Sombart and Weber. The Journal of Political Economy, 36(6): 641–661.

7. Sombart, Werner (1915). Handler und Helden: Patriotische Besinnungen. Munich und Leipzig: Duncker & Leipzig.

8. Sombart, Werner (1919). Der moderne Kapitalismus.

Historisch-systematische Darstellung des gesamteuropaischen Wirtschaftslebens von seinen Anfangen bis zur Gegenwart. Munchen, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot.

9. Sombart, Werner (2001). The Jews and Modern Capitalism. Kitchener: Batoche Books.

10. Weber, Marianne (1975). Max Weber: A Biography. New York, London: A Wiley Interscience Publication.

11. Zombart, Verner (1922). Socijalizam i socijalni pokret. Beograd, Sarajevo: Izdanje I. Đ. Đurđevića.

12. Zombart, Verner (2011). Luksuz i kapitalizam. Novi Sad: Mediterran Publishing, Novi Sad.

252

253

pêrspëctîvés UDC 355.1-055.2

Nina Živančević, Paris, France

Women and War

Since literature is my main and major concern, for a long time I have been thinking about my REPULSION for writing texts about the war or the wars in Yugoslavia.

One of the reasons I believe was my distrust in lies and inaccuracies which I’ve been facing in regard to this topic ever since the civil war started in former Yugoslavia in 1992.

Another reason, which for me was much more real and essential than the one I mentioned, was hidden in a feeling I’ve had for a long time but was not able to formulate until recently. A while ago, I ran into a critical text by a French literary critic Laurand Kovacs who was analysing the fragmented texts of certain modernists as well as their jagged, chopped off sentence - the sort of sentence we find in Joyce, in Cendrars, and in Milosh Crnjanski, for instance.

On the occasion, Laurand said that IT WAS NORMAL for the modernists who have lived during the First World War and Second World War to write this kind of sentence as well as the texts which were not logical and coherent, because, the very desire to systematize horrible experiences and put them together into coherent memories or a text would have meant justifying the whole war experience. In a way, justifying such a text would imply justifying an ex-

perience which in its nature was unjustifiable, or it would mean making coherent something that otherwise escapes logic and coherence. His intelligent statement I felt almost intuitively at a guttural level throughout these recent Balkan wars as I was systematically refusing to accept writing assignments when editors asked me to do so.

However, in 1992 and in 1993, at the time when the war in Bosnia was in its full development, one of my American publishers, Semiotexte of the Columbia University, asked me to write a story, just a short story on what was going on there. My position was very delicate - at that time my mother, who was a Bosnian Serb was going crazy - she was recalling the events from the Second World War when the Ustashis and Nazis slaughtered her whole family in Jasenovac.

So, as much as I wanted to take an impartial position, for me it was emotionally hard to do it – I possessed certain knowledge about things, but the “knowledge” was mainly influenced by the media.

On one hand, I was not allowed to be partial, and on the other, which involved my personal family history - I could not remain impartial. I wrote the story which dealt mainly with my work with the Serbian intelligentsia in Paris throughout 1992. These peo254

pêrspëctîvés

ple were trying to prove something, and if not prove - at best, they were trying TO SAY SOMETHING – different from the official media reports - that there were Moslem women who were being slaughtered there, but that there were also the slaughtered Croatian women and slaughtered Serbian women in there, the war was one big slaughterhouse as such.

A year later, I was invited by the Hague Tribunal for War Crimes to join their elite translators’ team. The souvenir of how I was treated as a woman and a human being at the Tribunal by my fellowtranslators of non-Serbian origin would make a good journalist’s report. The fact is that I resigned from my job after 3 months, despite the encouragement to persevere which came from certain decent and impartial judges such as the Irishman, O’ Connor or an American judge who remarked- « You are the only one here with the Serbian accent - if you go the truth will go with you, and we will only hear testimonies from one side ».

However, the truth is that I was exposed to daily humiliation and browbeating from the court employers supervising the team, and all of them were sent to the Hague directly from the cabinet of the Croatian president, Franjo Tudjman. They made my working hours unbearable to me. At that time, I did not blame them for their partiality and their biases towards me - the civil war was still going on, it was a full blown thing. We were translating the testimonies of the violated victims and when I asked a woman and a colleague of mine if it was possible that, according to these testimonies, only the Moslem women had been violated during the war, she retorted in an agitated manner, “EVERYBODY was committing atrocities but, Nina, you should not forget - the Serbs had all started them, and then, the vicious circle was created.

It was a bloody civil war and no one was there to be wrong, and no one to be right. “ I was trying to get it straight - how did the conflict start in these unfortunate regions? Certain Ser255

bian families were revenging for the atrocities committed upon them by the Croatian Ustashis in the World War II and these families bore certain names.

Those were the names of families who had young people of the third generation now, youngsters who had nothing to do with the old wars, but were suffering from vengeance in return. It would be preposterous to say that the dictator such as Milosevic was the only one to blame for the killings he committed in the former Yugoslav republics. Somehow we know that nowadays the scariest thing about Heider in Austria is that he is not the only instigator of various violent actions of the right-wing extremists as he is just a well-guarded social phenomenon.

Many different things have already been spoken about the civil wars in Yugoslavia, notably by my fellow-writers, women such as Dubravka Ugresic, Jasmina Tesanovic or Snezana Bukal who live in different countries - Holland, the U.S. or Great Britain.

I live in France thus I dare say that the French government was not so welcoming towards the refugees from the Balkans, especially women refuges. I will quote two examples : I went to Pigalle which is a real refugee camp with young prostitutes from former Yugoslavia - one of them, an older one, Mima was complaining to me “ALL THESE KIDS are taking away work from me, their labour is cheap and they are inexperienced they don’t even know how to turn tricks…” Many of these exiled women have no rights in France and are pushed brutally to the street to earn their living.

Just a couple of days ago, I was deeply hurt by the French legal system - I have lived there since 1995, and now am going through a custody battle with my son’s father who is French. The judge, who ordered a social survey, sent me a social assistant who proclaimed loudly:” Madam, you’d better be nice to the father of your child - he is French and he has all the rights, this is his territory, you are only a guest here and - to be honest with you, an unwant-

pêrspëctîvés

ed one as you are of the Yugoslav origin.” Then she added, “You know, there is a strong anti-Serbian climate in court here, you can’t win the case…”

I often wonder why she said that, as all Serbs cannot be like Milosevic, I surely know that, and the fact is that no social assistant was supposed to express herself in such manner.

There are all other sorts of accidents and incidents that I’ve lived through as a woman writer and a journalist in my self- imposed exile, since I left Yugoslavia as early as 1981. Now I could see the difference between the times “before” and AFTER the war. The way you remember those photos of fat and ugly people, suffering, the photos that signify their life BEFORE the aesthetic surgery, and then as they changed their looks, it becomes AFTER. In my case it is just the opposite – the respected and beloved colleague and author that I was “before”, and hated and ugly creature AFTER… As I believed in so called non-commercial or ‘pure’ literature, and had some aesthetic criteria which propelled me

to refuse writing articles on and about the war - I gradually became stigmatized and dead in the eyes of general public…

Once I ran into Susan Sontag at Columbia University and asked her what seemed a very good question to me - “why don’t you invite, just once, a Serbian woman writer to one of your round tables? Such a woman would certainly have something to say too…”

Well, I’m afraid that she somewhat avoided answering my question - perhaps the question was somewhat bluntly blurted out, perhaps it was the wrong kind of question, but anyways, to the present day, it remains unanswered as much as the problem remains vivid. The problem, which I am referring to in the text, is not so much the problem of biases that have been expressed towards Serbia for the last twenty or thirty years, but it is of a much larger scope regarding the so called DOUBLE STANDARDS that had been visible in politics throughout the world in any armed intervention in general and in the Balkans’ wars in particular.

256

257

pêrspëctîvés UDC 323.1:159.95(497.11)

Mikloš Biro, Novi Sad, Serbia

psychological Aspects of Reconciliation: the Example of serbs and albanians A nation is the society that shares common illusions about its ancestors and the common hatred for its neighbours.

Ernest Renan, French philosopher

In September 2010, following a debate in the United Nations, negotiations between Belgrade and Prishtina were announced. For the first time since 1999, when the armed conflict in Kosovo started, when the NATO intervention occured, and when the Kumanovo agreement was signed, there was no mention of sovereignty, no mention of the ownership of the Kosovo territory, only of the people and their problems – which the two sides were to talk about.

It seems pointless to mention how anachronistic and senseless fighting for a territory is in the 21st century, at the point when both sides are turning towards the European Union in which there are no borders, in which the goods, capital, and workforce move freely – which has made the classical notion of territory and sovereignty completely absurd. The shift of the focus to the problems of the people who live in Kosovo, therefore, is more than welcome.

The central problem of both communities, especially the minority one – Serbian, is their co-ex-

istence, and the central condition for co-existence is reconciliation.

Historically viewed, the conflict between the two communities, two nations – Serbian and Albanian – can be sought in the recent and distant past.

The historic versions are, naturally and unfortunately, different and very often (mis)used for political, that is, nationalist purposes. Myths about a “historic defeat“ (which implicitly call for revenge) or about the “historic cradle“ (we had been the first to arrive here, and you drove us out) are not our specialty. The Armenian myth of Nagorno-Karabakh is an almost identical replica of the Kosovo myth.

Naturally, everything is possible in a myth, and, as a rule, we are always right and “our cause“ requires a just solution. Being ironic about the nationalist claims and requirements emerging in the Balkans on the eve of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, David C. Pugh of Norwegian Refugee Council offered a causerie entitled “The seven rules of nationalism“: 258

pêrspëctîvés

If a territory was ours for 500 years, and yours for 50, it has to be ours – because you are invaders.

If a territory was yours for 500 years, and ours for 50, it has to be ours – because the borders must not be changed.

If a territory was ours for 500 years, but never again since, it has to be ours – because it is the cradle of our nation.

If our majority lives on a territory, it has to be ours – because the right of self-determination has to be enforced.

If our minority lives on a territory, it has to be ours – because it has to be protected from your repression.

All of the rules stated above apply to us, but not to you, though.

Our dreams of national greatness are historically inevitable, and yours are pure fascism.

In the psychological sense, something like “century-old hate“ does not exist. There is only the present hatred and it is based on personal experience or it is the result of pathological feelings. Resorting to “centuries“, though, is an instrument, a convenient platform to build one`s war propaganda on and something the nationalist horsemen of the Apocalypse ride on in order to conjure a conflict between nations or states in their own interests. Therefore, if we are thinking about reconciliation, we are thinking about the most recent events.

Reconciliation is a complex phenomenon, which may be seen as a result of social processes which have been taking place on several levels of hierarchy: on the level of the country and international community, on the level of group behaviour and the perception of the group behaviour, and also on an interpersonal level.

Different theories of reconciliation address different levels of reconciliation. Theories of political science and international law focus on the global 259

spheres of interest and legalistic instruments for conflict resolution, while psychological analyses are predominantly turned to individual and socio-psychological prerequisites and obstacles, as well as the theory of mediation (negotiation).

The first group of theories stresses the significance of institutional solutions and “signals“ which the opposing parties send. In this context of territorial aspirations of one side towards the other (especially when they are written down in the constitution) they are a permanent threat which obstructs any idea of reconcilliation. On the other hand, constitutional solutions which include the minority community (in this case the Serbs in Kosovo and the Albanians in Serbia) and which are proposed in the spirit of the protection of human rights and protection of cultural and national identity of the members of the nation with which there has been a conflict, produce a significant contribution, first to “disintimidation“ of the minorities, and then to defusing the tensions and the process of reconciliation.

Because of the “leopard skin” ethnic map of the Balkans, each minority group is seen as a threat to the stability of the state. As irredentist and expansionist ideas became the main slogans of the political programs of the nationalist leaders, this threat became real. In this context the insistence of the international community on unchangeability of (new) borders and the European Union’s promises that they will incorporate the countries of South-East Europe in the EU (which will make fighting for the borders pointless) seems to be a signficant stabilisation factor.

As one of more interesting ideas we will cite one of O’Leary’s (2001), who proposes a macro-political regulation of conflicts through the implementation of federalism and the so-called “consociational” electoral system, in which the conflicting groups elect both “their own” and “others’” representatives, which results in a greater number of moderate representatives of both groups among the elected

pêrspëctîvés

and, in that way, the increased chances of coalition agreements and compromises, and thus, of reaching a consensus and resolving the international conflict.

In another group of theories there is a domination of psychological theories which recognize two factors in the process of reconciliation: degree of identification with one’s own group (nation) and the way of perceiving the opposing group, on the one hand, and individual experience, on the other.

Social psychology recognizes several levels of group identification: you may be a member of a tennis club, belong to a guild, feel that you are a local-patriot, being a citizen of a town or region, as well as belong to a nation or a race. In all of these identifications, besides the sense of security, belonging to a group also brings a certain feeling of greater value, and the more exclusive the group is, the feeling is stronger.

However, the group is not just the sum of individuals – it has a dynamic of its own. Since the works of Gustave Le Bon (1963) psychology has recognized the power of the group to change the behaviour of an individual. One of the most compelling examples of how an individual can become evil under the influence of the group and the group’s “task”, is the experiment in which students, acting out a prison situation, were divided into prisoners and wardens and where the “wardens”, very quickly, identifying with the role, started to horribly abuse the “prisoners”, who had been their good friends until very recently! (Zimbardo, 1998: 125-133) The power of the group to alter attitudes and behaviour of an individual is a result of the perception of its greater effectiveness – “Together we are strong”, which is clearly seen in Fascist symbols1. The experiments of Solomon Ash (1981) demonstrated an alarming human need to conform, but they have 1 Fascis – a bound bundle of wooden rods around an axe (a symbol which originates from the ancient Rome) is the wellknown “logo” of Fascism.

also shown that an individual does not change his or her attitudes aware that they are wrong, that is, that he or she is right, while the group is not (but that it is “useful” to change one’s attitude in order to fit in with the group’s thinking), but that there is a sort of “internalization” of group thinking, meaning that there is a cognitive dualization – the belief that the group’s reality is different from my own reality2.

Why do group attitudes prove to be stronger than the individual ones? Because this “escape from freedom”, as it was called by Erich Fromm long ago (1986), brings security to the group, and also because investing in the group values gives one the feeling of one’s own personal value. Outstanding personal strength is necessary (along with financial independence, which is not to be neglected) or, perhaps, asociality, for an individual to resist the magnetism of the group. Of course, if the group offers morally unacceptable values, readiness to accept such values will depend on the degree of the individual’s internationalization of moral norms and his or her readiness to subordinate social rules to the current personal interests.

On the other hand, the bigger the agreement between individual values and beliefs and the ideology promoted by the group, the higher the level of the individual’s identification with the group.

Different social identities have a different quality, which has direct repercussions on the group behaviour. Psychology calls it “identity salience”, which is not just a degree of identification with a particular group, but also the impression that there is an essence, a certain quality which distinguishes this group from the others. The more difficult to change belonging to 2 In the experiment people were asked to give their opinion about an obvious fact – the length of a line, but the guess was made after the other members of the group, who (as agreed with the organizer of the experiment) gave wrong answers.

A great number of subjects approximated their guesses with (obviously wrong) the group’s opinion.

260

pêrspëctîvés

a group is, more visible (we can recant our nationality and religion, but we cannot change the colour of our skin) and the more it brings (in psychological or material sense), the bigger the saturation of identity is. In addition, the bigger the saturation, the bigger is the possibility of a social categorization (Tajfel, Turner, 2004). The group is beginning to be seen as a strictly defined category, with clearly pronounced borders, with no transitional forms: there is “Us”, significantly different from “Them”, and “They” – those are all the others that do not belong to our group.

With the perception of bigger homogeneity grows the feeling of the group’s efficiency and supremacy. At the same time, the need for the feeling of superiority is amplified and “We” are the best, the most beautiful, most honorable, while “They” are worse, uglier, and less honourable. There are numerous socio-psychological experiments (Tajfel, Turner, 1986) which show that this process takes place in case of a division into groups, even when the principle of the division is based on so harmless a criterion like the preference of the artistic style of Paul Klee or Wassily Kandinsky!

Of course, in that mechanism lies the core of the development of stereotypes towards others; in this lies the basis for the generalization which states that all members of my nation are good (so, based on this, it is impossible that there are war criminals in my nation, for example), while all the members of the other nation are unacceptable. Thus, one easily reaches the total dehumanization of “Others”, which makes the crimes easier to commit. Because, if “They” are not OK, if they are not “human”, why would it be a problem to exterminate them?

Nationalism as an instrument of politics invariably produces a threat, as it expresses expansionist or irredentist ambitions. Elevating and homogenizing one’s own nation, it foreshadows degradation and subjugation of other nations; by emphasizing one’s own being endangered, it endangers other nations. The slogans used to homogenize a nation, 261

“They hate us”, “They are going to exterminate us again as in the previous war” have the power of a self-fulfilling prophecy: if they threaten us, then we need to arm ourselves in order to be ready for the defense. And when one side takes arms, then it is an open threat to the other, so the other side starts arming themselves and an outbreak of hostilities is just a question of when the first spark will start it.

According to the Theory of social identity, once established, prejudices are very hard and slow to change (Tajfel, Forgas, 2000). This was also shown by the comparative studies on ethnic distance in the states of Former Yugoslavia (Šiber, 1997: 3-26). After the war had broken out, ethnic distance between the Serbs, Croats and Bosnians increased dramatically, and after the war it started to fall, slowly, but steadily. It was, unfortunately, even after the respective regime changes in Serbia and Croatia in 2000 (and some obvious changes in rhetoric) still significantly higher than before the war, but, at the same time, a certain tendency of fall could be detected.

Another problem and an obstacle to a potential reconciliation between the Serbs and the Albanians is the fact that the ethnic distance (as opposed to the distance between the Serbs, Croats and Bosnians) was extremely big even before the conflict (Biro, Mihić, Milin, Logar, 2002: 37-47).

The analysis of the results of research studies conducted in Serbia tells us that the ethnic distance is in high correlation with (low) qualifications, authoritarianism and age – which is in keeping with the theory and earlier results. What is, actually, new and unexpected, is the fact that very young people too maintain a very big ethnic distance towards the peoples with whom there has been a conflict. The fact that these young people grew up during the war and that they were brought up in the spirit of hatred is the only possible explanation. Another explanation of these results is in the spirit of the “contact hypothesis” (Allport, 1954): that those adolescents

pêrspëctîvés

did not stand a chance of meeting their peers – members of the “enemy” people, so their perception of these peoples is exclusively abstract. Namely, according to this theoretical concept, individual contacts are an important prerequisite of breaking down (and challenging) prejudices – when you meet an individual member of a nation and see that he or she is the same as any other man or woman, then it will be very hard to make you believe in a negative stereotype, e.g. that “all Bosnians are stupid” or that “all Albanians hate Serbs” (and vice versa).

Ethnic prejudices and stereotypes are undoubtedly the greatest obstacle to the process of reconciliation. One of the basic ways to sustain self-respect of the members of a group is to humiliate the nonmembers. And, when the non-members of the group are also perceived as a danger to the group, then negative emotions are a completely logical answer.

How to challenge prejudices? How to change the value orientations of the members of conflicting peoples so that they could start recognizing their common interests, find their general common goal (e.g. joining the European Union) which would move them closer to each other? Education for democracy, for the tolerance of differences and respecting human rights is the first and the most important step to be taken in order to create the basis of a true change of prejudices and stereotypes. It is a slow, but the only possible perspective though.

As a great number of studies show, in the formation, and also in the sustaining or elimination of ethnocentricity and xenofobia (especially in highly authoritarian peoples of the Balkans) a significant factor is authoritarianism. However, besides the fact that authoritarian rigidity and cognitive-style (“black-white” judgements) contribute to the categorization and formation of prejudices, maybe the fact that authoritarian characters are silently obeyed, people of authority could be employed in the promotion of democracy, human rights and in-

ternational tolerance. But this message would have to be sent by a national authority – those who are ready to renounce the nationalist ideas!

Messages of the media and political elite (especially in authoritarian societies) are of great importance for the perception of the “enemy” group and orientation towards reconciliation.

An interesting theoretical question is – how important is the gesture of a country’s leader’s apology in the name of his people for the crimes commited by individuals belonging to the people? Did Willy Brandt’s act of kneeling in Auschwitz contribute to “the removal of the guilt” from the German people for the crimes commited in World War II? To some individuals with liberal and cosmopolitan value orientations it certainly did not mean anything, because before and after this act they were able to differentiate between an individual and collective and to individualize the guilt. However, to the majority of those who have succumbed to national homogenization, this kind of act carries a symbolic value and the head of state is perceived as a personification of “the people”, and his apology is unboubtedly perceived as an apology of “the whole nation”.

The media can play a very powerful role, independently of the political elite. The promotion of “positive experiences“ is one of the ways. Examples from the particular conflict in which neighbours gave mutual support and showed human and neighbourly loyalty are the right way for the idea of reconciliation with the people (as well as the hatred for all members of the pople) to be viewed as an issue concerning individuals. With individualizations: “an Albanian“ or “a Serb“, the possibility for the formation of stereotypes and the categorization: “all the Albanians“ and “all the Serbs“ is removed.

In accordance with the reconsideration of the original “contact hypothesis” according to which contacts between conflicting groups can contribute to such individualization and consequently rec262

pêrspëctîvés

onciliation, new perceptions claim that contacts, unless they have been established gradually and carefully, can even aggravate the conflict (Deutsch, Shichman, 1986). This opens a practical question whether the creation of “barriers” on the state level is good or bad. Bosnian experiences show that, after the removal of “barriers” between the (ethnic) entities, there have been no serious incidents. A significant factor of the free passage between territories populated with different nationalities and consequently opening up the possibility of contacts, may be the fact that the peacekeeping forces in Kosovo are international.

Perhaps the best examples which support the arguments that the effect of contact depends on the context are the public events in the post-Yugoslav countries: while at rock concerts there is obviously a total indifference to the ethnic origin and unconditional acceptance of rock bands from other states in the region, sporting events are still dominated by nationalist incidents. It is only logical – at sports matches the two sides compete against each other.

The most illustrative example of a “negative message” at a public event was the incident at the football match Italy vs. Serbia in Genova, when the Albanian flag was burned, which spurned some analogue actions among Albanians – not only in Kosovo! Such events, especially if they are followed by unfavourable commentaries in the media, unfortunately feed to the stereotype “they are all the same“ and, of course, reinforce the stereotypes and hinder reconciliation.

Finally, individual experience, especially if it is traumatic, may be a factor of great significance to the process of reconciliation. Is the memory of the suffered trauma an obstacle to the process of reconciliation and if yes, to what extent? The results of the research we conducted on the population of nationally divided towns which, during the 1991-1995 war suffered greatly – Vukovar, Prijedor and Mostar, show that individual traumatic experience does not 263

determine the stances toward reconciliation with the opposing nation at all (Biro, Ajduković, Čorkalo, Djipa, Milin, Weinstein, 2004)! Value orientations are obviously much more important than the level of suffering. To put it differently: whoever is “immune” to nationalism will be able to individualize the guilt for the suffering, he will not generalize it to include all the other members of the opposing nation and will readily turn to reconciliation. It is interesting that similar results were also obtained by the authors who studied the victims of Holocaust (Cherfas, 2003).

If nothing else, these results tell us that, in spite of the size and tragedy of the conflict which occured between the Serbs and Albanians, there are chances of reconciliation after all.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Allport, G. W.: The Nature of Prejudice, Cambridge, MA, Addison-Wesley, 1954.

Ash, S. E.: “Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments”. In: H. Guetzkow (Ed.) Group, Leadership and Men, New York, Carnegie Press, 1981.

Biro, M., Mihić, V., Milin, P., Logar, S.: “Did socio-political changes in Serbia change the level of authoritarianism and ethnocentrism of citizens? ”. Psihologija, 2002, 35: 37-47.

Biro, M., Ajduković, D., Čorkalo, D., Djipa, D., Milin, P., Weinstein, H. M.: “Attitudes towards justice and social reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia”. In: E. Stover & H. M. Weinstein, Ed., My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community after Mass Atrocity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Cherfas, L.: Explaining variation in aversion to Germans and German related activities among Holocaust survivors. Unpublished graduation thesis. Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 2003.

Deutsch M. & Shichman, S.: “Conflict: A Social Psychological Perspective“. In: M. G. Herman (Ed.) Political Psychology, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1986.

Fromm, E.: Bekstvo od slobode, Zagreb, Naprijed, 1986.

Le Bon, G.: Le Psychologie des foules, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1963.

pêrspëctîvés

9.

O’Leary, B.: “Nationalism and ethnicity: Research agendas on theories of their sources and their regulation”. In: D. Chirot & M. E. P. Seligman (Ed.) Ethnopolitical Warfare: Causes, Consequences and Possible Solutions, Washington, DC, American Psychological Association; McGarry, J. & O’Leary, B. (Ed.).

The Politics of Ethnic Conflict Regulation: Case Studies of Protracted Ethnic Conflicts, New York, Routledge, 2001.

10. Šiber, I.: “War and the Changes in Social Distance toward the Ethnic Minorities in the Republic of Croatia”, Politička Misao, 1997, 5: 3-26.

11. Tajfel, H. & Turner, J. C.: “The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior”. In: S. Worchel & W. G. Austin (Ur.) Psychology of Intergroup Relations, Chicago, Nelson, 1986.

12. Tajfel, H. & Forgas, J. P.: “Social categorization: Cognitions, values and groups”. In: C. Stangor (Ur.) Stereotypes and Prejudice, Philadelphia, Psychology Press, 2000.

13. Tajfel, H. & Turner, J. C.: “The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior”. U: J. T. Jost & J. Sidanius (Ur.) Political Psychology, New York, Psychology Press, 2004.

14. Zimbardo, P. G.: “The psychology of evil: A situationist perspective on recruiting good people to engage in anti-social acts”, Japanese Journal of Social Psychology, 1998, 11: 125-133.

264

265

pêrspëctîvés UDC 75.071.1 Konjović M.

Sava Stepanov, Novi Sad, Serbia

The Initiatives of Milan Konjović in Serbian Painting in the 20th Century

The history of art considers painter Milan Konjović to be one of the artists who had significant influence on Serbian and Yugoslav painting in the 20th century. The artist began his opus during the second half of the last century and finished it at the beginning of the 90s, more precisely in 1993 when he died in his beloved Sombor. Over this long period, Konjović’s painting had a harmonious and logical development. What is particularly interesting in his artistic evolution is the fact that his opus, almost in its entire span, had remained a relevant fact in the contemporary events on the big Yugoslav art scene.

Of course, that sort of presence had its specific characteristics and was determined by a unique “syndrome of an underground river“. Namely, in some vitally important moments in the art of the country, Milan Konjović would appear with his works which anticipated, inaugurated and proved the characteristics of the oncoming “trends“. After the initial work influenced by impressionism and post-impressionism, the artist started his own concept of painting in a rationalistic attitude to colour and form only to arrive, among the first in Serbian painting, to the cubist contemplation which, instead of a picture of the world, offered a world of the picture. However,

during the 30’s and 40’s, he insisted on strong colours and expressionism which was later to become a trademark of his entire expression which, at that time was in full accord with the latest modernist movement in Paris. At the beginning of the second half of the last century, when the manifestations of the post-war trauma were still relatively fresh in the not very comfortable atmosphere of state proclaimed requests for “socialistic realism“, the “pure painting“ of Konjović was among the works which defended the dignity of the painting and freedom of artistic expression. Milan Konjović, as an active individual in his times, was a unique initiator of a new wave of the abstract concept of the painting which, at the time, was equal to the newly achieved freedom of the creation in the arts in our country.

In the early 60’s, quite suddenly, Konjović had a performance in Novi Sad announcing some events in the art world that would happen later in the 70’s. At the same time, with his “painting with gesture and action“ he gave a premonition of the postmodernist (neo)expressionism which would dominate the Yugoslav artistic scene during the 80’s. It is interesting that Konjović, being in his eighties himself, actively participated in the “philosophy of the 80’s“ with his 266

pêrspëctîvés

characteristic concept of the “painting of quotations“ and his own reinterpretation of the Byzantine icon. What was specific to all the activities done by Konjović on the contemporary scene is the unique temporality. A spontaneous and authentic initiator, Konjović would sporadically appear in the most significant phases of the art here to touch, hint at, or proclaim the spirit of innovation by his own innovative artistic concept only to return, deliberately and consciously, to his own continuity as a consistent and original expressionist.

I. A cubist’s folly.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Milan Konjović transferred the experience of reality into a strict formalistic expression which will emancipate into a cubist concept in several paintings he did during 1922. The motif was breaking and dissolving into the basic geometric surfaces and the painting became a sum of calculated relations and thought-out methods. His painting “The Grey Still Life“ (1922) theoretically meets the requirements of the cubist concept – a real object from nature is but an inducement for the creation of an artistic truth about it; instead of the picture of the world there is a parallel world of the picture being created – “it is no longer the art of imitation but the art of thought“ (Apollinaire)...Konjović himself used to say: „That short phase of cubism was my confrontation with cubism. I didn’t stay in cubism long because it didn’t fit my temperament. I found it restrictive. However, I have learnt a lot from it and that is that a painting is a new autonomous reality which has its own laws and which only uses nature or its artistic elements.“1 This was how Milan Konjović, with a few other important artists such as Šumanović, Radović, Bijelić, Petrov and Balaž introduced the problem of the ontological aspect of a painting as a separate reality 1 Dragoslav Đorđević, ibid

267

in the art here, directing Serbian painting towards modernism.

II. Expressionism, pure painting.

In the 30’s, Konjović developed his painting in the manner of expressionism. It was that expressionism, so relevant in the contemporary “Paris Circle“, that he “transferred“ to Serbian painting when he returned to Sombor immediately before the war. It was the period when one of the most important characteristics of Konjović’s art was formed. Namely, in very different social and cultural circumstances, the artist managed to create a metaphysical autonomy and the paradigm nature of the essence of art. His expressionistic “pure painting“ was always consistent in the onthological sense, because the painter, by describing the tension and turmoil in himself, created the aesthetic autonomy of the universe in the painting...

“Konjović is not an expressionist of the neuroses of a metropolis, miasmas and existential panic, of the “uneasiness in culture“, nor of the nausea and the feeling of being discarded into the void – even his paintings from the Paris period, the series of terraces and artists studios crave for the whirlpool of natural energies“ – says Miodrag B. Protić.2 Konjović reached the wide areas of painter’s freedom so that one of the eminent connoisseurs of his Paris works, French critique, Maurice Betz wrote about his “noble, bold, powerful and crude art“. On returning from Paris to Sombor, the painter built an impressive and plausible “expressionism of colour and gesture“ which would distinguish him as one of the most important artists in the history of art in Yugoslavia and Serbia in the 20th century.

2 Miodrag B. Protić, Konjović – a metaphor painter, in Otmica Evrope, Likovni eseji i studije, Gradska narodna biblioteka, Zenit, Zrenjanin, 1995

pêrspëctîvés

III. The defence of the autonomy of the painting.

Immediately after the WWII ended, the new communist ideology and the socialist state concept was installed. The ideological form of socialistic realism was imposed on the art in Serbia and entire Yugoslavia. A newly established social system considered art useful and reserved a pragmatic role for it so that artists and their work were expected to support and promote the construction of a new social and ideological system. Of course, the artists in the country resented that. In the period just after the WWII, Milan Konjović was probably the most prominent and persistent fighter against the administrative rule forcing socialistic realism upon artists in the country. In one of the reviews of Konjović’s exhibition in Belgrade in 1949, which broke all the records of the number of visitors (some 2000 daily), the main ideologist and theoretician of socialist realism in the country, Jovan Popović, maintained the following: “when it comes to portraying our man, our new man, the man from our society which can be compared only to that of the great Soviet Union, then the deformation of his image is unacceptable“...3 Konjović endured all criticism and in Belgrade in 1952, he had another very important exhibition titled “People“. In his paintings, his authentic, subjective and expressive manner full of potent colours and gestures, only confirmed his own artistic attitude, his unshaken belief in the authentic canon of the painting and art in general. This is why that particular exhibition, as well as the one of Lubarda, has been considered the crossroads on the path that Serbian art took towards the authentic pictorial thought.

IV. Towards abstraction.

Only one performance.

During the 50s and the beginning of 60’s, Konjović went through his discretely abstract phase which he used to “defend“ the introduction of abstract art in Yugoslavia at the time. There was another rebellious “dissention“ from the tracks of his own continuity. Since his first works from 1953, Konjović sporadically “supported“ the then innovative abstract tendencies in the art in the country, the tendency so sorely needed after all the perturbances of the previous period. Under the influence of the obsessive idea to reach freedom of creation, in his studio in Sombor, he painted a few paintings in which the impression of abstraction was achieved by the abstracting of motifs and the application of geometrical elements into the structure of the painting...

In this respect, Konjović was dealing with practical problems and the painting as an aesthetic object.

The artist insisted on the primary effect of colours and forms, disregarding concrete interpretation. He also insisted on some other kind of the sensibility of the world of the painting, free from all the “lateral“ interpretative obligations and functionality...

It is interesting that the support that Konjović gave to abstract tendencies was not evident only in his painting. As the person in charge of “Artistic Autumn“, an important event in Sombor, he initiated an exhibition of paintings by all of the most eminent advocates of that artistic concept which was gaining popularity. That exhibition, in which 27 artists took part, was considered by Lazar Trifunović as “the first and only representative exhibition of abstract art in Yugoslavia.“ Thus the activist-organizational gesture once again showed and proved the artistic intuition of Milan Konjović.

3 Jovan Popović, Umetnici i lik našeg čoveka, Književnost 1, Beograd, 1948.

268

pêrspëctîvés

Novi Sad Performance, 1962.

There was one more event that illustrated Konjović’s capability of anticipating artistic trends. It was in the spring of 1962 in Novi Sad, when he had his own artistic performance. The event was organized within the programme of the popular theatre festival “Sterijino pozorje“. The event was significant because it showed the tendency towards a new kind of expression, not only in drama but in art as well.

It was there that Konjović, with simultaneous comments from Lazar Trifunović, in front of the public, began and finished a painting in one sitting. It was all about de-mystification of the act of creation, about a procedure with a clear concept. Irma Lang is right in maintaining that that happening was the precedent of all the later ones which were to begin during the 70’s. From our perspective now, it is clear that it was yet another initiative by Konjović - another of his authentic anticipations of future events in the art in this country.

VI. Towards postmodernism – “The painting of gesture and action“ in the 70’s and the Byzantine Cycle“ in the art in the 80’s.

In 1973, in the Gallery of Matica Srpska there was an exhibition honouring Milan Konjović, who celebrated his 75th birthday that year. Dr Lazar Trifunović, who was the organizer of the exhibition, gave it the title “The painting of gesture and action“.

The most dominant piece of work at the exhibition was a frieze made of eruptively painted landscapes,

269

in which realistic contours painted in the 60’s were fading. In the paintings, the most striking feature was the artist’s action and the unique corpora, which were to become the characteristics of postmodernist painting in the Serbian art in the penultimate decade of the 20th century. He moved from the position of an anticipator to the position of an authentic participant of post-modernism or the tendencies of the “new painters“ in the middle 70s when his “Byzantine Cycle“ was done. In those pictorial creations he “quotes” and reinterpreted the motifs of Byzantine icons in a neo-expressionist manner adapting them, of course, to his own concept of the painting. Konjović did not deal with a precise quoting of the motifs from the history of art, but rather effortlessly adopted a method which was adequate at the time of the post-modernist concept of art.

Milan Konjović’s exceptionally rich opus had a great influence on the development of the art in our country in the 20th century. His authentic art was permanently based on characteristically pictorial and expressive elements, but it was also extremely personal in the experiencing and interpreting the world. His art continually offered numerous initiatives with which Milan Konjović directed Serbian art towards modern trends, consistency and authenticity. At the same time, during almost an eightdecade long creative period, Milan Konjović created a unique artistic universe which today appears as a relevant interpretation of the mystery of the world, man, and his sensitivity.

pêrspëctîvés UDC 1 Weber S.

Dragan Kujundžić, Gainesville, USA

Ghost Scriptum, or, Nothing to Play With That the world we live in and the places we work at have undergone profound changes under the pressures of globalization and virtualization, is nothing new to the readers of Samuel Weber. In his Institution and Interpretation (Expanded Edition), Sam Weber has convincingly argued and analyzed the disappearance of the sovereign nation state under these pressures, together with the transformation of the fields and disciplines of knowledge attending to such sovereignty. Such changes in the modes of tele- and techno-communications, a persistent line of inquiry in the work of Sam Weber, emerge “not as possibility to be realized and actualized, but as the dynamic tendency of a network of links, out of which a knowledge emerges as nodes of clusters and connections, which in turn are always subject to transformation by further exploration or developments of the network or networks” (Weber 2001, 230). What has been for a while now, or perhaps from the very beginning, a passionate intellectual trajectory tied to the name of Sam Weber, has been an inquiry into this passage, transition or movement from work to net-work. This transition, well under way, as Weber argued in the same essay, challenges, “what was formerly regarded as a uni-

versity of reason,” to reconfigure itself “in light of virtualization” to a location or place where it will be or, Weber emphasizes, “has to be in more places than one.” Such a university would “keep itself open to the future” (Weber 2001, 235).

And in this place where we are gathered to honor Samuel Weber, are we not entitled to ask, who would be better placed to write about these dislocating transformations of knowledge (or who is in more places than one) than Samuel Weber? The question is of course purely rhetorical. Samuel Weber is, more than anyone I know, in several places, locations or disciplines, at once, places we know, places that seem familiar, places that he de-familiarizes, and locations that he opens up or invents by his transformations, a veritable “Passagenwerk,” the work of passage from work into network. We are thus all entangled in his web.

Let us note that Weber’s work entails explicitly a plea for a net (synonymous with web), for example in The Targets of Opportunity, the chapter on “Networks, Netwear and Narratives”: “Is it possible to conceive of a ‘movement’ that would net, rather than network, one which would leave room for the question that, for Benjamin at least, follows the end 270

pêrspëctîvés

of every story—‘And what happened next?’ Or must that question always be targeted by a preemptive answer?” (Weber 2005, 108). That last question by Weber, in his own writings, needless to say, is only rhetorical, and decided and answered in favor of the net or the web in advance.

To use the title of his essay on Shakespeare’s Hamlet to which we will return, Sam Weber is “hic et ubique,” here and everywhere else, or, as he himself proposes to translate this Latin expression used

by Hamlet, “here and wherever” (Weber 2004, 388).

Such multiplications of spatiality follow or surround Samuel Weber like a web wherever he goes. After his lecture on Walter Benjamin and Angelus Novus at the University of California, Irvine, some nine years ago, in a multilingual banter that ensued between Sam Weber, and Jacques Derrida, discussing how to translate “network” into French, it was concluded that in his lecture Weber turned “reason,” in French “raison,” into “reseau,” a network. Samuel Weber himself operates like an electronic web, a resourceful reseau, his email address after all being “sweb21.”

In the concluding chapter to Theatricality as Medium, in an interview session with Simon Morgan Wortham and Gary Hall, Samuel Weber was asked about the “style” that pertains to “his own writing,” precisely in terms of a perceptive attention to dislocation staged by and elaborated in his writing: “In your recent work on theatricality as medium, you comment on the way in which the writing of Jacques Derrida explores its own ‘theatrical quality as a “staging.”’ But what of the performance or performativity that attends your own writing? What of its own ‘taking place’? Does this open up or open onto a different sort of ‘theatrical/theoretical’ space or (dis-)location?” (in Weber 2004, 356). This is what Sam Weber had to say in response to this question: “Certain impulses have come to me precisely from the encounter with different [italics S.W.] cultures and languages: first German, then French, both al271

ways interacting with certain (American) English.

Perhaps this is the reason why a certain ‘intensity’ did not develop in the way it has in Derrida’s writing, an aspect he has described as his ‘monolingualism.’ If you are asking about this kind of difference, then it is surely not simply a ‘deliberate strategy’ on my part, but something that my experience—trajectory—imposed on me” (Weber 2004, 361).

Thus, finding Samuel Weber “here and everywhere,” hic et ubique, in the passage-works of the web and difference, translates in his own idiom as an understated response which is formed in his encounter with and demand from the Other. Such comings and goings point out to an ethical element which Samuel Weber would probably be too modest to avow (when placing his own significant ethico-political gesture in a footnote, for example), but is encapsulated in his footnoted comment on translation of “hic et ubique” into English as “wherever,” in close proximity to the colloquial “or whatever”: “By concluding an assertion with the phrase ‘or whatever,’ the speaker disclaims responsibility for the assertions just made. In contrast to such a disclaiming function, hic et ubique points to a difficulty of assuming responsibility for words whose effects cannot be ambiguously localized—but it does not attempt to avoid that responsibility” (Weber 2004, 388, italics D.K.). Operating in the passages towards the Other, in a dislocating force of translation, in the time-place, to again use Hamlet’s words, “out of joint,” Samuel Weber articulates and mediates a singular voice of responsibility.

Such responsiveness and an ability to respond and welcome the Other (“Certain impulses have come to me precisely from the encounter with different [italics S.W.] cultures and languages”) also open up a space mindful of the future. The only future we have, the future of and with the Other.

The interpellation by which the Other summons has been already announced in the words by Samuel Weber quoted above: the future, difference,

pêrspëctîvés

response and responsibility. They are marks of this interpellation. The topic of justice, being-with the other, “a politics of memory, of inheritance, and of generation” (Derrida) impose themselves, precisely, from the sensibility to the time “out of joint,” from a certain sensibility which is hic et ubique. In his Specters of Marx Jacques Derrida, writing about Hamlet and the same scene where Hamlet encounters the ghost that Samuel Weber has commented upon, proposes that the source of the ethical announces itself from the difference at the heart of the living: “Without this non-contemporaneity with itself of the living present, without that which secretly unhinges it, without this responsibility and this respect for justice concerning those who are not there, of those who are no longer or who are not yet present and living, what sense would there be to ask the question ‘where’?” (Derrida 1994, xix).

That is why a certain mournful predisposition is not dissociated from an affirmation and an affirmative anticipation of the future, from saying “yes” to it. “The desire for memory and the mourning of yes set in motion the anamnesic machine. And its hypermnesic accelaration. The machine reproduces the living, it doubles it with its automaton” (Derrida 1994, 276). A certain gramophony, technicality and mediality attends to any “yes” and affirmation of Being, says Derrida in his “Ulysses Gramophone” while discussing that the telephone comes “before the act or the word,” and adds: “And as my friend Sam Weber has reminded me, a Dasein accedes to itself only on the basis of the Call (der Ruf), a call which has come from afar….” (Derrida, 1992, 273).

A certain coming and going perceived at the very heartbeat of the living present, a split between the respect for and the specter of the inheritance and the coming of the future, fissures the present “as such,” and responds to both the living and the dead, to what may be still to come in the name of the immemorial past. It is a responsive thing to do and a

responsible place to be. “This question arrives, if it arrives, it questions what will come in the future-tocome. Turned toward the future, going toward it, it also comes from it, it proceeds from [provient de] the future. It must therefore exceed any presence as presence to itself. At least it has to make this presence possible only on the basis of the movement of some disjoining, disjunction, or disproportion: in the inadequation to self…. What stands in front must also precede it like its origin: before it. Even if the future is its provenance, it must be, like any provenance, absolutely and irreversibly past” (Derrida 1994, xix).

The protection and respect accorded to life will have come thus from a respect to a unique and singular which are divided between their past and their future, a singular as an iteration and repetition. (“The word ‘specter’ is the perfect anagram of ‘respect.’ I since discovered that another word is also the perfect anagram of these two, which is ‘scepter.’”

[Derrida, “Spectrographies,” 2002, 194]). A live presence is also something like a ghost, a specter who or which watches me and is thus also a spectator, coming and going, a ghost who comes and goes, who is to come and who is the future, to put it in French, revenant qui vient, qui est a-venir. “This justice carries life beyond present life or its actual being-there, its empirical or ontological actuality: not towards death but toward a living-on [sur-vie] namely a trace of which life and death would themselves be but traces and traces of traces, a survival whose possibility in advance comes to disjoin or dis-adjust the identity to itself of the living present” (Derrida 1994, xx). In every revenant there is something of a survivant.

Let us repeat as a reminder, that it is in a dislocated coming and going that we have first encountered Samuel Weber, on the way someplace else, turned towards the difference of the other, the ghost, the hic et ubique, and to the future. Now, we have introduced a concept of spectrality and the re272

pêrspëctîvés

working of the ontological which Derrida dubbed hauntology: “Staging [italics D.K.] of the end of history. …. Repetition and first time: this is perhaps the question of the event as question of the ghost….”

(Derrida 1994, 10), in order to underscore the mediatic and theatrical always at work in any “question of being” or ontology.

In Institution and Interpretation (Expanded Edition), Samuel Weber will claim that “Iterability irritates: which is to say, it excites, impels one to leave the confines of the familiar and the consoling; it troubles, confuses and confounds, producing precisely the effects that the Cartesian method was designed to eliminate” (Weber 2001, 244). Samuel Weber goes on to elaborate how Descartes sought to exclude from the cogito memory, forgetting, temporality, but forms of repetition and recurrence come to “haunt the Cartesian, modern, bourgeois subject: the other as excluded but necessary duplication of the Self ” (Weber 2001, 245).

In Mass Mediauras, in the chapter “After Deconstruction,” Samuel Weber addresses precisely this fissure or difference, “the ghostlike manifestation of iterability” (Weber 1996, 145) which is both followed by deconstruction and traced by it, making it an exemplary reading strategy for the mediatic.

Deconstruction traces the passage by which “selfsameness, in order to be constituted, emerges out of repetitive comparison and in order for something to be there, it must therefore pass through the element of heterogeneity, or otherness, in order to be constituted as the same” (Weber 1996, 138). “Seen in this perspective—which Derrida calls differance—iterability splits the mark into a past that can never be fully rendered present and a future which is always about to arrive…. What is called the present is the coming-to-pass of the future” (Weber 1996, 149).

The past comes--back from the future, such is the logic at work or network weaved by deconstruction, a hauntology always already at work, in the very 273

workings of the world. “The spectral logic is de facto deconstructive logic,” says Derrida in “Spectrographies” (Derrida 2002, 117).

In Mass Mediauras, in the chapter “Upsetting the Setup: Remarks on Heidegger’s ‘Question After Technics,’” Weber points out the strategy by which Heidegger attempts to ward off the heterogeneity of the technical only to find himself “led elsewhere, in another direction, toward poiesis. … Because of this uncanny, duplicitous, ambivalent singularity, the questing after technics never arrives at the stable acquisition of knowledge. Or at least it cannot be measured in terms of cognition” (Weber 1996, 75).

The mediatic thus dictates another logic of space, spatiality and temporality, one that allows no pre-technical appearance of Being, but a being always already dis-located in the moment of appearance, split between the having been in the past and going to the future in the movement of singular iterability. “The ‘there is’ [‘il y a’] or ‘that there is something rather than nothing’ belongs, perhaps, to the experience of the event rather than the thinking of being. The coming of the event is what we cannot and must never prevent, another name of the future itself ” (Derrida 2002, 11). The technological and mediatic which are always at work wherever experience is constituted (whenever something is felt, comes to pass, is recorded, memorized, experienced), thus require another account of being. What is, to paraphrase Derrida from the Politics of Friendship, need not necessarily be. The question “To be, or not to be?” may not be the most important question to ask, or does not necessarily pertain to Being, says Derrida in the Specters of Marx, invoking yet again Hamlet. It is the spectral that precedes being: “This other, this specter of this other regards us, concerns us: not in an accessory way, but within our own identity” (Derrida 2002, 86).

Yes, we are, like Samuel Weber, all over the place, hic et ubique, changing vantage points, com-

pêrspëctîvés

ing and going, between texts and analytic situations, “Catching Up With the Past,” “Going(s) On,” to use the titles of chapters from his book Mass Mediauras, a hic et ubique on the move. But we are never far from Samuel Weber and the very practical, experiential situatedness of this analysis, moving back and forth and in between, temporality, technology, spectrality, and “our own” contemporary time and space. Let us give just one example, still on the topic of coming and going. The globalizing forces of the capital and media make the “subject” more and more prone to the feeling of isolation and abjection. The contemporary media play at this displacement by attempting to stage a sense of consoling, soothing sameness of programming, a repetition of the same, familiarity of the seen. Indeed, as Weber points out in the chapter “’War,’ ‘Terrorism,’ and ‘Spectacle’: On Towers and Caves” from Theatricality as Medium, the media make a great effort to “support such identification” and make images “clearly localizable, self-contained, and meaningful” (Weber 2004, 332). This would be the ideology in the image at work. But such ideological consolidation is pitted against a structural displacement at its very point of its origin. The spectacle is always (hic et ubique several times again) “once here and elsewhere,” divided between the not just now and the now which is not just there. “At the same time, the spectacle plays to spectators who are similarly neither here not there, or—which amounts to the same thing—here and there at once” (Weber 2004, 331). In Weber’s Targets of Opportunity the move from work to a net-work, now attached to a techno-militaristic machine, coupled with targeting, operates as a theater of war, “a network of netwar,” to assuage collective guilt by inventing an enemy and doing away with him, and thus seemingly consolidating the structural displacement at the origin of a networked community.

However, all such acts of targeting are violent since they consist of a “denial of indebtedness to an alter-

ity without which nothing could be identified, no aim taken, no target hit” (Weber, 2005, 105).

The collusion of the techno-media and “war” is no secret. There is a buck to be made there, and the mediatic is attached to the war machine and shares in its profits. First the camera shows up, and then the bombers. An anecdote from the siege of Sarajevo during the war in the former Yugoslavia is illustrative. “A neighbor, who is, say, a Serb, to another, who is a Muslim, as a curse: ‘May your house appear tonight on CNN!’” In his essay titled “Wartime” in the collection Violence, Identity, Self-determination, Samuel Weber points out that “The fact that a Bosnia or a Rwanda is possible in the glare of the TV screen is what renders Freud’s psychoanalytic approach to the question of violence as pertinent today as it has ever been” (Weber 1997, 89).

The analysis of “Wars” engaged in Theatricality as Medium has been for a while now a location where most often one could find Samuel Weber at work and network. A certain nihilistic turn to itself from the very interiority of modernity has been the site of Samuel Weber’s most patient analyses. This nothing turning onto itself and forming a mediatic stage of which the recent mediatic instantiations are only offsprings of mediatic offshoots, Weber located in the figure of allegory as deployed by the German philosopher Walter Benjamin in his book, the title of which has been translated as The Origin of the German Tragic Drama. In the wake of, vigilantly following and thus at times preceding, extending and bringing about its living-on, the work of Jacques Derrida, particularly Derrida’s attention to the concept of spectrality and iterability, Samuel Weber deploys the concept of allegory as found in Benjamin, and his own versions of iterability and spectrality, which, in his latest works appear translated under the names of “theatricality” and “Benjamin’s –abilities.” It is to these two concepts that we now turn.

274

pêrspëctîvés

Analytic traces of the encounter between Samuel Weber and Walter Benjamin are strewn throughout his opus. Samuel Weber has emerged as the most insistent, systematic and simply brilliant analyst of Benjamin’s oeuvre today. One should give this its due assessment. In order to give a minimal justice to the concept of allegory and theatricality in Samuel Weber and Benjamin, we will have to leave aside for now Weber’s magisterial analysis of Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproducibility,” for example, in Mass Mediauras, and will limit ourselves to note that Samuel Weber was the first to alert to the mistranslation of this title (“reproduction”) and to insist on the –ability in “reproducibility.” The notion of allegory as found in Benjamin has been deployed in various critical contexts and interpretive junctures. In Targets of Opportunity, for example, the genealogy of modernity encapsulated by the concept of allegory is brought to bear on the concept of war, work and network.

In the aftermath of Reformation and counter-Reformation, the path to redemption formerly available through the “good works” of the Catholic Church has been supplanted by the sola fides, faith only of the Lutheran reformation. In his book on the Trauerspiel, Walter Benjamin examined this challenge to the Christian soteriological narrative, the Heilsgeschichte, claims Weber, which was replaced by a theater staging death and destruction, the allegorical “mourning play.” The allegory of the “Mourning play” appears at the moment when, Weber quotes this in his essay on “Allegory and Theatricality in Benjamin,” “The secularizing (Verweltlichung) of the Counter-Reformation gained force in both religious confessions, religious inclination” but “religious inclinations still did not lose their weight: it was only that the century refused them a religious solution, in order to impose or demand a worldly one in its place” (Benjamin in Weber 2004, 170). Thus, Christian Europe bars the transcendental narrative from 275

occurring, and only faith, sola fides, a radical immanentism, folds back on itself in a profound selfreferential abyss in which nothing gets to be “represented” since it is nothing that formed the core of this immanentist fold, but gets to be staged. “Walter Benjamin designates throughout his text that ‘natural history’ refers to a movement of perdition rather than progress, a ‘fallen’ creation that is doomed to finitude and mortality without any perspective of meaning that would transcend such limitation” (Weber 2005, 174). The outcome of the Reformation unleashed forces by which the transcendental was turned onto itself as radically immanent, and thus opened a nihilistic void at the heart of the Christian world. This void, precisely as nothing to play with, appears, in Weber’s and Benjamin’s analysis, as the very stage on which a profound multiplicity (since immanent and permutable meanings) vie for “expression.” A stage movement, mise-en-scene, has become literally a movement over the abyss, miseen-abyme. What is expressed is founded on these spectral, nihilistic boards, where no resurrection is possible, but only a contact between life and death, and thus a multiplication of ghosts and specters, of which Hamlet’s father is just the most emblematic instantiation. Hamlet, let us remind ourselves, was a student in Wittenberg.

The baroque allegory, the story of the fall, thus ushers in a crisis in both earthly and divine modes of representation. “What the baroque consequently rejects is any admission of the limitation of immanence and it does so by emptying transcendence of all possible representable content. Far from doing away with transcendence, however, such emptying out endows it with all the more powerful force: that of the vacuum, of the absolute unbounded other, which, since it is no longer representable, is also no longer localizable out there or as beyond. The otherness that is no longer allowed to remain transcendent therefore reappears this side of the horizon, rep-

pêrspëctîvés

resented as a cataract, abyss, or fall. Or, even more radically, as allegory” (Weber 2008, 187).

Instead of the sovereign who borrows his transcendence from God (the path to such transcendence, we should remember, has been foreclosed by the radical immanentism of sola fides), and whose legitimacy is shattered, the political space emblematized by the Trauerspiel is inhabited by a plotter, a schemer, and the political space opened up to certain ambivalence and theatricality. “It is this medium, in all of its avowed inauthenticity—which Benjamin links to a spatial simultaneity of the stage—that replaces the faltering eschatological medium of Christian Heilsgeschichte” (Weber 2005, 104). The outcome of the European religious wars leaves something like a car wreck, floodlit with lights of emergency vehicles, while a plotter directs the traffic around it and tells the gawkers, “Move on, there is nothing to see.”

But like a fleet of emergency vehicles, what is ushered in by this crisis of sovereignty is a staging of an emergency, an accident, a ruin, a theater of wars and targets of opportunities, all staging a profound nothingness at work as a network, displayed or staged as an (emergency, state of exception) vehicle of political expediency. “In short, what you see in the Trauerspiel is all you are going to get: all and nothing,” Weber concludes in “Allegory and Theatricality in Benjamin” (Weber 2004, 176). The theatrical site of the German baroque drama (but this has by now in Benjamin and Samuel Weber also been diagnosed as a genealogy of modernity), “The sight of these [theatrical] images is intended to compensate for the emptying of the world. But they remain allegorical ‘masks,’ and hence the world they ‘reanimate’ is the world of the living dead, of ghosts and ghouls, rather than of the resurrected” (Weber 2004, 177).

Thus, the theatrical medium of which German Trauerspiel gives not “artistically” significant examples, but examples crucial for the genealogy of modernity and mediality, becomes emblematic

of the post-Reformation nihilism at work—or network in the tormented body of the Christian world.

“Through its staging of suffering, murder, and death in the mourning play, this rhythm, which marks the recurrence of the ‘fall’ rather than the coming of resurrection, endows the baroque network with relative stability and, indeed endurance. But it is a stability and endurance of a shared guilt rather than the expectation of salvation.” This guilt, Samuel Weber points out in his analysis of the genealogy of network and netwar, “serves to isolate the other as enemy, which is to say a potential target to be hit and shunted aside, beseitig” (Weber 2004, 104-5).

In the crisis of sovereignty, an intriguer appears on the stage of history. In his essay “Taking Exception to Decision. Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt,” in his Benjamin’s –abilities, Weber indicates that “The intriguer exploits the mechanism of human action as the result of forces over which there can be no ultimate control, but which precisely for that reason can be made a subject of probabilistic calculations” (Weber 2008, 191). In American political parlance and crisis of a democratically elected presidential sovereignty, that would be a recent denomination of a politician as a “maverick” or a “decider.” “For the intriguer, … the exercise of power as manipulation of others must be its own reward. In the absence of the Work (since the Reformation elimination of “good works” resulted in the elimination of Work tout court), virtuosity is all that is left. Anyone who thinks otherwise might well ponder the fate of Wotan, his family, and the nation that followed in their footsteps” (Weber 2004, 179). Thus, what appeared as an analysis of an obscure genre and plays that no one reads anymore, even at the time when Benjamin wrote the book on the Trauerspiel, turned out to be a reflection on the very forces of nihilistic destruction related to the “death of God” and the void filled with the technomediatic virtuosity and prowess, not unrelated to 276

pêrspëctîvés

the situation we currently find ourselves in, and perhaps first of all in the United States.

Benjamin thus understood and tried to ward off by his writing the forces, which, unleashed by the aesthetic ideology of the German tragic drama, and coupled with the forces of technology, would soon spell massive destruction on a global scale. (Weber: “The only hope available to the baroque is to … slow if not abolish the irresistible pull toward a catastrophic terminus” 2004, 173). Such was Benjamin’s analysis of Kafka, in whose stories he was the first to discover, in the minute and imperceptible tremors of Kafka’s narratives, the echoes of the massive deployment of “the technology of modern warfare.”

But this reality of Kafka’s stories “can virtually no longer be experienced by an individual, and that, in Kafka’s world, frequently of such playfulness and interlaced with angels, is the exact complement of his era which is preparing to do away with the inhabitants of this planet on a considerable scale. The experience which corresponds to that of Kafka, the private individual, will probably not become accessible to the masses until such time as they are being done away with” (Benjamin 1968, 143). The nihilistic void of modernity, staged by the baroque allegory and so subtly and insistently interpreted by Benjamin, only needed its target of opportunity (the private body of Franz Kafka, a Jew, multiplied and massified by means of technical reproducibility) to come to its nihilistic telos and end. To invoke Samuel Weber form Targets of Opportunity, as a coda to the quote above, to give the full dimension and echo to the sonorous sound of this insight: “It is this act of violence that registers as ‘guilt’—which consists of the denial of indebtedness to an alterity without which nothing could be identified, no aim taken, no target hit” (Weber 2005, 05). In his essay on “Allegory and Theatricality in Benjamin,” to remain a bit longer in the vicinity of allegory of the German tragic drama (but now, again, fully aware that it is a genealogy of mo277

dernity that Benjamin and Samuel Weber are providing), a despotism often depicted in these plays, “Less ‘Oriental’ than ‘Western,” (so it is the genealogy of Western modernity), is itself “a desperate reaction to a no win game. The theatrical medium does not so much seek salvation as ward off impeding catastrophe though its spatio-temporal, that is, localized suspension on stage. Such a desperate project is therefore predicated upon inevitable and considerable violence” (Weber 2004, 179). “German mourning play buries itself entirely in the hopelessness of the earthly order,” says Benjamin (quoted in Weber, 2008, 157). “The secularized world of the baroque is going towards its end… the baroque mourning play is going nowhere” (Weber 2008, 159).

The play which for Benjamin and Weber stands as an emblem of the Baroque is Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It is in the analysis of this play in his “’Ibi et ubique’: The Incontinent Plot (‘Hamlet’)” of Theatricality as Medium, that Samuel Weber makes most explicitly a connection between iterability, spectrality and his notion of theatricality. The radical immanence at work in the German Baroque play opens up the stage to a melancholic gaze cast on the world where the staging puts in proximity both the live persons, personae, and the dead ones. In Hamlet, German Baroque play, but also in the new media the genealogy of which could be traced to these two, “the emphasis on life only underscores the ghostly nature of the screen as well as that of stage: what it brings to life is not simply resurrected, but also embalmed” (Weber 2004, 181).

The notorious haunting of Hamlet’s father’s ghost is given a close scrutiny and an original analysis. Samuel Weber carefully reads the scenes of swearing and the comic reliefs (Hamlet to Ghost: “Art thou there, truepenny?”) accompanying these scenes in act I (never truly read so far or given a proper accounting), to underscore the splitting of the space of the stage, and a radical spectrality of

pêrspëctîvés

the play, stemming from the performative force unleashed by the swearing scenes. Samuel Weber points out how Hamlet is forced repeatedly to change his place on the stage in order to swear his friends Marcellus, Horatio and Bernardo, to secrecy. The outbidding of the oath, first in words then in deed, never satisfying Hamlet, indicates in the opening of the play the representational and symbolic void opened up by the Reformation, of which, as we have already indicated, the German Tragic Play is an allegory. “Note Hamlet’s insistence upon all the external trappings of a formal oath: it is not enough for Marcellus to protest, ‘We have sworn, my lord, already,’ not enough that he has already agreed verbally to Hamlet’s injunction ‘never make known what you have seen tonight.’ Although Hamlet, like Horatio, has studied in Wittenberg, the Protestant mistrust of sacramental ritual seems to extend to the ‘faith’ that for Luther is supposed to supplant it” (Weber 2004, 183). The rift between Catholicism and Protestantism staged as the bidding for the “proper” mourning of the father, and as a one-on-one relation between the father and the son (Hamlet the Father speaks only to Hamlet the Son, qua ghost or unholy spirit), explicitly related to Luther and Wittenberg, serves in the play as pointed out in Benajmin’s and Samuel Weber’s interpretation to underscore the structural forces of representation (or its unraveling) at work in this scene. “Hic” in “Hic et ubique” should also be heard as an echo of “hic est meum corpus” of the Catholic Eucharist here by the Lutheran sola fides (Wittenberg) violently rejected as ghostly, phantomatic, spectral, and sentenced to wondering. By placing the ghost under the stage, thus putting on display the impossibility to internalize the father’s ghost in the act of mourning (Hamlet’s well known melancholia, incapacity to “introject” the loss), the play, enacting the forces of the religious schism qua a secularized spectacle, spectralizes the stage and makes the plot inconti-

nent. Thus, the greatest political rift in modern history, the schism in the Christian church, comes to haunt the very representational space of the play.

The stage becomes divided and infinitely di-visible, thus anticipating the workings of the modern media: “The iterable divisibility of ‘representing’ thus contaminates the visibility of the represented. The intended act—here, the oath—is derailed by the fact that it is always already the product of acting” (Weber 2004, 185).

Everything is on the stage and everywhere else.

What is crucial for understanding the workings of the play is the instability of the symbolic order stemming from the incapacity to “properly mourn” the father (the death of God; the sacrifice of Christ; the impossibility of transcendence, the path to which is barred by Luther’s sola fides, captured for example in the history of religious painting by Hans Holbein’s Dead Christ in a Tomb) which unhinges the representational space, or the possibility of the plot to begin or end in a homogenous way required by the metaphysical tradition of Aristotelian dramatic theory. “’Hic et ubique’ is as succinct a characterization of the divisible space of a spectral theatricality as is possible, but ‘shifting our ground’ is hardly going to be an effective response. Not just ‘time’ is out of joint,’ but ‘space’ as well” (Weber 2004, 185-6).

The ghost is everywhere and nowhere, and that contaminates, so to speak, the figures on the stage: says Samuel Weber, both living or dead. The plot leaks spectrality and mediality, and requires different interpretive tools for understanding the comings and goings of this play, and subsequently of the modern media stemming out of it.

The interpretation of Hamlet which, it seems, most resembles that of Samuel Weber’s is Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildernstern are Dead, both the play (1966) and the film which he wrote and directed (1990). The play does not stage Hamlet, but the very theatricality at work in this play. We 278

pêrspëctîvés

could say of it what Samuel Weber says of Hamlet, that “Every speech onstage is already an echo and repetition of a ‘part’ inscribed elsewhere” (Weber 2004, 185). The play starts with a coin toss. It always turns heads. One should read in this several things that we have discerned in the original: the play of Hamlet owes its ghostly, spectral, “spooky” feeling to the repetitions of which the origin is unknown.

The flipping of the coin intensifies this sense of repetition: something has happened, and like the coin flip, the two main characters are aimlessly tossed on the stage, and whatever their actions, it will cost them their “head.” Furthermore, the coin they flip is a “Sovereign,” thus inviting the interpretation of its status in the play in the wake of the attention it received in Benjamin and Samuel Weber. (In order to save time, I refer the reader to “Taking Exception to Decision. Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt” in Benjamin’s –abilities. It is the best assessment of the question of sovereignty in Benjamin and Schmitt to date). The Beckettian absurdism of Rosencrantz & Guildernstern are Dead makes of the sovereign a coin flip, a flip of the sovereign. The repeated toss that brings back the king (“heads”) in his symbolic, spectral guise, parodically repeats the return of the ghost that refuses to rest in peace in the original play of Hamlet. This parodic return of the sovereign ghost qua the coin flip, the very motion of iterability and theatricality in play, may be best captured by the interpretive insight in Weber’s essay above that “the baroque play finds a saving grace in its own theatricality” (Weber 2008, 191).

The plot in Rosencrantz & Guildernstern are Dead is interminably divided by more and more staging and plotting, beginning with the entrance into (or is it the exit out of?) the play, when found abandoned on the scene of the traveling stage coach, and then suddenly transposed into “Hamlet,” forever unsettling the frame of reference, underscored by the inability of the leading protagonists to identify 279

themselves. The following scene starts at the stage of the traveling theater, but imperceptibly, like a fold of a Moebius strip, turns into Elsinore, completely confusing exteriority and interiority, and delocalizing the frame of reference: GUIL (turning): What?

ROS: It was tails.

He tosses the coin to GUIL who catches it. Simultaneously—lighting change sufficient to alter the exterior mood into interior, but nothing violent.

And OPHELIA runs on in some alarm, holding up her skirts—followed by HAMLET (Stoppard 1967, 34) The scene above is a perfect illustration (and vice versa) of Samuel Weber’s: “The visible plot is suspended by a divisible voice [and multiple framing] emanating from an invisible plot below and before all possible plots or plotting” (Weber 2004, 184). Their inability to remember the origin of their departure or destiny, split in their identity and temporality, already living their own death (Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are dead but alive on stage) underscores this ghostly division in the characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Rosencrantz & Guildernstern are Dead radicalizes Hamlet in a similar way as Samuel Weber makes its theatricality theoretically explicit: in order to come to terms with tradition and the political, one has to learn to deal with specters and ghosts, even or especially those that haunt our most intimate selves. It is not the king that is spectral, but our own predicament is that we are haunted, from the moment we have been sent for, by the ghost of our own existence, and every time called, summoned, conjured or “mimicked” (should we say, allegorized) by the staging as if of this play.

“The emptied world” “becomes the condition of the masked resurrection.” “But that resurrection remains a mask, tied to the theater” (Weber 2004, 191, italics D.K.). Rosencrantz & Guildernstern are Dead il-

pêrspëctîvés

lustrates the radical theatricalization of the original play’s potential, “referring to its medial conditions of possibility” (Weber 2004, 195).

In his Hamlet and Hecuba. The Intrusion of the Time Into Play, written in 1956, Carl Schmitt has already noticed with some lucidity that Shakespeare’s Trauerspiel (Hamlet) is unplayable as a tragedy: In Shakespeare’s “so called tragedies,” says Schmitt, “we can least afford to ignore the unplayability (Unverspielbarkeit) of the tragic” (Schmitt 2009, 40). Schmitt tries to arrest however this movement of spectrality and “unplayability” by insisting on grounding the play in an exact referential “historical” reading and insisting on the direct and unmediated connection between Hamlet and James I, somehow made univocally explicit in the “Mousetrap.” His book even includes a “response” to Walter Benjamin’s Origin of the German Tragic Play, downplaying the power of allegory. We will leave aside this debate and the delayed “response” to Walter Benjamin which is some thirty years late. We know that he was sent the book

by Benjamin himself with words of admiration and a dedication upon its publication in 1928. We should however briefly note that the long delay in responding publicly and to a now dead author says a lot (or could say a lot to Schmitt) about precisely the unavowable forces at work in his own political trajectory, the undigested and non-introjected historical baggage that haunts his “response.” A statement in this response that “Hamlet is not Christian in any specific sense” (Schmitt 2009, 61), meant as a critical remark to undercut the authority of allegory as interpreted by Benjamin, is nothing but a Verneinung of the first order, but one revealing a belated spasm of the very nihilistic void analyzed by Benjamin, which started in the Reformation and later on found a mechanically reproduced sacrificial target (to include “the private citizens” Kafka and Benjamin”) to fill this void and thus restore itself to a purified unity, in the worst imaginable manner. In Schmitt’s

response, that target is repressed or talked about or to, only when it is there no more, while it is there no more precisely with the historically irreversible ideological and political complicity of Carl Schmitt. But there is no stopping the ghosts of history. Just like in Hamlet, the repression makes the ghost return more insistently. That is what Schmitt’s response misses in Hamlet and in his own address to Benjamin’s ghost.

The truth of the play according to Schmitt is paradoxically (and something Schmitt does not quite take into account in its full consequences), in the play within the play staged by Hamlet. Paradoxically, since such staging precisely qua staging, qua mediality, splits the frame of reference and the truth of the play, inasmuch as the “truth” of his own “response to Benjamin” remains divided by the decalage, Nachtraeglich haunting. What the play within the play reveals, rather, is that in this play “every place is part and parcel of a medium, although never simply in the sense of an interval or transition between two fixed points or poles. The medium is what happens when places are haunted by an uncanny divisibility. Medium is the ghost of a place: its haunt” (Weber 2004, 187).

The attempt to localize the referential truth of this play solely in the time of Elizabethan England disregards the power of Hamlet and Benjamin, to read in this play the nihilistic forces of modernity splitting the stage, its frame of reference, and which affected not only England, but also Germany precisely at the moment when it put itself at the promontory of “the new Europe.” “What otherwise is known as ‘secularization’ becomes, in Benjamin’s account, more like allegorical theatricalization. Such allegorical theatricalization cannot simply overcome time and mortality, but it can temporarily arrest, interrupt, and suspend their progress” (Weber 2004, 191, italics D.K.).

What is eerily historically “true” in Hamlet are not particular historical references, but the capacity to serve as a lure of history and provide an interpretive frame not for resembling, but for inter280

pêrspëctîvés

preting and staging it, dare we say deconstructing it, through the ghostly movements of its “disorderly excess”, which it also attempts to temporarily arrest (Weber 2004, 197). Hamlet stages how European history (the history of “the West”) comes to pass. But thus also in its wake (as in the vigilant encounter with the ghost) allows for a different history to be imagined or staged, precisely in the horrible immemorial memory of its catastrophic origin. “The elevation of these corpses upon the stage [at the end of Hamlet] reveals what has been known all along but perhaps not fully recognized: that the theatrical stage remains a temporal stage, which comes only in going, and which, in departing, leaves room for what is to come” (Weber 2004, 199).

Ghost Scriptum: “Ghosts have an affinity for mourners, for those who ponder over signs and over the future,” Walter Benjamin (1998, 193).

Works Cited and Consulted 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Abraham, Nicolas and Torok, Maria. The Shell and the Kernel. Translated by Nicholas T. Rand. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Benjamin, Walter. The Origin of German Tragic Drama.

Translated by John Osborne. London: Verso, 1998.

---- Illuminations. Essays and Reflections. Translated by Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1968.

Derrida, Jacques. “Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Suicides—A Dialogue With Jacques Derrida.” In Giovanna Borradori. Philosophy in the Time of Terror. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

281

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

----“Spectrographies.” In Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler. Echographies of Television, Translated by Jennifer Bajorek. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002.

---- “No One Is Innocent,” A Discussion With Jacques Derrida About Philosophy in the Face of Terror, The Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, http://www.watsoninstitute.org/infopeace/911/article, last accessed June 23, 2010.

---- Specters of Marx. Translated by Peggy Kamuf.

New York: Routledge, 1994.

----, “Ulysses Gramophone.” Translated by Tina Kendall and Revised by Shari Benstock. In Acts of Literature. Edited by Derek Attridge. New York: Routledge, 1992.

Heidegger, Martin. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Translated by William Lovitt.

New York: Harper and Row, 1977.

Hillis Miller, J. “Anachronistic Reading.” Manuscript, 2010.

---- “Ecotechnical Odradek.” Manuscript, 2010.

----The Medium is the Maker. Browning, Freud, Derrida and the New Telepathic Technologies. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2009.

Schmitt Karl. Hamlet or Hecuba. Translated by David Pan and Jennifer Rust. New York: Telos Press, 2009.

Stoppard, Tom. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.

New York: Grove Press, 1967.

Weber, Samuel. Benjamin’s –abilities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008.

---- Targets of Opportunity. On the Militarization of Thinking. New York: Fordham University Press, 2005.

---- Theatricality as Medium. New York: Fordham University Press, 2004.

---- Institution and Interpretation. Expanded Edition.

Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.

---- “Wartime,” in Violence, Identity, Self-determination. Edited by Samuel Weber and Hendt de Vries.

Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.

---- Mass Mediauras. Form. Technics. Media. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.

282

283

diãlôgüés

f o t o

N e m a n j a

K n e ž e v i ć

n e m a n j a . k n e z e v i c @ g m a i l . c o m s t r a n a :

2 8 0 ,

2 8 1 ,

2 8 3 ,

2 8 4 ,

2 8 5 ,

2 9 6 ,

2 9 7

284

285

286

287

diãlôgüés UDC 1 Weber S. (047.53)

Interview conducted by Arne De Boever and Alex Murray

Samuel Weber on Benjamin’s -abilities • Could you briefly explain what you mean by “Benjamin’s -abilities”?

Samuel Weber From his earliest until his latest writings, Walter Benjamin tends to form many of his key concepts by nominalizing verbs through the addition of the suffix “-ability”: in German, “-barkeit.”

Examples are: communicability (with respect to language), criticizability (with respect to the Romantic notion of literature), translatability, reproducibility and cognizability. This gives a very particular cast to his manner of forming concepts: instead of seeking to designate what phenomena or processes have in common, such “-abilities” designate what Derrida once called a “structural possibility,” a potentiality based not on what actually is but on what might be.

Such concepts are thereby directed more toward a possible future than an already existing present.

They put the emphasis therefore on the potential to transform reality – or on reality itself as a process of transformation. But they also reflect what I call a tendency to grasp such reality in terms of “media” or “mediality” – one could say “medi-ability” if it weren’t such an ugly word – rather than in terms of accomplished “works.” A medium, for Benjamin at

least, is defined as a complex of relationships – today we might say “links” – rather than as an aggregate of self-contained, meaningful works or facts. Part of my project, in this book, is to retrace the genealogy of Benjamin’s influential insights in the new media back to his relation to the traditional disciplines in which he was initially trained: philosophy, literary studies, art history, political theory. His tendency to “medialize” concepts through articulating them as “-abilities” prepares the way for his insights into the “new” media of photography, cinema and radio.

But these insights are always dependent on the way he conceives of the “old” media, above all language, time and space.

• If Benjamin’s and Derrida’s thought can be said to

share a concern with language, time, and space, in what ways do you consider them to be different?

Perhaps we can begin with language, more specifically, linguistics. In a short text you wrote about Benjamin’s -abilities, you present Benjamin as a precursor of Derrida’s rediscovery of Ferdinand de Saussure’s notion of linguistic value as differential signification; but isn’t Benjamin’s background in linguistics different from Derrida’s, in a way that 288

diãlôgüés

might resist the relation between Benjamin and Derrida that you establish?

Your question, which is multiple, is one that has pursued me – Derrida would have said “haunted” – for many years. Where to start? With language perhaps. Both Benjamin and Derrida are in a tradition that also includes Heidegger, and in which language plays a decisive role as the medium within which established notions of meaning and value, based on an unquestioned subject-object paradigm, are to be rethought. A clear manifestation of this situation can be found in the fact that both Heidegger and Benjamin, independently of one another, planned to write their “Habilitation” – i.e. the second thesis, corresponding to the Doctorat d’etat in France – on the very same text: De modi significandi, at the time ascribed to Duns Scotus and since reattributed to Thomas of Erfurt. In short, the scholastic tradition of investigating the “modes of signifying” served already at the beginning of the twentieth century as an historical point from which the then dominant NeoKantianism, and above all Bewusstseinsphilosophie – philosophy based on self-consciousness – could be called into question. One of Derrida’s first major works returns to this general configuration in problematizing Husserl’s early attempt to establish an immanence of thinking by demonstrating how the sign and signification have to be excluded in order for such immanence to function, but also how such exclusion breaks down and ultimately confirms the inevitable heterogeneity of thinking, precisely as inseparable from language as signifying process.

Both Derrida and Benjamin participate in this process, which is why both are attentive to language not just as an object of reflection but as a medium of their practice – of their writing practice. So, of course, Benjamin’s “background in linguistics” is different from Derrida’s, but there are certain common origins and, above all, concerns that they share.

289

Moreover, for both, the question of the alterity of language as signification also requires a rethinking of the relation of knowledge and truth in their relation not just to science and reason, but also to religion. Both see language as a medium that opens or reopens the question of the “messianic” for instance, with and against an Enlightenment tradition that sought to eliminate or devalue such perspectives.

But here perhaps is a place where a decisive difference between the two, between Benjamin and Derrida, can be found. For Benjamin, the messianic tradition is inseparable from the figure of the Messiah, no matter how elusive and unorthodox this figure turns out to be in his writings. Derrida, by contrast, coins the formula “messianicity without messianism” and his writings rarely make mention of “the Messiah” using the definite article. This difference points up a corresponding divergence in their two styles of thought. Derrida’s deconstructive writing – and not all of his writing is deconstructive, I should add – is inseparable from a powerful force of formalization. For instance, Husserl in the logical investigations appeals to a process of repetition in order to distinguish what he takes to be a selfcontained, immanent “ideality of meaning” from all empiricity: as “ideal” a meaning must be identically repeatable in a way that no empirical object can ever be. Derrida by contrast insists that the very notion of repetition, and not just its empirical usage, entails alteration as well as sameness, and that therefore the very process that Husserl cites in order to establish ideality as self-sameness unhinges such self-identity. Repetition thus turns out to be at the heart of Derrida’s deconstructive operation, and it involves on the one hand a process of formalization: something is repeated in order to produce the same, independent of variations in content – and on the other a demonstration that all such formal recurrence inevitably entails alteration, i.e. “signifies” something other than what it “represents.” “Messianicity” in

diãlôgüés

his writing is thus tied to notions such as “promise,” “expectation”, but without there being an identifiable object to stabilize their movement. Previous to devising the formula “messianicity without messianism,” Derrida had invoked a phrase first introduced to my knowledge by Hélène Cixous, namely “arrivant,” to designate a process of “arriving” that never reaches its goal, is never fully self-present, nor even necessarily “human”: “arrivant” could also in certain cases be translated as “arrival.”

Benjamin, by contrast, does not proceed by a process of formalization, i.e. of radicalizing a process by which things seek to come into their own and establish their self-sameness. Instead, he tends to prefer to interrupt the process often by introducing “images” – which he uses as what he sometimes calls schriftbilder, script-images, as I would translate it. These images do not illustrate; rather, they interrupt the expectation of what one might expect to “follow” from what has come before and offer puzzling connections that have to be deciphered by the reader. An example is furnished by one of Benjamin’s most famous, but also most elusive figures, that of the “aura,” a word to which he attaches a series of quite different meanings, whose common ground is anything but self-evident: étui (velvet-lined boxes for objects or commodities), unreciprocated glance, proximate distance etc. Both Benjamin and Derrida are thus situated in a certain Kierkegaardian tradition, for which the singularity of existence remains an aporetical but untranscendable touchstone, but they relate to that singularity in different ways. Benjamin has no compunction about figuration, as long as such figuration – he calls it also Darstellung, staging or exposition – remains enigmatic and thought-provoking. And thus he has no problem referring to “the Messiah” at various points in his writing. Derrida, by contrast, sees the singular itself as entirely aporetical, which leads him to problematize the “one” – which in French as

in German, but unlike English, can serve either as a numerical marker or as an indefinite article. And for Derrida, the indefinite article is rarely figured as an “image” as it often is for Benjamin. Rather it functions to dislocate the unity of words and names, and in this sense remains more intralinguistic.

• How do you see translation’s place within this

constellation? Translation, and specifically Benjamin’s notion of translatability, plays an important part in your book. Understanding translation philosophically, one could consider Benjamin’s particular way of forming concepts through the suffix “–ability” as a practice of translation – a practice through which he rewrites different verbs such as “mitteilen” (communicating, parting with), “bestimmen” (determine), “kritisieren” (criticize), “zitieren” (cite), “übersetzen” (translate), “reproduzieren” (reproduce), “erkennen” (know), into the same form, namely that of “–ability.” Does this form erase a difference between the very different practices that these verbs refer to?

You’re absolutely right: translation, or rather “translatability” is decisive for both Benjamin and Derrida. The obvious difference is that Benjamin, at least in the early twenties, when he writes “The Task of the Translator,” sees “translatability” – and indeed all of his –abilities – as entailing a transcendent moment that for him implies a monotheistic reference: “pure language” – whereas Derrida insists on the “aporetic” aspect of translation, such that “translatability” always involves “untranslatability” as well.

Benjamin describes the relation of translation to “original” in terms of a certain contact – a Berührung – which in turn implies a certain fixity of the two elements involved. Translation, he writes, has the “task of ripening the seed of pure language,” the poetic original is said to reside in “the thick mountain290

diãlôgüés

ous forest of language,” and perhaps above all, it is described in terms of the “unity of fruit and skin” as opposed to the translation, which “envelops its content like a royal robe with ample folds.” Whereas Derrida is more comfortable with the aporetic dynamic of translation: translation of the untranslatable, Benjamin, one could say, “acts out” such aporeticity: for instance, in insisting that the original – or something in it – remains “untouched” or even “untouchable” (unberührbar) in the process of translation, while at the same time, as I’ve said, describing the process in terms of the “touch” (Berührung) of a circle (the original) by a tangent (the translation) in the process then of removing itself from that original. I don’t think, for instance, that Derrida would ever think of an “original” as being a circle, much less of the work of the poet as being “naive, primary, direct,” as Benjamin writes. Both share the sense of translation as a process that antedates and surpasses meaning, as involving what Benjamin calls the “way of meaning” rather than “the meant” and what we today might call a “signifying process.” And both share the sense that this signifying process, far from being only linguistic in the restricted sense, involves the way in which human beings experience the relation of life to death. Derrida’s notion of “survivre” is anticipated by Benjamin’s description of translation as an Über- or Fortleben: a living-on (or away). And both see this relationship as somehow culminating in a certain notion of the “messianic.” But whereas for Derrida this notion remains tortured and problematic: “messianicity without messianism,” “desert in the desert,” Benjamin seems (still?) able to appeal to a less broken concept of the messianic – perhaps because he can still see the world in terms of Creation, however fallen, shattered or problematic.

Which is why, at the end of his essay, he can compare the “task of the translator” with that of producing an interlinear version of a “sacred text.” I don’t think that for Derrida the notion of “text” would 291

be compatible with that of the “sacred” – although even there one would probably have to introduce many nuances.

• Perhaps another way to think about –ability’s

relation to difference could be through the lens of time. The –abilities you discuss in your book are drawn from texts written between 1916 and 1935. Do you see Benjamin’s –abilities change through time? Continuing our comparative discussion of Benjamin and Derrida, do you see a relation between Benjamin’s –abilities and Derrida’s notion of “iterability”?

Let me start with your last question, which will enable me to continue the previous one. For Derrida, “iterability” inserts alterity at the core of all identity, rendering it tendentially – virtually – unstable, because heterogeneous. This includes traditional monotheism, and above all the use of the noun “God” as anything like a proper name.

With Benjamin we don’t find that scruple – that reticence. In his essay on “The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproducibility,” he begins by acknowledging that repetition has always affected the production of art-works, but then goes on to suggest that something radically new sets in with modern technologies of reproduction, such as film and photography. Derrida would not deny that, but he wouldn’t frame it in the same way as Benjamin does, which I see as analogous to his argument in “The Task of the Translator,” namely, conserving a notion of the “original” as somehow self-identical, “circular,” in order then to historicize it in a way that strikes me as not entirely thought out. The original remains untouched and in some sense immortal, but it also “lives on” in the highly mortal (because untranslatable) form of the translation. I doubt, for instance, that Derrida would have endorsed Benjamin’s notion that translations, as opposed to originals, are

diãlôgüés

themselves not translatable. He would have examined the ambiguity of the word “translation”, rather than identify its various conflicting meanings with different “forms” or formal possibilities (“abilities”).

This response already addresses the first question or questions, at least implicitly, by suggesting that Benjamin’s argumentation does not vary conceptually from “The Task of the Translator” to “The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproducibility.”

Which does not mean nothing changes – it’s obvious and explicit that Benjamin in his later texts, such as “The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproducibility” directly rejects some of his earlier categories: “symbolic,” “creator,” etc. Of course, when you look at the texts more closely, or think about them more precisely, you discover that the earlier uses of the terms sought to exclude them from the domain of aesthetics; but at the same time they framed that domain. I think the tension in Benjamin’s own position comes out in the violent polemics with which he introduces his chapter on “Symbol and Allegory” in the third section of his book on the trauerspiel: he writes of a “usurper” having come to dominate the “philosophy of art” ever since the Romantics: the “usurpation” consists in the translation of the symbolic – which for Benjamin must remain not just transcendental, but transcendent, but in the sense of divine, or rather messianic – into the profane domain of art. His construction of the notion of “allegory” is his response to that usurpation, but it too is ultimately informed by the messianic perspective of divine redemption, as he makes clear in his astonishing conclusion – a true deus ex machina, albeit in the realm of critical discourse.

• Some of the chapters of the book, for example “Taking Exception to Decision: Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt,” were written more than ten years ago. What is at stake for you in publishing a book on Benjamin’s –abilities today?

Benjamin’s radicalization of the notion of “exception” helps to explain his tendency to formulate concepts in terms of their “-ability” rather than in terms of their self-presence or self-identity.

Especially given the fact that Benjamin acknowledges his debt to Schmitt in the trauerspiel book, it is important to stress precisely how and where he diverges from the thinker who was to write the Concept of the Political. Epistemologically, Schmitt aims at providing a conceptual basis for political theory, however ambiguous that basis was to be.

Benjamin, on the other hand, extends the notion of “exception” to include the crucial concept of “decision” itself, and thereby paves the way for Derrida’s rethinking of that notion in his later writings.

Derrida’s penchant for phrases such as “decision, if there is ever such a thing” is staged by Benjamin with respect to the Baroque Sovereign, who is incapable of making or taking or implementing the decision that he is called upon to make. This goes to the heart of the notion of authority, which Schmitt still seeks to construe following a theological model, however refracted and mediated, whereas Benjamin questions the very notion of sovereignty itself – for instance in foregrounding the figure of the “intriguer” or “plotter” in Baroque theater. “Taking Exception to Decision” situates In-decision or as Derrida will go on to call it, undecidability, at the very origin of Western modernity, and thus casts a very different light on the Cartesian project that dominates philosophy until today: that of establishing sure and certain foundations for knowledge. At the same time the Schmittian perspective suggests that this project, despite or because of its “secular” character, responds to concerns that have been molded by a long, very long religious tradition. In this perspective it is less surprising that today we are witnessing a “return” of religious concerns and organizations – for after all, in our secular modernity they were never really gone, just underground.

292

diãlôgüés

• AA Yes. We were also thinking about this along

slightly different but not unrelated political lines, which could take us back to one of your recent books, Targets of Opportunity: On the Militarization of Thinking. What is the relation of Benjamin’s –abilities to power? If targeting is an ability of power, is -ability also a target of power in the age of bio-political security?

Benjamin’s “-abilities” entail the question of power, but in a way that invites us to rethink just what it is that this word is supposed to mean.

Generally, “power” is understood either in terms of compulsion and constraint, or in terms of accomplishment. In both cases teleologically and ultimately also subjectively – as a function of the will.

The will in turn is a form of intentional activity: the capacity to implement the concepts, representations or ideas that one has formed. Benjamin, on the other hand, stands in a tradition that I would call post-Nietzschean: “post” here in the sense of a reading of Nietzsche that emphasizes the aporetical-paradoxical structure of his own “will to power” as “eternal return.” For Nietzsche, the “weak” – powerless – have triumphed in Western history.

That all by itself should be enough to have initiated a reflection on the non-self-identity of the concept of “power” – or even of “will” to it. The reason that there is a “will to power” is that power is already something that cannot simply be “had” as such: hence it must become the object of a “will” that – if one reads Nietzsche closely enough – is as much a movement “away” from something as “toward” something else. In short, “power” is already in itself ambivalent, and by no means excludes anxiety, desire and other such dynamics. Benjamin, I believe, is squarely in this tradition – one that is continued in our time by Derrida, and which stresses la force de faiblesse and la faiblesse de force.

293

And of course recent political developments, the policy of the current Bush administration, demonstrates this all too clearly. The “war against terror” is an acknowledgement that what one is fighting is “terror” – anxiety, fear, trauma – and not any “object.” The struggle goes on within a system of subjectivity that seeks to safeguard its sovereignty and demonstrates thereby its increasing dependence and heteronomy. Benjamin’s -abilities are his effort to conceptualize such ambivalence: “The Task of the Translator” – since we have been discussing that text, and since it is central to all of Benjamin’s work – is determined by an “-ability”: the capacity of a text to be translated, that is not measurable in terms of its realizability, that is its being made self-present, being accomplished, but rather in terms of the intensity of the demand – Forderung is Benjamin’s word – that it places on the reader, that is on those who encounter it, who “graze” it as the translation is said to “touch” the original at one single point before going off on its own tangent. It is this “spin” that marks “power” in the light of its -ability to alter itself, to trace a path of alteration. And this limits our “ability” to “control” it. Power as the inevitability (another -ability!) and limitation of what today is called “spin-control.”

• If the “state of exception” is certainly one space

within which these questions of power are being played out, would you say that for example the “Streets, Squares, Theatres” you discuss in one of the chapters provide a counter-space to the abuses of power that it brings?

Yes – because the kind of spaces Benjamin is describing in those texts from the “Passages” are not a “state,” even of exception: they are, as I suggest, “on the move” and also are out-of-the-way places, off the main drag of history: the history of nation-states and of their “exceptions.” A state of exception is still a

diãlôgüés

state. Very different from a “stage” in both the theatrical and the temporal senses. Benjamin describes how little shacks are dismantled and recur in other places (of Paris, for instance), they are something like that Wanderbühne – that traveling stage that accompanies the baroque court theaters but has no fixed place.

This, I think, is why Benjamin throughout his life is fascinated by theater, whether barock mourning-play or Brechtian epic theater, or even the “natural theater of Oklahoma” in Kafka’s The Man Who Disappeared.

The theatrical stage is always local, but never stable: it always communicates with other spaces and places and is never simply self-identical. It is a space of transformation, of repetition, in which actors take their “cues” from others and “fall out of their roles with art.” In theater, as Benjamin sees it, art is always the art of transposition, never of self-contained form. I would say that theater figures not so much a “counter-space” – which as “counter” would still be the mirror-image of that which it counters – but rather alternative spacings, in which place is always on the move and interacting with other places in a space that is therefore discontinuous and above all, heterogeneous: which is to say, temporal, just as time is always spaced-out in the succession of stages. An alternative to what? one might ask: perhaps to “history,” at least understood conventionally as a process of self-fulfillment. Although I don’t think Benjamin himself would have said that, the figures of theatrical space in his writing allow us to think it.

• Do you consider your own book to be such a

stage – to provide such an alternative spacing, in the sense that it ultimately theorizes what you call a “power of conceptualization” that does not so much gain mastery over as draw out the singularity of Benjamin’s –abilities? Does the attempt to read Benjamin conceptually require one to “fall out of one’s role with art” and enter into the limits of conceptualization?

To answer the first questions, or parts of your question: I hope so! Benjamin’s –abilities is anything but a systematic or comprehensive study – assuming such a thing would be possible or useful in regard to Benjamin.

Rather, by pointing to the ways in which Benjamin’s writings and thinking is really impossible to classify or situate in terms of traditional academic disciplines: philosophy, literary criticism, theology – the book seeks to open up new ways of approaching this very difficult and challenging writer. I also see certain implications for the understanding of the relation of “media” to traditional, as well as contemporary areas of study. In Benjamin’s work “media” names a way of approaching art, literature but also language and thinking that is quite different from the more familiar and established perspectives.

“Medial” designates something that has no absolute beginning but is “originary” in the sense discussed already: i.e. as a process of transformative reinscription.

With regard to the second part of your question: without wanting to suggest that there is only one way of reading Benjamin, “falling out of one’s role with art” does strike me as a helpful indication of the singular sort of approach that his very singular sort of writing encourages – and responds to. Art, in this sense, far from being defined as the construction of works – as a process of “erecting” or building – would involve rather inventive ways of “falling” – a very different kind of “fortunate fall” than that with which we are familiar. Different... and yet perhaps also not entirely unrelated either. But I am reminded rather of the way in which Benjamin describes the flight of the “seagulls” following the ship on which he finds himself, in the sketch of the same name –“Seagulls” – which is so diverse and varied and unpredictable that the very name “seagulls” “falls away” from the birds he is watching. To learn how to make that fall the driving force of a “flight” that neither simply flees nor flies – that strikes me as the ultimate challenge of Benjamin’s -abilities.

• Thank you very much for this interview.

294

diãlôgüés

Samuel Weber is Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities at Northwestern and co-director of its Paris Program in Critical Theory. He studied with Paul de Man and Theodor Adorno, whose book Prisms he co-translated into English. The translation of, and introduction to Adorno’s most important book of cultural criticism helped define the way in which the work of the Frankfurt School would be read and understood in the English-speaking world.

Samuel Weber has published books on Balzac, Lacan, and Freud, as well as on the relation of institutions and media to interpretation. In the 1980s he worked in Germany as a “dramaturge” in theater and opera productions. Out of the confrontation of that experi-

295

ence with his work in critical theory came the book Theatricality as Medium (Fordham, 2005). Benjamin’s -abilities has been recently published with Harvard University Press.

Arne De Boever is a PhD-candidate in the Department of English and Comparative Literature and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University in New York. He studied at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) and at the Universität Leipzig (Germany) and holds an MA and MPhil from Columbia. His dissertation is a study of four contemporary novels and the state of exception.

Alex Murray is one of the editors of Parrhesia, and a lecturer at the University of Exeter in English.

diãlôgüés

Samuel Weber

Northwestern University Department of German sweb21@free.fr Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities, Northwestern Director, Northwestern Paris Program in Critical Theory Education: 1956, Diploma, High School of Music and Art 1960, B.A. with High Honors in English, Cornell University 1960-67, Graduate Study at the Univ. of Munich (Clemens), Yale (Wellek), Cornell (de Man) und Frankfurt am Main (Adorno).

1971: Ph.D. (Comparative Literature), Cornell University 1973: „Habilitation“ in Comparative & Modern French Literature, Free University Berlin Teaching Experience: 1967-1975: Wissenschaftlicher Assistant, then Assistenz-Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Free University Berlin 1975-1982: Associate Professor, Humanities Center, Johns Hopkins University 1978-79: Professeur Associé, Institut de Philosophie, Université of Strasbourg 1982-86: Full Professor, Comparative, French and German Literature, University of Minnesota 1983: Visiting Professor, Dept. Of English & American Studies, University of Frankfurt/Main 1984: Visiting Professor, Department of Theater Studies, University of Caen 1985-89: Program Director, Collège International de Philosophie, Paris 1986: Visiting Professor , Dept. Of English, Munich

University, Dept. of German, Frankfurt Univ.

1986-89: Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Massachusetts 1988: Visiting Professor of English & Comparative Literature, UCLA 1989-2001: Professor of English & Comparative Literature, UCLA. Founding Director of UCLA’s Paris Program in Critical Theory.

2001- : Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities, Northwestern University Director, Northwestern Paris Program in Critical Theory 2003-: Professor, European Graduate School (SaasFee, Switzerland) 2006: Co-Chair, Program in Comparative Literary Studies, Northwestern University 2010-- Member, International Advisory Board, London Graduate School 2012 – Anniversary Chair, Kingston University (UK) Fellowships and Awards: 1960-62: DAAD Dankstipendiat, University of Munich 1965-67: Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, University of Frankfurt am Main 1978-79: ACLS (American Council of Learned Societies) Fellowship, Paris.

1993-94: Guggenheim Fellowship 1995: NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) Summer Seminar (UCLA) 2003-4: Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize, University of Munich 2005: Election to American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2009: Chévalier des Palmes Académiques 2010: Distinguished International Fellow, London Graduate School 2011: Senior Research Fellow, IKKM (Institute for Cultural Technology and Media Philosophy), Weimar, Germany (Spring Quarter).

296

diãlôgüés

Dramaturgical Activity: Frankfurt Opera: 1985: Parsifal (Director: Ruth Berghaus) 1987-88 Der Ring (Director: Ruth Berghaus) 1990: Stuttgarter Schauspiel, Strindberg’s Traumspiel (Director: Axel Manthey).

Collaboration on Television Video (Second German Television: ZDF) 1992: Düsseldorfer Schauspiel, J. Genet, Das Balkon (Director: Axel Manthey) 1993: Ludwigsburg Festival, Mozart, Die Zauberflöte (Dir. Axel Manthey) Other Activities: 1975-80: Founding Editor, Glyph: Johns Hopkins Textual Studies (10 Volumes published) 1989: Founding Director, UCLA Paris Program in Critical Theory 1993--: Member, International Advisory Board, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) 1994: Co-organizer (with Hent de Vries), International Colloquium on “Violence, Identity, Self-determination,” University of Amsterdam.

1990-2000: Annual Weekend seminar on „Politics of the Other“, sponsored by the German Youth Federation, Civil Service Professional Organization, Megaplanzentrum, Badmünstereiffel 1996-2000, Member, Academic Advisory Board, European Academy of the CESI (Conféderation Européenne des Syndicats Indépendants, Brussels) 1997: Co-organizer (with Hent de Vries), International Colloquium on “Religion and Media,” Institut Néerlandais, Paris.

1998: Visiting Research Professor, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia 1999: Distinguished Visiting Professor, National University of Singapore.

1999: Visiting Professor, Department of Applied Theater Studies, University of Giessen 2001: Visiting Professor, Special Research Project, 297

“Media and Social Communication”, University of Cologne.

2002: Visiting Professor, Center for Literary Research (Zentrum fuer Literaturforschung), Berlin.

2007: Visiting Professor, Department of Applied Theater Studies, University of Giessen Invited Lectures (Selection): Singapore, Brisbane, Sydney, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Kassel, Sussex, London, McMaster, Toronto, Santa Barbara, NYU, Torino, Bologna, Amsterdam, Leuven, Budapest, Beijing, Lancaster, Cologne, Amsterdam, USC, Notre Dame, Purdue, Sorbonne Nouvelle, Stanford, Univ. Munich, Princeton, Wisconsin, Montreal, UC-Irvine, Columbia, Bochum, Erfurt, Yale, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Oslo, Rutgers, Stockholm, Rabat, Lisbon, Helsinki, Nottingham.

Lectures 2011: Notre Dame, University of Michigan, Weimar, Leeds, London Graduate School, Szeged (Hungary), Helsinki 2012: Miami University, NYU, Cornell, Rochester, UC-Davis, University of Munich, Berlin, Bochum, Frankfurt, Paris-Nanterre Current research: Book Projects: 1. Inquiétantes singularités, essays translated by Charles Coustille and reviewed by author, Editions Hermann, Paris: 2013, ca. 250 pp.

2. Toward a Politics and Poetics of Singularity (completion projected for 2013; publication 2014).

3. Spanish translation of essays, forthcoming, 2013 4. Points of Departure, edited by Peter Fenves, Kevin McLaughlin, Marc Redfield, Northwestern University Press: forthcoming (2014?)

Edited by Dragan Kujundžić Ph.D.

298

299

cóõrdínätês 300

301

f o t o

Y u b a i

s t r a n a :

2 9 8 ,

L i 2 9 9 ,

l i h o n g e r @ 1 2 6 . c o m 3 0 1 ,

3 0 2 ,

3 0 3 ,

3 2 4 ,

3 2 5 ,

3 3 9 ,

3 4 3

302

303

304

305

cóõrdínätês UDC 373.341:111.852

Samuel Weber

Clouds: On a Possible Relation of Terror and Terrorism to Aesthetics “There is traumatism with no possible work of mourning when the evil comes from the possibility to come of the worst, from the repetition to come - though worse. Traumatism is produced by the future, by the to come, by the threat of the worst to come, rather than by an aggression that is ‘over and done with.’”- Jacques Derrida1 I. It seems clear that the widespread concern with “terror” today - politically, to be sure, but also culturally - is informed, and probably haunted, by a single series of images, which begins with a plane silhouetted against a blue sky disappearing into one of the towers of the World Trade Center, and which ends … well I’m not quite sure where it ends - or even if it has really ended. Perhaps its end was really a beginning. In any case, the sequence reaches a certain culmination with the collapse of the towers into clouds of dust and rubble? Who, especially today, can avoid those images, which are broadcast incessantly on TV, most recently to commemorate 1 Giovanna Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror. Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003), 97.

the 10th anniversary of September 11th, 2001? What could be more vivid than these spectacular images of death and destruction? But what could also be more obscure?

In what follows I am going to present some thoughts related to those images and to some others that seem to me to bear on our topic. I wish these thoughts could be presented in a more systematic fashion, that they could be more densely structured, more comprehensive and cohesive in character, that they could come together to form a tightly knit and cogent argument. But I fear that I won’t be able to bring this to a proper conclusion, and therefore I beg your indulgence at the outset for their incomplete, fragmentary and exploratory nature. Perhaps some of that can be compensated for in a later discussion. § When we speak of images - “we” here being both academics and also non-academics - we generally expect a certain transparency. Images are expected to show things, reveal, be windows onto the world, in one form or another. This they surely are and do, but their transparency can serve to conceal as much as to disclose. And this is particularly so 306

cóõrdínätês

when we have to do with memory-images: and yet, are not all images memory-images? If so, a notion elaborated by Freud can put us on the track of the complexities such images can entail. I am thinking of those memories he called “screen memories.” In German his term was slightly different: Deckerinnerungen, literally: memories that “cover” or “cover up”. Such memories need not be based on perceptions; they need not even be images in the visual sense. But they often are. Freud developed this notion based on the recurrence of certain very vivid memory-images in the course of analysis: images, however, which served more to conceal - to cover up - than to reveal. In so doing they met the demands of repression, while at the same time concealing the gaps that would make such repression manifest. The English translation of Deckerinnerungas “screen memory” is felicitous, insofar as it suggests this double function of the image as “screen”: first, to provide a support for representations and projections, and second, to screen out other images and elements that could disrupt the unity of selfconsciousness and therefore fall prey to repression.

I want to suggest that the questions of terror and terrorism here and today - which does not mean in general and universally - are linked to the series of images etched in all of our memories, of the two planes striking the World Trade Center, setting it on fire and ultimately causing the towers to implode into a cloud of dust. I also want to argue that, in the process of rememorizing, this sequence of images has often been made to function as a collective indeed globally collective - screen memory, whose major effect has been and continues to be that of “focusing” our attention on individual acts and actors while screening out other considerations: not just other images, but also other thoughts that might have - indeed should have - been aroused and explored in relation to this occurrence. This type of screening has been especially effective within the 307

United States, where it enjoys the full support and collaboration of the mainstream media, particularly televisual: elsewhere, by contrast, other media, for instance in Europe and Asia, have been far more prone to isolating the series of images and instead situate them in a much larger context. But to the extent that the images of 9-11 have been exploited to justify a largely military response - the “war against terror” being only the most conspicuous aspect of this response - what could be called a paradigmatic “aestheticization of the image” through the media has been and continues to be a decisive factor.

When I speak of an “aestheticization of the image in the media” I need to add an important caveat. The word “aesthetics,” like most other words, and especially terms that have a long and significant history, is over-determined and ambiguous. It has sometimes signified the very opposite of what I, taking my cue from Benjamin (but also from Heidegger, Paul de Man, Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy), will criticize for meaning - a meaning associated with the notions of “form” and “work”. I feel justified however in using it in this way because of the powerful tradition that has gathered around this use and which has ramifications in areas far removed from its immediate application, i.e. to art and beauty. Through this term I want to suggest that a certain very powerful tradition of “aesthetics” has facilitated and even promoted the political utilization of images as screen memories, in the Freudian sense. This tradition tends to screen out the screenfunction and to valorize the image as a more or less neutral, more or less truthful window on the world.2 It was this particular aesthetic tradition that Walter 2 I note in passing that there is a bitter irony in the fact that this phrase was also the name of the restaurant on one of the top floors of the World Trade Center. The World Trade Center offered its patrons a panoramic view of the world below – and this is perhaps also what, in view of its link to global finance capital, made it an outstanding target for those who were to destroy it.

cóõrdínätês

Benjamin had in mind when, in his essay on “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility,” he sought to develop an alternative to the “aestheticization of politics” that he attributed to fascism. I will return to that later on in this talk.

But first, in order to understand how a certain tradition of aesthetics could contribute to what has been called a “culture of fear” that goes hand in hand with politics that determines “terror” and “terrorism” to be its primary enemies, it will be helpful to introduce a second Freudian concept, related to the first, even if Freud, to my knowledge, never linked the two or discussed their relationship. This concept has been largely overlooked in theoretical discussions, perhaps because, unlike “screen memory,” it makes use of an utterly banal and non-technical word that has nothing specifically psychoanalytic about it and that perhaps was therefore too familiar to catch anyone’s attention, much less imagination. In contrast to “screen memory,” which Freud discovers and discusses very early on in his career, starting with an article written in 1899, the second concept is one he comes to late in life, discussing it at length only in his 1925 book, Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety. I am referring to the notion of isolation, which Freud introduced in that book in the context of his discussion of “defense mechanisms” developed by the I – my translation for Ego - in particular in obsessional neurosis. In contrast to repression, which excludes representations from consciousness by replacing them with other representations (or symptoms), isolation does not exclude the representation itself from consciousness - and hence from memory - but rather eliminates all connections that could allow it to exercise its disruptive power. This is how Freud describes the process: When something unpleasant has happened to the subject or when he himself has done something that has significance for his

neurosis, he interpolates an interval during which nothing further must happen — during which he must perceive nothing and do nothing. … The experience is not forgotten, but, instead, it is deprived of its affect, and its associative connections are suppressed or interrupted so that it remains as though isolated.3 Two points deserve special emphasis here. First, that what is “deprived” by isolation-“its associative connections”-Freud relates to “affect”: “The experience is not forgotten but instead is deprived of its affect…” Isolation, which relates to “experiences,” above all does what repression cannot do according to Freud: it displaces “affects.”(You may remember that Freud often insists on the fact that repression relates only to representations, not to affects, which he says, cannot be experienced unconsciously, and hence cannot be repressed.4) But if Freud uses the word “experiences” here to designate the object of “isolation,” it is because here again he wishes to distinguish it from repression, which relates only to “representa­tions”: isolation, as we have seen, also relates to “affects” but as a result, it involves the body. As Freud puts it, “it takes place in the motor sphere.” Which is to say, the “interpolation” of an “interval during which nothing further must happen,” which thus constitutes isolation, must be understood not just as a mental event, but as a “motoric” one: “The effect of this isolation is the same as the effect of repression with amnesia,” Freud notes, but with a supplement: “It is at the same time given motor reinforcement for magical purposes. The elements that are held apart in this way are precisely those that belong together asso3 Sigmund Freud, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, (New York: Norton, 1990), 147.

4 See « The Unconscious, » in: S. Freud, Gesammelte Werke, vol. X (Frankfurt/Main : Fischer, 1963), 273ff.

308

cóõrdínätês

ciatively. The motor isolation is meant to ensure an interruption of the connection in thought” (Freud, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, 47). What Freud is describing then is situated at the cusp between mental and physical, or rather, breaks down the clear-cut distinction between them. Nowhere is this clearer than in the verb he uses to describe the actual operation of isolating: things “that belong together associatively” are “held apart” (auseinandergehalten) “magically” by the isolating interpolation. Why “magic”? In order to designate precisely that the process being described, although not consciously or deliberately willed, nevertheless involves an intentional act, and this in a double sense. First, in order for something to be interrupted, as with isolation, its movement must be directional and at some level recognized as such. Isolation operates by “intentionally”-although not (self)consciouslyinterrupting the no less intentional, goal-directed, purposive movement of mind and body. It does this by interpolating (Einschub) something into the trajectory of the movement of the drive. However, since its primary function is to interrupt and to suspend, the “interpolation” can be empty of content: it can consist in a blank space, for instance. It must simply arrest the forward thrust of the drive, nothing more but also nothing less.

Nevertheless, in order for the isolating intervention to be effective, it must have a certain duration or durability. The interruption must therefore consist in a holding action. Freud designates this more particularly as a “holding apart” (auseinanderhalten). To hold things apart, however, one must first take hold of them, i.e. make some sort of initial contact. This however creates a new problem. For according to Freud, isolation is motivated by “one of the oldest and most fundamental commands of obsessional neurosis, the taboo on touching.” Freud goes on to explain just why this taboo is so powerful: 309

If we ask ourselves why the avoidance of touching, contact or contagion should play such a large part in this neurosis and should become the subject-matter of complicated systems, the answer is that touching and physical contact are the immediate aim of th8e aggressive as well as the loving object - cathexes. Eros desires contact because it strives to make the I and the loved object one. But destructiveness, too, which (before the invention of longrange weapons) could only take effect at close quarters, must presuppose physical contact, a coming to grips [Handanlegen: more literally, ‘laying hand on, handling’]. (…) But isolating is removing the possibility of contact; it is a method of withdrawing a thing from being touched in any way. (Freud, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, 48-49) Freud does not say explicitly just why or how the conflictual mix of erotic desire and aggressivity involved in “touching” should give rise to “isolating,” but his reference to the “I” suggests a response.

The main task of the I is to organize and if possible harmonize the contradictory tendencies of the psyche, which according to Freud’s so-called “second (psychic) topology” are located in the It (aka ”Id”) and the Superego and the I.5 To the I falls the task of bringing the largely divergent strivings of It and Superego into some sort of unified, well-defined and stable structure. “Touching” however embodies the impossibility of this task. It epitomizes what Freud elsewhere calls “ambivalence”: the simultaneous presence of urges that oppose or conflict with each 5 I leave « superego » unmodified simply because I cannot find a term in English that would improve upon it, whereas « I » and « it » are perfectly usable words that convey the colloquial quality associated with the German « Ich » and « Es » – something that “Ego” and “Id” do not.

cóõrdínätês

other: the erotic drive for unification with the object (or other) and the aggressive drive to destroy it. One way the I tries to deal with these conflicts is precisely by excluding touching through isolating the antagonistic drives. If these drives can be separated, “isolated,” they will not conflict with each other and disturb the integrative function of the I. In a certain sense - this will be important to us later on - isolation of the object, say of an image or series of images, is desirable to the I because it reinforces the unity and stability of the I qua “individual” – literally, qua a being that is considered to be essentially in-divisible.

Where touching takes place, by contrast, the limits of such indivisibility are compromised by contact, if not by conflict. Isolation thus attempts to institute and perpetuate a situation in which touching - i.e. contact and conflict - has become impossible.

But if the only way the I can accomplish this task is by “holding apart” what otherwise “belongs together,” it has a serious problem. For “holding” and a fortiori “holding apart” - still entails contact, touching, i.e. coming together. It is only by coming together that one can hold apart. But holding-apart is not simply touching: it is a touching in order to lay hold, to control, to fix in place.

But the problem faced by the I here is even more complicated. If it must touch the drives, desires, experiences, and representations in order to hold them apart, it must to a certain degree also be touched by them. Touching is never simply active and transitive - it is also simultaneously and inevitably passive. In touching the other one is inevitably touched by that other. Touching, as Derrida, Nancy and others have remarked, is therefore necessarily ambivalent with respect to the established opposition and polarity of subject and object, self and other, active and passive.

How the I then deals with these ambivalences becomes clearer when Freud relates it to an act that

is not only part of the pathology of obsessional neurosis, but indeed is a major factor in the constitution of so-called normal, rational thought and behavior: The normal phenomenon of concentration provides a pretext for this kind of neurotic procedure: what seems to us important in the way of an impression or a piece of work must not be interfered with by the simultaneous claims of any other mental processes or activities. But even a normal person uses concentration to keep away not only what is irrelevant or unimportant, but above all, what is unsuitable because it is contradictory. He is most disturbed by those elements which once belonged together but which have been torn apart in the course of his process of development – as for instance, … the ambivalence of his father-complex in his relation to God… Thus, in the normal course of things, the I has a great deal of isolating work to do in its function of directing the current of thought (Freud, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, 47-48) Insofar as one very important function of the I consists in “directing the current of thought,” it must first locate a goal in a stable, self-enclosed place toward which that “current” can then be channeled. The process of determining such a goal - “concentrat­ ing” - entails for Freud not just the positive activity of locating a place or an object but simultaneously of stabilizing that place. Concentration thus touches its object, but since this object is situated initially in a conflictual force-field of desires or drives, it can only keep it in place and retain its hold over it by separating it from the hetero­geneous ramifications that in part constitute it and determine it.

Concentration thus touches doubly: it requires two hands, as it were, if it is to “hold apart” - which 310

cóõrdínätês

also means, “keep apart” what originally belonged together and what presumably left to its own devices would stay together, albeit in conflict with one another.

But concentration is mostly a cognitive activity: one concentrates on something in order to observe it better and ultimately to know it. Insofar as the process of concentration is understood as a cognitive process, it is experienced as “mental” rather than as physical, involving the body. If concentration “touches” its object, this is generally understood to be merely a metaphorical way of describing its relation to an object that transcends the bodily limitations of spatial-temporal situatedness.

For concentration seeks to focus on the object itself, independently of its variations in space and time.

As you’ve just read, in English-but also in other languages-an often used synonym for “concentration” is “focusing.” To “focus” on an object tends to construe this aspect of concentration by referring to visual perception. Such a reference however is plausible only insofar as it is informed by an experience of visuality that is, culturally and historically constituted and therefore relative, not universal. However, this experience tends to regard itself precisely as universal and objective, and this for in part internal reasons. For it consists in equating one particular mode of seeing with visuality itself. This particular mode consists in the interpretation of perception as essentially a mode of recognizing objects construed as being self-contained and meaningful. This objectoriented conception of visual perception divides the field of vision into “figure” and “ground,” without questioning just how such a “field” is delimited in the first place. In other words, the framing of the field of vision is taken for granted, for given, so that vision itself can be construed in terms of differentiating between figure and ground.

In French, this opposition is known as that between forme and fond. I mention this in order to introduce two of the words - and concepts - that bear 311

on our topic in this conference, namely the notion of “form” and “figure” – both of which correspond to the first part of the French pair, forme, whereas fond designates the “background” against which forms and figure stand out. These two concepts, form and figure, may not cover the entire realm of “aesthetics,” but they certainly inform the interpretation that has related it to art and beauty in the Western tradition. As Kant writes in his Critique of the Power of Judgment, where the concept plays a decisive role although one that is never really elaborated, a form is constituted through the unifying synthesis of a manifold in its singularity, i.e. without recourse to a general concept that, qua general, would be external to the aesthetic experience insofar as for Kant at least this cannot be separated from a singular encounter and representation.6 Although through his insistence on its singularity, Kant’s interpretation of the aesthetic is distinguished from his illustrious predecessors, such as Baumgarten and Winckelmann, he retains the notion of form and tries to reconcile it precisely with the singularity of “aesthetic judgment.” One of the concrete points of divergence that separates Kant from his predecessors has to do with the significance of the human body as the site of the ideal of beauty.

Whereas Winckelmann insists on the aesthetic qualities of the human body as an object of representation, especially in Greek sculpture, Kant rejects this aesthetic privilege of the human body precisely because it would impose an objective “ideal of beauty” on what should remain a singular and subjective experience. This is also the reason why Kant subordinated “artistic” to “natural beauty”: not because he prefers landscapes to people, but because he wants to safeguard the singularity of the aesthetic encounter 6 “Das Formale in der Vorstellung eines Dinges, d.i. die Zusammenstimmung des Mannigfaltigen zu Einem.” Immanuel Kant, Gesammelte Schriften (Akademie-Ausgabe), vol. 5: Kritik der praktischen Vernunft and Kritik der Urtheilskraft (Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1902-), 227.

cóõrdínätês

from being contaminated by any sort of conceptual generality. And this would be the case inevitably in the encounter with artistic beauty, since the latter would always be understood as the realization of a prior intention that itself would be of a general or generalizable character.

Without being able to discuss this question in further detail here, suffice it to say that in Kant the notion of “form” tends to unravel in the face of his insistence on the singularity of the aesthetic encounter - and that for this reason Kant can be seen as inaugurating a distinctively modern tradition of aesthetics, which, while seeking to perpetuate its more classical claims to unification and harmonization, opens aesthetics to conflict and struggle. Benjamin, Heidegger and Derrida, are just some of the more influential modern thinkers who have read Kant against the grain of his own intention, perhaps, as a thinker of unresolved conflicts and problems rather than of unshakable foundations.

The pre- and post- Kantian identification of the human body as the epitome both of the aesthetic object, and of bodies per se7 has a long history, which I cannot begin to unfold here in any detail. This has to be mentioned, however, since this remains, I want to argue, the implicit precondition for much of what is called “terror” today. Suffice it to say that much of its emotional force is grounded in a tradition informed by Christian theology, for which the human form is the site both of the most extreme suffering and violence, and yet because of this, also of the possibility of resurrection. Deriving both from the Biblical account of human beings being created in the image of their Creator, and from the Christian 7 When one encounters the notion of “embodiment” today, it almost always takes for granted that the body that embodies (incarnates) is a human body, and this suggests that the tradition of a certain theological (Christian) humanism continues to exercise its influence in the midst of thinkers who consider themselves resolutely secular.

account of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of the Son of God, the human body has emerged as the site of suffering and of salvation - a tension often reconciled through the notion of martyrdom.8 What I want to suggest is that although this salvational potential is associated particularly with the human body, the latter accordingly provides the basis upon which all other bodies are construed. In other words, a theological model informs an aesthetic paradigm that in turn serves as a criterion for how reality is or should be understood. Put simply, and surely too simply: if the universe is conceived of as the creation of a self-identical and exclusive Deity, then all aspects of that universe are meaningful and valuable insofar as they reflect the process of their origin. Aesthetic objects are thus understood as products of “creation,” a word often used in a secular context, but which retains the theological structure from which it derives. Creatures derive their life from their Creator. Art objects derive their value from their artistic creator. According to this paradigm, objects in general have being insofar as that being is the product of an originating intention.

This is the attitude that informs Christian fundamentalist views of the universe as the product of “intelligent design” rather than of the aleatory process of evolution. Far from eliminating theological and teleological conceptions of reality, the increasing emphasis of the aleatory in contemporary science - not just in evolutionary theory but in quantum mechanics, for instance - can, as we see, actually provoke and promote them as a reaction to a world-view that provides little consolation or solace for everyday anxieties and suffering.

The ostensibly secular aesthetic notions of form and figure are traditionally associated with this tele8 The fact that martyrdom has in recent years become a powerful force in Islamist-Jihadist struggles suggests that the conception that links martyrdom to the resurrection of the body is by no means limited to Christianity.

312

cóõrdínätês

ological view of the world, even where they seek, as in Kant, to take their distances from it. Kant’s famous formula for the aesthetic judgment of the beautiful, as “purposiveness without purpose,” reflects this link even while subjectivizing it.

Why, however, should notions of “intelligent design” and more generally the belief in some sort of transcendent intention pervading the world help to assuage such anxieties and concerns and thereby continue to impose themselves, at least in the United States, in the face of the near universal opposition of the scientific and intellectual establishment? Perhaps because the very notion of “intention” and of “design” implies the ability to overcome the uncertainties that spatial-temporal experience inevitably entail for living beings, and in the contemporary world, increasingly for the majority of them (as the socio-economic conditions of life become increasingly uncertain, especially in the socalled “developed” nations). The realization of a plan or project implied in the notions of intention or design can be seen as embodying the power to overcome such anxieties and concerns, especially wherever traditional modes of survival through work seem increasingly uncertain. The tension in cultures that are informed by the “right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” on the one hand, and the reality of ever more precarious conditions under which life must be lived, on the other, produces an increased desire for systems of belief that seem to guarantee what society no longer does.

An aesthetics of form and figure-an aesthetics of representation-can and does respond to this desire, especially when that aesthetics serves as a model according to which reality is construed and conceived. Here the connection with our topic will hopefully begin to emerge. What Carl Schmitt back in the 1920s called, with reference to the political significance and power of the Catholic Church,

313

the “principle of representation”9 today dominates the televisual media in the United States but also in many other parts of the world. This principle of representation Schmitt saw epitomized in the Crucifixion, in which the mortal human body, promised a resurrection through suffering, provides a view of the world in which “terror” and “terrorism” can appear as necessary passages to salvation. This is not to say that such an effect is the only one that such sacrificial representation can produce, but only that a long tradition seeks to demonstrate the connection between death as punishment and salvation through sacrifice.

It is through a certain form of “representation”through the representation as the formation of form and at the same time as its transcendence-that such a salvational process can be embodied, as it were, in a world in which finitude is considered to be a punishment for sin. Representation thus re-presents what is not directly accessible: it makes the invisible visible, the unimaginable vivid. I should add that for Schmitt the principle of representation in this sense is not primarily aesthetic, but legal: it is not aesthetic form but legal formalism that anticipates the passage-or rather, the leap-from the finite to the infinite, from the mortal to the immortal. But his argument can also be applied to the use of aesthetic forms and figures, especially where they are not intended to portray beauty as such, but reality.

If one follows the previous argument that it is the sacralized individual human body that informs the conception of reality as such, then the use of images can be no less potent than legal formalism in providing a belief-system that claims to link the finite to the infinite. Schmitt’s emphasis on legal formalism over aesthetic form in outlining his “principle of representation” surely has to do with the spiritu9 Carl Schmitt, Roman Catholicism and Political Form, trans. G. L. Ulmen (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996).

cóõrdínätês

alizing abstraction of such form, by contrast with the corporeal nature of the aesthetic. But precisely because of its intimate relation to bodily individuation, images can figure and have figured the reassuring promise of sacrificial self-redemption.

To be sure, such figuration will always retain an element of ambiguity and uncertainty, given that its claim to transcendence is necessarily tied to the representation of immanence. And it is here, perhaps, that the function of the cloud enters the picture – or rather, of clouds. For there is almost always more than one. Or rather, the unity of the cloud is never stable or assured. Which is part of what allows it to seem to bridge the gap between the world of finite space and time - world of the figure - and the beyond. This is also why clouds often seem to conceal something like a secret, and even a certain violence, that can both terrify and console. In the time remaining, I want to look at two very different and yet not unrelated instances of clouds, in which a certain aestheticism converges with terror and terrorism, albeit in very different ways and at very different historical moments.

II. The first instance is to be found in a film dating from 1934. I am speaking of the opening scene of Leni Riefenstahl’s film Triumph of the Will, which “documents” the Nazi Party Rally of that year held in Nuremberg.

Riefenstahl’s film, together with Olympia, made two years later at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, are almost universally characterized and classified as “propaganda” films. Riefenstahl herself rejected this characterization, pointing out that in her films there is no “voice off ” telling viewers what they should think or how to respond. There were simply the images and the sounds of what was being filmed, accompanied by a musical score. Now it is true that the musical accompaniment contributes powerfully

to producing an ambiance, which in turn profoundly influences, and indeed often dictates, the way the images are understood by the spectator. The influence of such musical accompaniment is all the more effective for passing under the radar of our conscious control: we are generally far less aware of the music than we would be of a spoken discourse. All of this is very much at work in Riefenstahl’s films, and especially in its opening sequence. Nevertheless it remains accurate that the only voices heard in the film are those of the participants: the speeches of Hitler, Hess and the other Nazi officials, carefully edited. This means that if there is a propagandistic element to the films, it has to consist in the images and sounds of the film, rather than in an invisible and transcendent voice telling viewers what those images and sounds really mean.

There is however a partial exception to this rule and it comes at the outset, in the “credits” that, as it were, introduce and frame the film. This English term, “credits,” hardly does justice to what in German is called the Vorspann and what in French is known as the générique. The latter is the term I prefer, because, despite its utilitarian function - that of listing the people, the “gens,” involved in the production of the film - the word also suggests that what comes before the film, “proper” in a certain sense, generates the film, by framing the context in which it is intended to be seen.

Although the générique does not involve a voice, it still makes explicit use of writing and inscriptions - indeed of typography - in order to set the scene.

The film begins, significantly, not with an image but with the negation of image and of visibility: with a black screen, which can also be interpreted as representing night or darkness. Throughout the film the play of light and dark, the emergence of the one out of the other and its passage into the other, will turn out to be one of its most salient hallmarks. But the dark, black screen does not last long: it functions as 314

cóõrdínätês

a contrast and transition to what is to come. After a second or two, the darkness slowly lightens allowing a figure to gradually emerge: that of an eagle sculpted in stone, perched on something that at first is not recognizable but that in the seconds that follow is silhouetted against a background consisting of bright clouds moving quickly across the sky. These clouds thus do not obscure sight but rather provide a bright background that sets off the massive figures of the eagle perched on a wreath, which in turn encloses the Nazi symbol par excellence: the swastika.

Already in these initial seconds the viewer is confronted with a set of contrasts that will pervade the film as a whole: between dark and light, stasis and motion, the visible and the invisible. Of these contrasts it is the one between stasis and motion that is perhaps the most significant, for it is presupposed by all the others. The Rally that Riefenstahl is filming is one not just of a political party, but of one that refers to itself as a “movement” (Bewegung).

Riefenstahl, who asserted that she had introduced the traveling shot to documentary film, was in any event fully aware of the importance of movement, and of the fact that such movement had to include that of the camera - and of the spectator. Her films were designed to “move” their viewers, and to do this they depicted certain kinds of movement from a perspective that itself was highly mobile.10 This relation between movement and stasis, between change and duration, also pervades the film, both in what it shows-the way the camera itself moves-and in the speeches of the participants. But all of this movement is framed at the outset by the manner in which the “credits,” the générique, evolves.

This introductory framing consists then of three sections, lasting about 30 seconds each and separated by fade-outs. The first we have just de10 Leni Riefenstahl, Memoiren 1902-1945 (Ullstein : Frankfurt am Main/Berlin, 1990), 224.

315

scribed: it proceeds from dark screen to progressively illuminated Eagle-perched on a wreath framing the swastika and then finally descending to the title “Triumph of the Will.” The inscriptions are all carved out of stone and set on to a wall that is made up of large square blocks. The inscriptions are in semi-Gothic letters, the materiality of which is emphasized by the shadows they cast on the wall that is their support. The notion of a 1000-year Reich, although nowhere mentioned explicitly, is thus suggested by the massive stone lettering.

In fact there are two kinds of fading in this first section: the fading of one image into the next, establishing a continuous transition. And the fading into a black screen, that separates the sections from each other. This fading to black can be interpreted as the interpolation of the interval required to separate individual elements from one another. The images are of course related, and therefore not isolated. But the fading gives each segment a relative independence.

Each image, inscribed in stone letters, is intended to withstand the test of time. These images, beginning with those of the inscriptions, are designed to last.

This temporal dimension then emerges clearly in the second and third sections of the introductory sequence, both of which unfold a certain history. First that of the film itself. The “document” has been called into being “at the behest of the Führer” (im Auftrag des Führers), which gives it a special privilege and proximity with respect to what is being filmed. But the next screen announces that the film itself has been “shaped” by Leni Riefenstahl.

The English subtitle uses the more familiar word “created,” but the German is more precise and more limited: “Gestaltet von Leni Riefenstahl.” The word Gestalt is significant: it does not imply a creatio ex nihilo, but rather a shaping that gives form and figure to material that already exists.

Much has been written about the notion of Gestalt, especially in the wake of Heidegger, who sees

cóõrdínätês

in the term the essential aesthetic element contributing to the metaphysical forgetting of the ontological difference between being and beings.11 For Heidegger, the word suggests something that is constituted independently of time and history and that can determine the course of both. A similar claim is inscribed in the stone-like lettering of these “credits,” which seek thereby to accredit the idea of a title and a name that will be impervious to temporal change by contributing to the course of history.

The four screens that constitute this third and final section of the introduction deploy the historical sequence in which the film and the events it documents situate themselves. This is done through a series of dates, beginning with “September 5th 1934,” the first day of the Party Congress. Heidegger assimilates the notion of Gestalt to a metaphysical tradition that construes being above all in terms of the third person singular present indicative, reducing its resources to simple self-presence of the “is.” Riefenstahl’s dating confirms that reduction by situating the moment in which the Party Congress begins with respect to its historical antecedents: the first of these dates comes “20 years after the Outbreak of the World War”; the second locates the Rally “16 years after The Start of German Suffering” (i.e. the Treaty of Versailles); and finally, as though to indicate the acceleration of historical time, the third changes years to months and is marked by a shift in the musical accompaniment to a Wagnerian swell11 In a series of notes written between 1936 and 1946, and then published under the title “Overcoming Metaphysics,” Heidegger makes the connection between the metaphysical forgetting of ontological difference and a certain (Christian) humanism: “So comes to dominance the only decisive question: what form or figure (Gestalt) is proper to man. Here ‘Gestalt’ is construed in an indeterminate (but) metaphysical, i.e. Platonic, manner, namely as that which is and which determines all tradition and development, while itself remaining independent of it.’ Martin Heidegger, “Überwindung der Metaphysik, “Vorträge und Aufsätze, vol. 1 (Pfüllingen: Neske, 1954), p. 79.

ing brass fanfare: “19 months After The Beginning of the German Rebirth. ”Nineteen months after the naming of Hitler as Chancellor on Jan. 30th, 1933 another arrival is about to be shown, that of Hitler arriving by plane in Nuremberg.

Before we proceed to that sequence, however, it should be noted that the tripartite division of the historical process leading up to the 1934 Party Congress can be usefully compared to that of the Christian salvational narrative (Heilsgeschichte). If the latter consists firstly of the Creation, then the Fall, and finally redemption, 20th-century German history as announced in this film traces a similar pattern, with several illuminating changes: in place of the Creation of the World, there is the World at War; in place of the Fall, there is Defeat (and Suffering); and finally, in place of resurrection through Christ’s sacrifice, there is Rebirth through the coming to power of the Führer and his Party.

What the film however will share with the Christian salvational narrative is the idea of a fall leading to redemption and rebirth, and also the focus on an individual messianic figure as primary agent of the salvational process. However, the place of the Christian emphasis on charity is now taken by the unabashed commitment to and exaltation of struggle and power. Hence, the importance of militarization. To triumph, the Nazi Will requires nothing more nor less than the militarization of the masses, and this, as we shall see, involves forging them into a uniform-uniformed block, into a massive Gestalt. This is already implicit in the style of inscription already discussed: it consists, in the literal sense of the German word, in Blockschrift, a writing composed of stone blocks. “Written in stone” is a German expression that designates something held to be immutable. That is precisely what is at stake here: Christian salvation becomes political and national immutability. This does not exclude change, to be sure, but it absorbs and instrumentalizes it.

316

cóõrdínätês

There is a second point however in which the historical narrative suggested here at the outset differs from its Christian origins: the salvation to come will not take place essentially in heaven but rather right here on earth.

And it will take place here and now, on a particular day, which marks the fourth and last date in the sequence and also the transition from the credits to the film proper: September 5th, 1934, the day that the film itself begins, and the day, we read - the last such inscription - on which “Adolph Hitler flew/ once again to/Nuremberg/to muster the faithful” (um Heerschau abzuhalten/über seine Getreuen). The German, difficult to translate in its nuances - “to hold a military display“ is hardly adequate - brings together the Christian ideal of the faithful - literally “his faithful”: seine Getreuen - with the politicalmilitary notion of “mustering” - again, literally, “reviewing, inspecting the troops” (Heer-schau).

For all of its momentous presence, Hitler’s voyage to Nuremberg is explicitly designated in the preceding inscription as a “return” (“flog … wiederum nach Nürnberg“), and this return is highly over-determined. Most immediately it recalls that this is the second time that Hitler and Riefenstahl have gone to a Party Congress in Nuremberg. One year before, Leni Riefenstahl had already filmed the 1933 Party Congress there, which was released under the title Triumph of Faith (Triumph des Glaubens). For this second time, however, “Faith” has been replaced by the “Will” and this in a very particular sense. For only two months before, the most faithful and oldest part of the Nazi Party, which had served as its armed wing throughout its struggle for power, the SA, had been decapitated in what came to be known as “The Night of the Long Knives,” but what the Nazis themselves referred to as the “Röhm Putsch.”

Ernst Röhm, head of the SA, represented the radical, socialist wing of the National Socialist party, and for him the seizing of State Power was only 317

a means to the institution of wide-ranging antiCapitalist reforms. In short, for Röhm the National Socialist revolution had only begun, whereas for Hitler, it was imperative to normalize the Party so that it could consolidate its power with the help of the Reichswehr and the barons of German industry and finance. In 1934, therefore, The Triumph of the Willalso meant the triumph of the SS over the SA, of Himmler over Röhm. Given the historic role played

by Röhm’s SA in the rise to power of the Nazi Party, the question of who the true “faithful” were-the Getreuen-had to be very much on everyone’s mind.

The “return” of the Führer to Nuremberg then is also the moment where he will “muster his troops”will hold the “Heerschau” to make sure that he still commands the loyalty of the 4,000,000 members of the SA, whose leadership he had eliminated barely two months before. And the moment of “rebirth” can also be understood to mark the elimination of the radical, proletarian, social-revolutionary wing of the Nazi party, which now faced the task of consolidating its power with the help of German industry and its military establishment.

To be sure, watching the movie today, none of this “background” is immediately visible in the images and sounds filmed by Riefenstahl, although many allusions to these events are made in the speeches of Hitler and the Party Functionaries. But the shadows and clouds through which Hitler will fly in arriving at Nuremberg also suggest the dangers he has recently sought to overcome. None of this is explicit, but in the initial context in which the movie was made, they provided the background against which the images were to be seen and heard.

And this is also why the clouds that first surround the plane in flight, and into which it then descends, losing sight of both the sky and the earth below, are finally traversed and allow the rooftops of the city below to come into view. The plane is both a product of technology and an instrument of

cóõrdínätês

power, and this perhaps is why Riefenstahl includes the plane in the images and sounds. The film and the vision it presents is made possible, politically as well as technically, only by the power of this relatively new means of transportation, which is part of the same technical development as the film camera itself. Technology records and transmits, and in so doing can be seen as transcendence brought down to earth. And this is also why Riefenstahl will proudly claim to have introduced the “traveling” shot into documentary film, for it is not enough to film movement or to film moving pictures: the camera itself must move (although in a very different way from Vertov’s “Man with the Camera”).

After panning across the clouds, plane and camera descend slowly into them, briefly losing view of the sky before suddenly showing the roofs of Nuremberg emerging below. The clouds have provided a reassuring, protective cover for the descent from the sky to earth. Towers appear, first of the Cathedral and then of the Castle, emblems of Church and State that contrast with the darker, modern, inchoate forms of the airplane fuselage we have just peered through and at. As the plane descends ever lower and the details of the rooftops emerge more clearly, the anodyne musical accompaniment, dominated by strings, is suddenly replaced by brasswoodwinds playing the music of the Horst Wessel Song, anthem of the Nazi Party. The song was named after a member of the SA who composed it and who subsequently was killed in street battles with the Communist Red Front. As the music of this song is heard, the scene shifts from houses to blocks of people marching in the streets, an image that echoes the first lines of the song: “With Flags on high, and ranks in tight formation, SA is on the march, with brave determined steps.”

It is the formation of these ranks-“tightly closed” as the German words literally say (“die Reihen fest geschlossen”) - that epitomize one aspect of

the images seen in this film and which will also be remembered as a hallmark of depictions of fascism.

What I would like to point out, however, in the context of this special issue, is that there is a connection between the fascist and Nazi emphasis on unity, uniformity and homogeneity, and what Kant once defined “the formal element” in an aesthetic judgment, which, he noted, consists in the “unification of a manifold (or multiplicity)”12: the massed blocks of marchers, whether civilian or military, create the uniformity that is already, I want to argue, implicit in the traditional aesthetic concepts of form and figure (Gestalt).

Taken literally, the Gestalt is that which set-inplace (gestellt) is. To set something in place requires first of all a movement of “setting” and a stable place in which that setting can come to rest. To the extent to which that which is thereby set-in-place is considered to be constituted independently of the process of setting in general, it can become a model or paradigm for a notion of self-identity that can apply to subjects as well as to objects, to collectives as well as to individuals. In this case, the process of Gestaltung, which is the German equivalent of artistic “creation,” is indeed the heir to the theological connotations of the English word. The artist, and a fortiori his or her art-work, are both considered to be 12 “Das Formale in der Vorstellung eines Dinges, d.i. die Zusammenstimmung des Mannigfaltigen zu Einem (unbestimmt was es sein solle).“ Kant, op. cit.To be sure, Kant refuses to allow the „One“ or unity of the aesthetic judgment to be determined by any sort of generalizable concept. It must remain singular, and therefore in his eyes subjective. It is this insistence on the irreducibility of the singular that the fascist emphasis on unification cannot accept. But it is also this insistence on the singular encounter that much modern “aesthetics” cannot accept either, since it problematizes the claim to universality that is inseparable from the modern notion of “art.” It should be noted that what is characteristic of Riefenstahl’s images and “shots” is the way they seek to maximize the variety of aspects of individuals and groups, which make up the militarized mass, in order to avoid that the latter appear as totally mechanical.

318

cóõrdínätês

what they are above and beyond their spatial-temporal manifestation, which in turn is regarded as a function of the preexisting essence of the artist. One forgets or overlooks the dynamic process of being set-in-place or the extent to which that multiplicity is then fixed into a uniform unity and takes on the appearance of being self-contained.

It is this complicity, and its promotion through traditional aesthetics, that Walter Benjamin had in mind when, at the end of his essay on “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility,” he associated the “aestheticization of politics” with fascism. What he meant by that often quoted phrase, however, emerges more clearly when it is related to another passage, one which introduces the final section of his essay, but which has not received the attention it deserves. Benjamin’s phrase, one could say, has served as a “screen memory” to block out the context from which it draws its significance.

Here is the passage I am referring to: The increasing proletarianization of people today and the increasing formation of masses are two sides of one and the same occurrence. Fascism seeks to organize the newly developed proletarian masses without touching the property relations they seek to do away with. It sees its salvation in allowing the masses to express themselves, but not to have what is rightfully theirs. The masses have a right to change property-relations; fascism seeks to grant them self-expression by conserving those relations. Consequently fascism leads to the aestheticizing of political life. (…) All efforts to aestheticize politics culminate in one point: war.13 13 Walter Benjamin, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit, edited by Detlev Schöttker (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2007), 47-48. Italics added.

319

Although Benjamin nowhere in this essay mentions the films of Leni Riefenstahl - he refers instead to the Wochenschau, the weekly filmed news -much of what he describes throughout his text and in particular here, is epitomized by her films, and nowhere more than in Triumph of the Will.

Benjamin, author of a seminal text entitled “Capitalism as Religion”, here links fascism with the religious promise of “salvation”. Fascism finds salvation in granting the masses self-expression but only insofar as it is linked to the “conservation” of existing property-relations. This in turn entails what could be called - although Benjamin does not - the hypostasis of identity-structures: people are what they are by birth, by nature, by race, and they should be permitted to express themselves, but not change themselves. In a footnote to this passage Benjamin cites the enormous influence of the weekly filmed news in providing such self-expression, above all through images of masses, in political and sporting events, monster rallies etc. Such hypostasis of existing self-identity - which means always the selfconscious of such identity - is closely related to the process of isolation as described by Freud and its privileged medium is that of screen memories, but also of what I would call aesthetic Gestalt, insofar as such forms and figures are presented as essentially self-identical and immediately intelligible - literally meaning-ful, “full of meaning”. To look at them is to understand what they mean: there is no need to look elsewhere, to think of their relations to what does not immediately appear.

One particularly significant form of this Gestalt, involving the self-expression of the masses, are precisely the blocks of marchers as seen from above, from what Benjamin in the same note calls the “bird’s perspective” (Vogelperspektive). The pure immanence and self-identity of this mass - which makes it an ideal figuration of the kind of identity required by bourgeois and capitalist property-rela-

cóõrdínätês

tions under fascism: namely an identity that is above all homogeneous (i.e. that owes nothing to anything foreign or alien to its immediate history) - is figured by and in the closed, compact formations of faceless and yet highly mobile marchers.14 The mass is moving with direction and purpose: it has a goal (which is also why it needs and depends on a Leader). And its compactness suggests that it will be impervious to any outside influence.15 In this sense, the “expression” that Benjamin associates both with fascism and with capitalism presupposes some similar sort of immanent identity that preexists contact with the outside world, and can therefore be literally expressed, but not constituted by its relation to others.

In the footnote to this passage already mentioned, Benjamin provides a valuable hint concerning another aspect of the expressivity that he attributes to fascism and in particular to its use of images and film: “In the great parades, the monstrous meetings, in mass events of sports or in war, which today are all performed to be recorded by the camera, the mass looks itself in the face [sieht die Masse sich selbst ins Gesicht].”16 In view of the rest of this scene, in which Hitler descends from the plane to the jubilation of the massed bystanders, the question of the “face” as the object of “self-expression” can be described more precisely. For there are two 14 This can be contrasted, for instance, with the essentially individualistic-agonistic mass of runners gathered to compete in organized marathons-figures more appropriate to contemporary neo-liberal capitalist society.

15 Another interesting contrast, both aesthetically and politically, to this moving mass can be found in the 1932 film Kühle Wampeby Bertolt Brecht and Slatan Dudow, which depicts groups of workers on their way to a sport festival, but without the militarized mobilization characteristic of the Nazi Rallies and highlighted in Riefenstahl’s “documentary.” The musical score by Hans Eisler could hardly be further removed from the pseudo-Wagnerian score of Triumph of the Will. Needless to add, the musical style of the latter is far closer to popular tastes today than is that of Eisler.

16 Benjamin, ibid., 48.

kinds of faces: on the one hand, the jubilant, ecstatic but still multiple faces of those gathered to welcome Hitler, with the fascist-salute, and, on the other, the face of the Führer, which is calm, almost shy, as he descends from the plane, overwhelmed by the welcome he receives. In the automobile that takes him from the airport into town, there are repeated shots from a camera in back of Hitler, where one sees not his face but the back of his head, with hand raised again in the characteristic salute.

The clouds have long since dispersed to make way for this procession, but what seems crucial here and relevant to Benjamin’s notion of “expression” is the interaction of the mass of spectators with their Leader, whose face and figure sum up the kind of expression that is granted the masses in order to perpetuate existing property relations. Those relations require a notion of the subject as capable of owning property, which means ultimately capable of staying the same over time, of staying in control of oneself and thereby capable of existing as a distinct owner of what is proper. Property is understood here in the dual sense of the word, involving both the lawful possession of things and objects as well as the possession of one’s own faculties and actions. The tightly knit ranks of spectators and the erect figure of their one and only Leader can claim to resolve the question of multiplicity and unity, transience and duration. As Rudolph Hess will put it in one of his speeches during the Congress, “Adolf Hitler is Germany and Germany is Hitler”.

But then, why should “war” be the beginning and end of the fascist aestheticization of politics and of violence? Chapter 10 of Riefenstahl’s film gives us at least a partial answer. The clip recalls the beginning of the film: first, a black screen, soon followed by the eagle perched on the swastika, which then fades into the long, central alley through which from on high, at a great distance, the three tiny figures of Hitler, Himmler (SS) and Viktor Lutze (SA) 320

cóõrdínätês

advance with their backs to the camera and flanked on both sides by rows and rows of SA and SS troops, 120,000 in all. At this point, they advance toward a goal that is still uncertain, but in the next shot this goal is revealed as a burning flame honoring German soldiers killed in the World War. As the most direct confrontation of the political rally with death, this is the most solemn moment of the four days, leading up to speeches by Hitler and Lutze in which the elimination of Röhm will be justified and the SA as organization exonerated of Röhm’s guilt.

What is expressed on this occasion is nothing less than the will to triumph not only over the enemy - in this case, the Röhm leadership of the SA but over death itself. By killing Röhm and his comrades, the German rebirth is to be assured. Killing, and the military (in the form of the SS and Reichswehr), will be the path to eternal life, to the 1000year Reich. The commemoration of fallen comrades thus goes hand in hand with a celebration of death that, as the result of killing, becomes an intentional act - one that can be deliberately inflicted and by implication, deliberately overcome (if not avoided).

War, as organized collective and purposive killing, makes death into what it has been considered to be ever since the book of Genesis, but also since the death of Christ: namely the result of human action, whether as punishment for transgression or for betrayal. By acting in a manner that seems to make death into a product of human action, politics in general, and fascist politics explicitly, seeks to make good on the Pauline promise, quoted by Hobbes in his “Leviathan”, that “since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead”(1 Corinthians 15:21).

To be sure, for Paul that resurrection had first to be the work of a very particular “man,” namely he who was also the Son of God. This is precisely the difference that separates Christianity from fascism.

For the latter, it is the semi-divine Führer or Duce, 321

who must assure the overcoming of death, through the problematic but essential equation of people with the messianic Leader. The Leader (Führer or Duce) is an individual whose individuality both sets him apart from - isolates - and at the same time makes him the expression of a collective that, whether through racial, cultural, or national identity, is construed as a homogeneous “individual”. This collective is modeled on the individual in the literal sense of being thought of as indivisible. The individual can thus hope to live on in the collective, which in the case of Nazism understands itself as the bodily, fleshly continuation of its individual members that is established through the continuity of blood.

But this in turn requires the collective - the race, people and nation - to close ranks in the “dense and closed” fashion proclaimed in the Horst Wessel Song in order to exclude all pollution and contamination from external and alien sources. This is the bio-political version of the nation modeled after the unshakeable, invulnerable individual. And this individual is manifested as an object of faith and belief in the figure of the Führer: in the Führer as Gestaltand in the Gestaltas Führer.

The ideal of the indivisible, invulnerable and ultimately immortal collective that is symbolized in the stone Eagle, but more generally also through the figure of the fasces or that of the swastika (in German a modification of the cross, or “Hackenkreuz”), can only exercise political appeal to the extent that it can claim to control anxiety and give it a direction.

The figure functions in this film often as a Markstein, a stone marker directing the gaze and allowing it finally to set itself in place, to rest, to focus.

The great obstacle to such focusing is, of course, death. The flame, framed and controlled by stone and by stone-like troops, is one way of focusing on death, which then becomes a transition to eternal life. As a moment of transition, this absorption of death into life continues as a motif that is as old in

cóõrdínätês

Western culture as the Bible and that is particularly important in the Christian salvational narrative.

But the absorption of death into life also implies a transcending of finitude, which in certain political and historical contexts can converge with the rejection of heterogeneity. It is only when the origin is thus purified and made self-identical that the end that awaits all living beings qua singular beings can be represented not as an interruption but as fulfillment. Only then can death lose its sting.

An essential component of this project is, I have argued, the representation of death as the result of human action, as the result of intention. It is this that makes war a privileged medium of politics through which the political collective finds self-expression.

War legitimates killing and in so doing makes death into a sacrificial moment of rebirth. But it is above all the death of the other that is here intended. Carl Schmitt’s theory of the friend-enemy grouping as the origin of the political demonstrates its Christian origins. Except that it is never humanity as a whole that is saved, but only particular people, nation or race - a self opposed to other selves, and thus opposed as well to other peoples, to nations as well as individuals.

But these others are nowhere to be seen in this film: they are screened out, to begin with, by the clouds into and through which the plane descends on its way to its destination. Like the clouds in the opening scene, framed in the window of the plane.

The clouds themselves, into which the plane disappears if only to exit on the other side, emblematize the transitions from one shot to the next, through fading and overlaps. Such frequent fade-outs and fade-ins establish the cinematic sequence with an underlying continuity of movement. This does not exclude the sharp cut, the fade to black, which emphasizes contrast and discontinuity, but this in turn only highlights the continuity of the progression overall.

It is this continuity that, including and absorbing the radical breaks that mark the “German rebirth”, links the “aestheticism” of Riefenstahl’s film to the violence of Nazi politics. It is a violence that the Nazi leaders assume and even flaunt, but in order to assert the perennial character of the new order they are in the process of imposing. The sinuous rhythms of Riefenstahl’s “travelling” shots constitute the cinematic correlative of the immortality implied in the idea of a 1000-year Reich. The aim of conquering new Lebensraum by military force is the spatial condition of the promised extension of Lebenszeit. The clouds through which the plane descends to earth are the movable Gestalt that marks the trajectory of this promise, a theological promise brought down to earth.

III. Let me now finally return, by way of historical contrast, to the images mentioned at the outset, which involve a very different set of clouds. Due to the massive media coverage that commemorated the attacks of September 11th, 2011 - often at the expense of serious analysis - I can assume that the general image of those clouds are sufficiently present to this audience and that is it is therefore not necessary to reproduce them yet another time here.

Instead I want to show you those clouds of smoke coming from the burning towers from a less familiar vantage point. The photograph was taken by Thomas Hoepker, “a senior figure in the renowned Magnum photographers’ cooperative.” Hoepker “chose not to publish it in 2001” and also excluded “it from a book of Magnum pictures” taken that day.17 The photo can be seen at the website given in 17 In an article for Slate, Hoepker explained why he chose not to publish the photo. Thomas Hoepker, “I Took That 9/11 Photo,” slate.com, 14 September 2006, accessed 7 February 2013, http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/ culturebox/2006/09/i_took_that_911_photo.html.

322

cóõrdínätês

the footnote below, and when you have seen it, you will immediate understand why Hoepker excluded it from the Magnum book. It is clear that, at the time, without explanation and discussion, this image was in its way even more shocking than those of the destruction itself and its after-effects. Without getting into that discussion, which is well documented on the internet, the photo, however one interprets or judges it, tells us something about the relation of aestheticism, terror and terrorism that even and perhaps especially today remains relevant and pertinent. As I have emphasized, an image is generally considered to be “aesthetic”, at least in the traditional sense of that term, insofar as it is well formed, “gestaltet”, self-contained and meaningful.

This in turn implies that it can and perhaps should be viewed at a certain distance, which is required if it is to be apprehended as a unified whole. The position of the beholder, viewer or spectator, is thereby defined as a protected position: it is stable and selfcontained. This is why even most videos and images of catastrophes, broadcast daily and nightly on the TV news and in newspapers, can be consumed with the morning breakfast or after dinner in the evening. As long, that is, as the destruction or maiming of the individual human (or animal) body is not shown in too great detail. The clouds of smoke rising above burning buildings and people must be kept at a distance, and if possible given distinct shape as a Gestalt. They can thus be taken in, apprehended, as parts of a whole that in turn is assumed to be transparently intelligible, immediately understandable - in the sense that it poses no further questions, requires no inquiry beyond the frame of what is shown. The integrity and meaningfulness of the whole is guaranteed by the voice-off of the reporter, or by the captions of the newspaper picture. They tell readers and viewers what to think of what they see, and at the same time to consider what they think to be the direct and exclusive property of 323

the image. The destruction of objects and persons is thus made consumable, because meaningful. Death and destruction affects others from whom one is safely separated and protected. One can get up and walk away from the aesthetic image, which is isolated: this is its most traditional quality and it is what makes it both eminently suitable to serve as a screen memory or to be forgotten and replaced by the next isolated image or set of images.

About the people in the picture’s foreground, NY Times columnist Frank Rich wrote: “The young people in Mr. Hoepker’s photo aren’t necessarily callous. They’re just American.”18 Whether this statement accurately describes the people “in” the photo or not, it no doubt is accurate concerning the impression that photo transmits. This is one of detached and indeed carefree observers, relaxing in the sun while far in the distance black clouds of smoke rise into the sky. The photo, like all photos, is what the German language identifies as a Momentaufnahme and what in French is called an instantané-a moment or instant isolated from everything happening before, after and outside of its frame. Frank Rich made a mistake in referring to “the young people in the photograph”, since this could easily be taken to apply to the young people themselves, rather than to the figures in the photograph. Understood as a statement about the photograph, however, rather than about persons existing independently of it, the statement strikes at precisely what made the attacks of September 11th so traumatic for United States Americans. For this was the first time, at least since the Civil War, that a massive attack had been carried out on American soil and the first time in even longer that such an attack had originated outside the United States. What was, and in a certain sense 18 Frank Rich, “Whatever Happened to the America of 9/12?,” nytimes.com, 10 September 2006, accessed 7 February 2013, http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/opinion/10rich. html?_r=1.

cóõrdínätês

still is, characteristically American is the belief in the safety that distance can procure coupled with a belief in the moral superiority of the nation that is so “protected”. It was, and in a sense still is, the belief in the efficacy of isolation.

The response to these attacks - wars against Iraq, Afghanistan and “terrorism” - was of course anything but “isolationist”. But the justification of this response was and still is based on the belief that the real enemy can be isolated, named, depicted, located and destroyed, mainly by military means. The frightful discovery by Americans that they were not or no longer safe at home produced an anxiety that was swiftly channeled by being given an identifiable, perceptible object, a Gestalt: and “911”, as it came to be called, became the sign that corresponded to that Gestalt, both a call for help and a name for the act itself.

What makes the photo so powerful, and so shocking, I believe is the nonchalance, the carefree and relaxed attitude it seems to depict, at the very moment when the grounds that previously supported that attitude are literally being consumed in the background. The background however is no longer isolated from the foreground. It is this that is ultimately terrifying, and that the construction of a War Against Terror seeks to channel outward, directing it against foreigners from whom one can therefore hope to distance oneself, and through isolation, ultimately identify and destroy. It is interesting to note, however, that the word “terror” in English still describes first and foremost an emotional response to an uncontrollable danger, an extreme state of anxiety. The declaration of a “War Against Terror” attempts to distract and to distance this feeling by identifying it with “Terrorists” and “Terrorism,” understood as external figures and movements that can ultimately be eliminated.

But the clouds of rubble released by the collapse of the Twin Towers tell a different story. There is a final image, a still taken from a video that I’m sure you have all seen many times:

Despite their strange resemblance to the clouds through which the plane flies in Triumph of the Will, these clouds no longer mark the passage to the mobilized Gestalt that characterized the Nazi rally and politics; rather, they mark what came to Nazi Germany only a decade later, namely, the pulverization of the Gestalt and with it of the civilization based on its maintenance through terror.

The clouds of rubble that rush toward the spectators and cameras and finally engulf them could have been understood as a sign to rethink the policies and strategies of identification through isolation that produced those clouds in the first place. Instead, as we have had occasion to see in the decennial commemoration of this event in 2011, the demand for consolation and safety remains uppermost, preventing any serious critical questioning of the relationships that the politics of isolation and identification continue to systematically exclude. This commemoration excludes, for instance, reflection on the possible relation of “911” to that other September 11th, this time in 1973, when the democratically elected government of Chile was overthrown by an American-instigated coup d’état; or reflection on the possible relation of the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - the Financial and Military symbols of United States global power - to the position taken by successive US governments on the PalestineIsrael conflict; or reflection on countless other events. When the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times contributor Paul Krugman dared to publish a blog entitled “Years of Shame,” in which he argued that the memory of September 11th, 2001, had been “irrevocably poisoned” in being made into a justification for the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, he provoked a

324

cóõrdínätês

huge backlash.19 One of the more civil replies, by Michael Mets, countered: “I feel no shame about my personal recollections and commemorations of 9/11 … I remain grateful for the words of comfort that President George W. Bush and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani provided the nation in the aftermath.”20 In the utter disorientation that followed the clouds that swallowed up all figures and forms, covering them with a white covering of dust as they slowly receded, the need for “words of comfort” could be understood. But that this need has persisted and has tended to disqualify all critique of the militarized response that followed as disloyal and essentially traitorous to the memory of the US and

allied soldiers who were killed and maimed, physically and psychologically: this strikes me as not so very different from the passage through the clouds above Nuremberg in 1934, revealing the compact Gestalt of the militarized masses on the march.

The movement of mobilization may well comfort and console, but it requires the concomitant mobilization of terror in order, in the phrase that sums up the spirit of the age - in order to continue “moving forward”.

But this march forward is not just followed by the clouds that it seeks, with limited success, to mobilize. It is inevitably overtaken by them. And when those clouds finally come down to earth, no war can escape them.

19 Paul Krugman, “The Years of Shame,” nytimes.com, 11 September 2011, accessed 7 February 2013, http:// krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/the-years-ofshame/?scp=2&sq=krugman&st=cse.

20 Michael Mets, “To the Editor,” nytimes.com, 12 September 2011, accessed 7 February 2013, http://www.nytimes. com/2011/09/13/opinion/a-furor-over-paul-krugmans911-blog-post.html.

325

326

327

cóõrdínätês UDC 82.0 UDC 821.163.41-4

Ljiljana Pešikan Ljuštanović, Novi Sad Serbia

The Joy of Reading Vladislava Gordić Petković. Mystic and Mechanic.

Stubovi kulture, belgrade, 2010.

Writing about books arises from love.

(Vlаdislаvа Gоrdić Pеtkоvić. “The Word Before”.

Mystic and Mеchаnic, p 5)

Vlаdislаva Gоrdić Pеtkоvić’s book concentrates on a dilеmma which every prоfеssiоnаl, scholarly, (mеtа)reading of a literary work has to face – no matter whether it is critical, theoretical or historical. How to reconcile the understanding of “the hidden mеchаnism that the аuthоr moves – or allows him/herself to be moved by it”, without damaging the mystique of the work, how to present this “mystical mеchаnics” without “exposing” the work, without dеmystifying it? How to preserve love, without denying the insight deeper than “the glоrification of literature and idеntification with it”?

This basic dilemma is rеflеcted in a series of questions raised by these articles. From the one at the beginning of the book (“Women’s Voice in Literary History”) – should literary аnаlysis be approached “rеаlistically”, and allow the literary hero to leave his own literary context (the experience of spending time with the heroine or hero that, I be-

lieve, every avid reader has), or “puristically”, which denies any possibility of taking a character out of the context of the work and the possibility of аnаlysis which approaches it as if he were an “аuthеntic man”: mimеsis or sеmiоsis? “The function of the plot and the basis for the development of mоtifs” or “a well-rounded personality independent of the context”? The questions that the author raises, not only in this text, are based on a comprehensive and detailed knowledge of literary theories and methodologies, different strаtеgies of intеrprеtаtive reading, but are not schоlаstic rehashes of dull thеоries which function the best when they are separated from literature as a self-sufficient pеrpеtuum mоbilе.

In the three sections of her book: female, drаmatic, narrative, Vlаdislаvа Gоrdić Pеtkоvić finely and lively tests some theoretical pоstulаtеs and generalizations on a very wide range of works and authors. There are Serbian and Anglo-Saxon canons

328

cóõrdínätês

of women writers – Јuditа Šаlgо, Ljubicа Аrsić, Јеlеnа Lеngоld, Мirјаnа Đurđеvić, Мirјаnа Nоvаkоvić, Charlotte Brоntë, Jean Rhys; then Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare, Hеnry James, John Bunyan, Virginia Woolf, Hеnry James (as the writer and as the reader), John Updike, Douglаs Coupland; and the plays of Bоrislаv Pеkić, Tоdоr Маnојlоvić, Tеnnеssee Williams, Hаrоld Pintеr... The author’s reading experience weaves a wide net of reading in which there are authors unknown to us (Аlаn Grаtz, Lisа Fiedlеr, Gоrdоn Kоrmаn, etc.), but also the invеntively coupled Аntоniје Isаkоvić and Мilеtа Prоdаnоvić, or Kоlum Tоubin and Gоrаn Pеtrоvić, and then again Мilеtа Prоdаnоvić and Аravind Аdigа. Out of the reading experience of Vlаdislаva Gоrdić Pеtkоvić emerges a new world of connections and harmonies, in which a book sheds light on another book, аnd the author occasionally resembles the all-seeing Miss Маrple, who unmistakably perceives what is repeated, but thanks to that, also understands what is new to her. This reading gives a unique sensuality to the works it has encompassed, a commanding presence – they meet and are reflected in one another, and are renewed in the process.

In the age of more or less flagging, quiet or sated literary criticism or, even worse, аuthоritаrian idеоlоgized “domestic” voice, which lectures the writer, the reader, and the work, dictating to them what and how they need to see, say, think, feel, so the writer, the reader, even the work itself, become less and less important, because someone already knows everything and is able to do everything – Vlаdislаva Gоrdić Petković’s book brings back the joy and the passion, the unsurpassed еrоs of reading, in which basic intеrеsts of the reader and the joy of new insights meet. In the context of culture, in which it is the worst possible offence to tell somebody they are a woman, she, with an ironic smile, much more еfficient than righteous anger, clarifies some еlеmеntаry notional uncertainties, like the оnе stating that “écriture 329

féminine” is “literature for women”, which is further on “tacitly equated with triviаl literature”, as opposed to the self-proclaimed, serious and deep “men’s literature” (“écriture or Cаnоn”). Instead of écriture féminine, hastily turned into a gender term, she will offer women’s cаnоn to Serbian literature and literary thеоry: “creating a women’s literary trаdition and women’s literary history” and supremely dеmоnstrate the pоtеntials of such an approach.

At the same time, Vlаdislаvа Gоrdić Pеtkоvić demonstrates a rare trait in “mеtаreaders”– the ability to place under suspicion not only other people’s but also her own previous readings. As opposed to Hegel’s “the worse for the facts”, she will, in her text “écriture ili Cаnоn”, implicitly fоrmulate, I should say, a totally female stance: the worse for the stale generalizations. Questioning her own (lucid and very applicable) division of “new Serbian women’s fiction into nеоrеаlists, confеssiоnаlists and pоstmоdеrn еxpеrimеntаlists”, she will, spurned by some recent works by Ljubica Аrsić, Мirјаna Pаvlоvić, Јеlеna Lеngоld, Јudita Šаlgо, Мirјаna Мitrоvić, Мirјаna Nоvаkоvić, Vida Оgnjеnоvić, Мirјаna Đurđеvić, ask herself: “Can confessionalism be mаsked into a fradulent pоstmоdеrn game of history, the illusion and truth, or can the еxpеrimеnt serve the purpose of a confession, аnd the rеаlistic tеchnique serve as a lоgical companion of a confession?”

Interpretations of Vlаdislаva Gоrdić Pеtkоvić possess that noble clarity which goes with pure, consistent, well structured thinking. These articles, especially the ones which compose the first section of the book entitled female1, reveal both intеllеctuаl and personal maturing of the author, delineate the history of searching as exciting as the works she writes about. On the one hand, this means that there are thoughts continually racing through her mind, which 1 Lower case which she employs is more effective than the pathetic upper case.

cóõrdínätês

is, for example, revealed whenever she revisits Јudita Šаlgо’s work (“écriture or Cаnоn”), or the most complete study abоut Мirјаna Nоvаkоvić’s fiction so far (“The Аltеrnаtive Worlds of Мirјаna Nоvаkоvić”).

This “pоstmоdеrn еxpеrimеntаlist”, who approaches language as “a test range for еxpеrimеnts”, systematically shattering the causality, Vlаdislаvа Gоrdić Pеtkоvić has the perception of an аuthоr who searches for “idеntity and self-idеntification”, seeing human loneliness “as a prеrequisite for the resistance to a tоtаlitаrian systеm” and as “a consistent theme in ... inconsistent nаrration”.

“Lunacy and Altеrnаtive Nаrrаtion”, the final article in the chapter female, links Henry James’s Turn of the Screw and Sаrah Watеrs’s The Little Stranger, as works in which “the altered pеrcеption ... leads to the changes in experiencing the world: in both novels there are ghosts whose origin is not clearly dеfined, and in both cases they may be rightly mеtаphоrized as a sеxuаl or sоcial threat”.

On the other hand, partly hidden under the layered and complex intеllеctuаl strаtеgies, these tеxts also reveal a new, personal, female maturity of the author. The universe of literature and her reflections does not banish the author’s awareness “that books can’t replace life, that an аrtificial dimеnsion of total reading and perfect peace is not possible – or, at least, is not idеаl” (“Literary hero as an intеrеst of the text”). Symbоlic burden of womanliness and the ways in which it is formed and featured, in the article “Arduous Pilgrimages: Reality and Pоssibility in Serbian Women’s Fiction” becomes the fate of the live female body in “Serbian Dystopian Аbsurdistаn”. Demonstrating how Мirјаnа Đurđеvić “deconstructs the genres of crime novel and thrillеr in order to disclose gender obstacles which accompany the woman on her road to maturity and аfirmаtion and unsparingly criticize the society of irregularities and instability”, Vlаdislаvа Gоrdić Pеtkоvić speaks out

with bitterness оf that shameful advertisement/ clip (what is it really!?) which puts the blame for the very high breast cancer mortality rate on the reckless and frivоlous women, who turn their attention to mаnicure, pеdicure, make-up and hairdos and cannot set aside “just five minutes” to be examined. “The advertisement offers a distorted picture of the world: the picture is a complete opposite of the rеаlistic picture of bureaucratic dead ends and poor, inadequate infrаstructurе which thе Hаrriеt’s case faced us with. The advertisement reverses the priоrities and аrgumеnts: the woman is mеtаphorically accused of negligence towards her own body, of the lack of care for her own health. (...) The advertisement completely ignоrеs the fact that Serbian health service is tеchnоlоgically and personally insufficiently equipped for a prompt and effective prеvеntion of mаlignant diseases.” Speaking about the work here turns into speaking to it, speaking against a sort of hypocrisy which hides the serious oversights on the part of the society behind the stеreоtype of women’s superficiality.

The section drаmatic has also been designed in the spirit of various encounters and interactions. Neglected and mаrginаlized drаmatic оpus of Bоrislаv Pеkić has had an exquisite reader – Vlаdislаva Gоrdić Pеtkоvić (“The Plays of Bоrislаv Pеkić: Cultures and Idеоlоgies Coming Together” and “The Plays of Bоrislаv Pеkić: Idеntity and Fаrce”). She perceives “bitter аbsurdism” of Pеkić’s drаmatic writing and a characteristic dual belonging to both Serbian and English culture, which occasionally turns into the pоsition of a stateless person, a lucid observer who observes both us and them (no matter who is closer at the moment) from a distаnce. Relations between Pеkić’s, Ibzеn’s, Pintеr’s and Williams’s plays and “intentional and inadvertent pаrаllеls” with Sherwood Аndеrsоn’s fiction and pаrаdigmаtic Shakespeare’s works – portend the possibility of prоvоcative and motivating interpretations yet to come.

330

cóõrdínätês

Deep affection for different, lonely, оriginаl spirits is revealed in the аnаlysis of Tоdоr Маnојlоvić’s one-acter Midwinter Night’s Dream. The anаlysis of this vаriation on a myth, in which the statue of Gаlаtеa is humаnized by Pygmаliоn, as well as the texts оn Pеkić’s plays, may be perceived also as a reminder to those who work with the theatre in the culture in which “recent literary history does not promise a quick аffirmаtion of the neglected authors”.

The most extensive and complex experiment given over to drаmatic is the concluding text of this section “Translating trаgеdy and comedy into the American idiоm: William Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams”, which provides the reader with good insight into Williams’s unmasking the “cultural and sеxuаl stеrеоtypes”, which made his plays “the field of battle against discordant drives, and for a free individual who clearly аrticulates his or her desire”.

Simultaneously, in the аnаlysis of Blаnche Dubоis’s fate, or emancipated Sеrаfina, the heroine of Rose Tattoo, who rejects “mаniacal mоnоgаmy” and once a humble fan becomes an equal partner – here too continues the preoccupation with gender idеntity, as one of the central thеmes of this book.

The most complex and, for a non-Anglicist reader, most difficult to read is the final section of Vlаdislаva Gоrdić Pеtkоvić’s book. Perceiving the narrative as a series of general questions, ranging from the оnes abоut the literary hero and the end-

331

less thеmаtic diversity of novel (“Literary Hero As the Text’s Intеrеst”), to examining different ways of taking over the plot (Lisа Fiddlеr and Rоmео and Јuliet, Glоriа Cigmаn and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the novel Once Upon a Time There Was a Woman, and some more), to examining the limits of the short story as a genre. As one of the best connoisseurs of the pоеtics and achievements of Anglо-Saxon short story – Hemingway and Cаrvеr – Vlаdislаvа Gоrdić Pеtkоvić offers an interpretation of Аntоniјe Iskоvić’s The red Scarf as a short story with which Мilеta Prоdаnоvić’s The Red Silk Scarf engages in a diаlоgue of an irоnic tone. She studies the narrative fоrms of a diary and a confessional by comparing Prоdаnоvić’s collection of short stories Аgnеc and the novel White Tiger by the Indian writer Аravind Аdiga, prompting the readers’ intеrеst not only in the lesser-known Indian аuthоr, but also in Мilеta Prоdаnоvić’s fiction. All the way to the examination of the phеnоmеnom of Gеnеrаtion H and the works of Douglas Coupland – Vlаdislаvа Gоrdić Pеtkоvić manges to awake the curiosity for new works, new stories, the world of connections, harmony and conflict, for the vast literary cоsmоs, which continually, with each new strаtеgy of reading, gives birth to new cаnоns and new orders. And, of course, the hope that a pilgrimage to Canterbury can help with impaired hearing, rash and extra weight.

cóõrdínätês UDC 316.772.4

Nataša Bakić-Mirić

The University of Niš Medical School, Serbia Suleyman Demirel University in Almaty, Kazakhstan1

An Integrated Approach to Intercultural Communication

An Integrated Approach to Intercultural Communication2 is the outcome of the research conducted at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Faculty of English Studies in Greece during the 20102012 academic year. It explores communication, culture, and intercultural communication. The emphasis is on the promotion of understanding and appreciation for the rich and varied perspectives encountered in intercultural communication opportunities.

Interdisciplinary in nature, the book focuses on the need to develop self-understanding as the first step to intercultural understanding, and highlights the need for the intercultural state of mind to match our multicultural world, difficulties inherent in the 1 Dr. Nataša Bakić-Mirić is currently an invited lecturer at Suleyman Demirel University Faculty of Philosophy in Almaty (Kazakhstan) where she is also working on her new book “Current approaches to English language teaching”. Dr. Bakić-Mirić wrote “An integrated approach to intercultural communication” at the University Athens Faculty of English studies where she was invited as a visiting scholar on the post-doctoral level for the academic year 2010-2012.

2 This book review is a slightly altered original Introduction of the book.

quest for such objective, excitement of challenges on the way and rewards of success that are sputtering with new energy and yet waiting to be discovered.

Furthermore, the book represents an initial step in the process of building competencies which may facilitate effective communication in all types of crosscultural settings. It gives a unique outlook on how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures.

The book grows out of the philosophy that developing better interpersonal, intercultural communication skills will profoundly benefit the five-anda-half billion people who share this planet and who increasingly interact with each other by producing certain guidelines with which people can successfully cope with the realities of cultural diversity, challenges of living in a multicultural world, the need to transcend the unpredictability of intercultural interactions, accompanying fears that such interactions often encompass and the feeling of joy and comfort in the discovery of cultural diversity.

332

cóõrdínätês

To begin with, Chapter 1 sets out the main theme through a detailed exploration of the concepts of communication and culture where the author discusses the beginnings of communication study, contemporary maxims about communication as well as misinterpretations that occur during the communication process. The author, then, seamlessly moves on to discuss culture, its elements, beliefs, values and norms, popular culture, Confucian cultural patterns, Hall’s, Hofstede’s, and Bond’s taxonomies of cultural patterns and cultural intelligence. Moreover, she explores the concept of cultural identity and sheds new light on the notion of cultural diversity (or multiculturalism) which is in her view a broad way of looking at cultural groups at various levels, including assumptions, underlying values, social relations, and customs.

Chapter 2 focuses on the subject of intercultural communication that occupies the central position of the book. In this chapter, the author is keeping with the overall scope of the subject covering a wide array of topics within the field of intercultural communication encompassing overall characteristics of intercultural communication, meaning characteristics, practicing intercultural process thinking, intercultural communication competence and how to improve intercultural communication skills. The author also glimpses on the culture shock, its stages and acculturation. In the last pages of this chapter, she discusses factors influencing intercultural communication, intercultural communication barriers and basic rules of intercultural effectiveness only to conclude with intercultural training models.

In Chapter 3, the author turns to verbal and auditory intercultural communication and deals with verbal codes and verbal communication styles. She defines various styles of verbal communication: direct versus indirect style, elaborate versus succinct style, personal versus contextual, instrumental versus affective, treats the subject of listening, describes 333

the HURIER model and discusses the importance of effective listening across cultures.

Chapter 4 draws the readers in with discussion of nonverbal intercultural communication that is, in the author’s opinion, an indispensable and all-pervasive element in intercultural communication. She, then, moves to explore the importance of nonverbal communication in intercultural communication, the influence of nonverbal factors on intercultural communication and its classification.

Chapter 5 explores the significance of intercultural health communication that is very important in the health care setting especially if doctors and patients originate from different cultures. The author debates that effective health care delivery is dependent upon clear and effective communication as an essential element in every form of medicine and health care between all the individuals concerned: patients, physicians, and other health care professionals. The author, also, discusses diverse health care belief systems (that largely influence how doctors and patients perceive each other), intercultural health care competence and health care communication strategies.

Chapter 6 is the final piece of this intercultural communication puzzle where the author analyses main features of intercultural business communication. The focus is on the intercultural skills business people need to function effectively in the business arena. This means managing people in an intercultural setting, negotiations, meetings, language and questions to consider when doing business internationally.

The final pages of the book comprise selected intercultural awareness situations, practices and discussion ideas that should serve as an intercultural awareness incentive. The author also provides cultural interpretations for each situation written immediately after a possible response. Cultural dos and don’ts across the globe in the end are a sweepstake for all globetrotters.

cóõrdínätês

Generally, the author’s academic vantage point is that the book is intended as an academic reference for undergraduate, graduate students, interdisciplinary researchers, business people, health care providers, tourists, sojourners, expatriates and their better understanding of the key concepts relevant to understanding issues related to intercultural communication. It is written in comprehensible English and covers the most important features of intercultural communication.

One of the reviewers, Professor Maria Sifianou from The Faculty of English Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece writes: “The diversity and freshness of the ideas in the book stem from the unique blend of the most important aspects of intercultural communication to provide the reader with an understanding of the depth and breadth of intercultural communication theory and practice in a unique and interesting way.

It serves as basis for the journey towards greater intercultural communication competence and understanding of how intercultural communication principles work that is crucial to the development of mutual understanding in the global world.”

Conjointly, Professor Spyronikolas Hoidas from The Faculty of English Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece), who invited the author to join his team as a visiting scholar on the post-doctoral level in 2010-2012, postulates: “An Integrated Approach to Intercultural Communication” investigates multi-faceted domain of intercultural communication with its multicultural focus and interdisciplinary scope – featuring verbal, auditory, nonverbal, health care and business intercultural communication. The book does not only survey past and contemporary theoretical and research grounds but also anticipates future developments by investigating multi-faceted domain of intercultural communication.

Overtly, this book is an invaluable resource for all scholars, students, sojourners, expatriates, and

globe-trotters exploring the broad and vast field of intercultural communication. In this important contribution to contemporary thinking about intercultural communication, Bakić-Mirić brings together discourse from widely divergent theoretical fields to explore the arena of intercultural communication.

Ultimately, a desirable and intended effect of this book is also the development of an interculturally open and tolerant mind, which will eventually lead to a better understanding of the different and varied manifestations of language, culture and communication in human society.”

Finally Biljana Đorić Francuski, Associate professor from The University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philology says (in Serbian language): “Od ove godine studije kulture bogatije su za jednu izvanrednu naučnu monografiju, koju je pod nazivom Integrisani pristup interkulturnoj komunikaciji (An Integrated Approach to Intercultural Communication) početkom 2012. objavila renomirana britanska izdavačka kuća Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Za nas je to izdanje tim značajnije što je autorka monografije, dr Nataša Bakić-Mirić, naše gore list, te u ovoj knjizi često nailazimo i na primere vezane za Srbiju, što inače nije baš uvek slučaj u literaturi iz oblasti studija kulture, a naročito interkulturne komunikacije.

U današnje vreme, kada je u nekoliko multidisciplinarnih naučnih grana sve popularnija tematika razumevanja izmenu pojedinaca iz različitih kultura – koji kao nosioci ponekad čak i suprotnih vrednosti i neuskladjenih identiteta pri susretu neizostavno stupaju u interkulturnu komunikaciju, ova knjiga, koja predstavlja originalno naučno ostvarenje, nesumnjivo je nezaobilazan priručnik za svakoga ko se – bilo kao stručnjak ili student, bilo kao laik i iz privatnih razloga – bavi procesom sticanja kompetencija u cilju olakšavanja efikasne interkulturne komunikacije u novoj multikulturnoj sredini.”

334

cóõrdínätês

Conclusively, the purpose of this book is to delineate some of the choices (either explicit or tacit) that a scholar must make in the investigation of intercultural communication and so, it includes the most important aspects of intercultural communication necessary to provide the reader with an under-

335

standing of the depth and breadth of intercultural communication theory and practice and to further research into the field of intercultural communication in a unique and interesting way that is from the author’s point of view crucial to the development of mutual understanding in the global world.

cóõrdínätês UDC 316.66-055.2(497) UDC 305-055.2(497)

Slobodan Vasić, Novi Sad Serbia

Inquiring women, Feminist and Muslim identities: Post-Socialist Contexts in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo INTRODUCTION Not much has been written about, nor are there many authors in the region who deal with feminist theology and analyze connections between gender and religion. Some of the most important authors dealing with this issue in the area are Jadranka Rebeka Anić (Anić 2010, 2011), Anna Maria Gruenfelder (1988, 2002) and Svenka Savić (Savić 2002).

Zilka Spahić-Šiljak’s ( Spahicć-Šiljak 2007) area of​​ interest is feminist theology related to Islam, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina. With that in mind, it can be said that each research project in the field of religion and gender analysis is a noteworthy contribution, because it expands the knowledge regarding the interaction between religion and society, position of women in religion, and therefore it expands knowledge of the social reality in general.

The book “Inquiring Women, Feminist and Muslim Identities – Post- Socialist Contexts in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo” (Spahić-Šiljak 2012) was the result of a two-year research project titled “Feminism in Post- Socialist Muslim Contexts in Bos-

nia-Herzegovina and Kosovo”, which was conducted by the Center for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies (CIPS) at the University of Sarajevo. The aim of this study was to investigate the intertwining of gender and religion, as well as how politics, class and other important aspects of female identity mediate the interaction between religion and gender relations in society. According to the words of the editor, Zilka Spahić-Šiljak, the study deals with correlation and intersection of three key identities: female, feminist and religious, using comparative analysis of attitudes of women in post-socialist Muslim contexts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo (Spahić-Šiljak 2012: 21). One of the goals of the study is to reveal “multi-positioning” of women in everyday life and the multiple positions become clearer taking into account the intersection among gender, religion, ethnicity and phases in the life cycle - which influence the identities of women and their experiences (Ibid. 22). In this regard, it is important to give answers to questions on how identities are constructed, how monolithic categories 336

cóõrdínätês

and the great narratives of universalism are deconstructed, and what is more, to contribute to the detection of paradoxical effects of power. Specifically, not only the well-known binary oppositions - secular and religious, public and private, modern and traditional, and socialist and ethno-national - are observed through their interaction, but also an attempt is made to overcome the enforced dichotomy.

As feminist ideas do not develop independently from socio-political and cultural contexts – in this case secularization and desecularization of the Muslim social context – the confrontation between the Muslim and feminist identity can be observed through various modalities of the relation between traditional and modern at the subjective level, i.e. at the level at which women create and construct their identities and social reality.

Research methods In order to conduct a comparative analysis and correlation tests of three key identities (female, feminist and religious) in the two post-socialist socio-political contexts, in terms of methodology, two qualitative methods are introduced: focus groups and methods of life stories. The life story method has allowed women to explain how they became feminists and how their multiple positions and multiple identities were constructed throughout their lives, since activism took up the most important part of their narrative.

It should be emphasized that the method of focus groups is rarely used in empirical research in the social sciences, although it is particularly important in gender and feminist studies, because it has an educational value. In addition, the method is focused on women’s experiences and the advantage of focus groups is that they enable an egalitarian group dynamics and interaction among the participants. It also has an educational purpose, because women learn through discussions listening to each other.

Another important feature of this method is that it 337

has a side effect of invigoration on women, for the very focus group is planned to create a new context and a new social experience.

Focus groups were held in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo with the women who work for women’s NGOs or are related to them in any way. Focus groups were a means of gaining an insight into what it means to be a woman in the post-socialist context. In addition, it was important to determine how feminism and feminists’ identity are perceived and whether women are willing to express their feminist identity publicly. When compatibility of Islam and feminism are observed, the emphasis is on the fact that identities are not rigid and separate but highly related and fluid, which is a contribution to the perception of identity as an unstable and changeable category.

RESULTS OF THE RESEARCH Results of the research show differences in the perceived importance of the religious and national identity of women in Bosnia and women from Kosovo. In fact, most women in Bosnia and Herzegovina emphasize their religious and cultural identity, while the majority of women from Kosovo emphasize their national or ethnic identity (Ibid.

155). The identity position of women in Bosnia and Herzegovina is affected by the Bosnian paradigm of the European Islam, reflected in two ways: as a “common culture and civilization” and as the religion of individuals. Islam, being the common culture, represents a concept which includes a variety of perceptions, interpretations and practices of Islam in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the other hand, Albanians from Kosovo are more focused on their national than their religious identity. a) Respondents believe that the most common identity is the one of a woman who keeps to and takes care of her private sphere (the role of mother and educator of the family) - in connection with this, a “two-scene-game” problem is accentuated.

cóõrdínätês

However, in this review not much attention will be paid to the problem of the private sphere, but other issues will be in focus – the ones that have proven to be relevant - both in focus groups and life stories of women who participated in this study. In this regard, firstly the problem of gender neutrality strategy will be dealt with - what it means to be a woman and to fight for women’s rights in two different social contexts: socialism and post-socialism.

Interestingly, when respondents define what it means to be a woman, they avoid being designated as women or feminists, but they rather chose gender neutral positioning - defining themselves as human beings - which is the strategy of gender neutrality.

However, the question is whether this is in favor of women, since feminist theorists emphasize that “neutral positioning works against women, because a man remains the norm” (Ibid. 137). Whatever their quest for gender neutrality is, it seems that some women emphasize - although possibly unconsciously – that if being a woman means being deprived of rights, then being a feminist means taking responsibility to correct this injustice and to re-define what being a woman really means. (Ibid. 145). b) What does it mean to be a woman in socialism and post-socialism? Women say that gender equality in post-socialist Bosnia and Kosovo has given some results in the legal sphere, but that there are weaknesses in law enforcement and that gender action plans are still fragile. Furthermore, civil and political rights in post-socialism are emphasized more than social and economic - women feel that these other rights are more important for them (Ibid. 135). The study observed differences between Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina regarding the influence of socialism on positioning of women and their subjective perception of the female identity. The period of socialism left a deeper mark on women in Bosnia and Herzegovina in terms of formation of the female identity, by contrast, women from Kosovo

rarely mentioned the socialist era as influencing the formation of their identities (Ibid. 137). This can be seen most clearly in the fact that women from the focus groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina understand feminism from a classical Marxist feminist perspective - they are more likely to identify classism rather than sexism as the underlying cause of the oppression of women - despite visible questioning gender issues (Ibid. 140). Women from Bosnia grasp the concept of “struggle” within the conceptual framework built by Marx, Engels and Lenin. In socialist ideas women are allies with men in the revolution, and feminism is identified with the bourgeois values ​​of the capitalist class. Therefore, feminists from Bosnia have an approach to feminist issues based on a perspective of the unity with men and Marxist axiology. Women from Kosovo seldom appeal to the socialist period, which is an interesting finding in itself; however, better understanding of this issue would require a special investigation. c) Religious affiliation. Work in focus groups, as well as data gathered in women’s life stories, showed a discrepancy between the level of religious identification and practice of religion in Bosnia and Kosovo. Focus groups show that most women could be classified somewhere between Muslim practitioners and non-practitioners. It is difficult to draw a dividing line between believers and non-believers (Ibid.

147). Most Muslim women in Bosnia and Kosovo are secular believers, in other words they accept their religion as part of their family tradition. Most practitioners, by contrast, want their religiosity to be publicly recognized (Ibid. 150). The existence of significant relativism in adhering to the laws of Islam, the complexity of identity formation show that Muslim women use different strategies and space for multiple positioning. They use strategies in order to define their position as Muslims and moderate feminists in the social context of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo (Ibid. 152-153).

338

cóõrdínätês

In the life stories from Bosnia, Muslim identity is constructed in relation to other religions, nations, while Muslim identity in Kosovo does not include such parallels, as other factors appear to be significant: education, hijab, state policy (Ibid. 197). However, the value of decency is something that both practitioners and non-practitioners share: being a good person, helping the ones in need and not doing harm to anyone. The difference between non-practitioners and practitioners in Bosnia and Kosovo could be put this way: non-practitioners could be determined as believers without affiliation, while most practitioners could be determined as believers with affiliation (Ibid. 154). d) Activism – religion; public/private: the hijab.

In the context of reestablishing traditionalism of social values that emerged after the collapse of socialism and its basic social structures, to position oneself as a feminist is not socially desirable and women generally refuse to publicly identify themselves as feminists as well as to promote feminist values, because it entails exclusion and marginalization in the patriarchal milieu of their everyday life (Ibid. 140).

It has been observed that women from Kosovo, nonpractitioners, are more willing to identify themselves as feminists, compared to women from Bosnia.

From their life stories it can be seen that feminist, activist identity, religious and secular identities are not fixed, nor are they always polarized: they are in mutual interaction and overlap in different ways in different social contexts. All interviewees stated that the war provided impetus to turn to activism and feminism, as part of their search for identity.

Data also showed that “practitioners cared more about their feminist identity in the public sphere and reconciliation of objectives promoting feminism and religion. Non-practitioners were more cautious regarding their religious identity in the public sphere, especially the hijab as a visible marker of their female religious identity (Ibid.

166). In fact, one of the most controversial issues 339

related to the emancipation of Muslim women is the matter of veiling and wearing hijab (covering the head) that is why debates about hijab result in conflicting attitudes among the Muslim women.

Most non-practitioners in Kosovo, but also in Bosnia, believe that wearing hijab is not in accordance with the emancipation and advancement of women.

It can be said that women who are veiled challenge modernity by their mere presence. “Violently uncovered they represent the modernization of the nation. Violently covered are re-establishing the Islamic order “(Milani 1992: 4). Women who are not veiled defend their rights to be Muslim without hijab, and criticize the imposed perception that only those women who wear hijab are moral and spiritual (Spahić-Šiljak 2012: 161).

In this sense, women who wear hijab are triply disenfranchised, “[...] for the Western perception of covered Muslim women and prohibition of coverage in some European countries; for the secular Muslim believers both men and women, who do not want to be associated with radical Islam (terrorism) and due to the lack of strength and confidence, which is a common feature of veiled women “(Ibid. 163).

CONCLUSION Based on this selection of some important topics in the research the results of which were published in a study Questioning Women, Feminist and Muslim Identity - Socialist Contexts in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, this book review will be brought to an end by mentioning some of the theses which we believe to be relevant: Women support mainly “moderate” feminism, because they believe that radical feminism radically undermines social norms and family values, which a priori is not a viable option.

Practitioners believe that religion is a powerful psychological and spiritual tool that helps them to become better persons and to find inner peace and

cóõrdínätês

strength. This perspective emphasizes the importance of religion in human life and excludes nonreligious views as well as a possible opportunity to find peace and strength apart from religion. Distancing themselves from radical feminism, practitioners suggest that using terms similar to “women’s issues” or “woman’s themes” would be better.

Muslim feminists are faced with a double social stigma: they can not expect understanding for their religious identity in a secular environment if wearing hijab, and as feminists they are accepted neither in their religious nor in their secular environment (Ibid. 253).

The question that illustrated the span of feminist identities is the question related to Imam positions for women. Although there are no legal or theological obstacles to women becoming Mufti, women who are speakers of the religious communities, lecturers, respondents completely ignored this issue. This shows a structure that continues to support the strict gender division in connection with assigned roles, as well as the preservation of hierarchical gender structure. However, women from Kosovo and Bosnia want women to be involved in the interpretation of Islam rather than follow blindly the existing interpretative tradition that excludes the partnership between women and men (Ibid. 160).

Finally, we will mention Zia, an interviewee from Bosnia, who, in our opinion, provided researchers with rich and interesting empirical and scientific information and her critique of the Muslim community in Bosnia. She believes that the Muslim community in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not sufficiently proactive, open and inclusive enough to allow space for different opinions. She also criticizes other religious communities because of their a priori understanding of Islam. She criticizes the West in general, which has a neo-colonial and Eurocentric policy. Zia criticizes the Arab world because of their monopoly on interpreting Islam.

Zia, however, does not only criticize the numerous social factors, but also provides a concrete proposal which, hopefully, may be acceptable to the most of people: the fight against ignorance, prejudice and stereotypes can be made possible through education and introduction to Islam and its various and rich heritage and interpretive traditions (Ibid. 199). It seems that education is one of the most important factors in establishing equal relations between the sexes and in increasing tolerance in society. Education is also the most important factor in the intersection and compatibility between feminism and religious traditions, and to the detriment of the dichotomy: participants who have a higher education regardless of whether they are practitioners or not, feel that religion and feminism have the same task - the task of expanding the possibilities of human freedom.

REFERENCES 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Anić, Jadranka Rebeka (2011). Kako razumjeti rod? Povijest rasprave i različita razumijevanja u Crkvi. Zagreb: Institut društvenih znanosti „Ivo Pilar”.

----. (2010). Žene u Crkvi i društvu. Sarajevo – Zagreb: Svjetlo riječi.

Gruenfelder, Ana Maria (2002). „Feministička teologija.

Kritički osvrt na metode i glavna pitanja”. U: S. Savić (ur.), Feministička teologija (22–38). Novi Sad: Futura publikacije.

----. (1988). „Feministička teologija ili ’Smrt patrijarhalnog Boga’?”. Bogoslovska smotra, vol. 58, br. 1: 29–60.

Milani, Farzanch (1992). The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam, translated by Mary Jo Lakeland. New York: Basic.

Savić, Svenka (2002). „Interpretacija biblijskog teksta iz perspektive feminističke teologije: ’Daj mi piti!’ Razgovor Isusa sa ženom iz Samarije”. U: S. Savić (ur.), Feministička teologija (62–82). Novi Sad: Futura publikacije.

Spahić-Šiljak, Zilka (2007). Žene, religija i politika (doktorska disertacija). Novi Sad: Asocijacija centara za interdisciplinarne i multidisciplinarne studije i istraživanja (ACIMSI) – Centar za rodne studije.

----. (2012). Propitivanje ženskih, feminističkih i muslimanskih identiteta – postsocijalistički konteksti u BiH i na Kosovu. Sarajevo: Centar za interdisciplinarne postdiplomske studije, Univerzitet u Sarajevu.

340

341

cóõrdínätês UDC 050.488EUROPA

Pavel Gatajancu, Novi Sad Serbia

“Europa” Magazine, Novi Sad and its Interculturality “Europa”, a magazine of science and art in transition, published in Novi Sad by the ”Europa” Foundation, an organisation with a status of nongovernmental organisation, was first issued in 2008. The initiative belonged to the writer Pavel Gătăianţu and a group of Romanian supporters from Novi Sad and Vojvodina in order to facilitate the cultural direction of Romanian intellectuals from Serbia to Europe.

A particular aspect of the magazine in the elaboration policy is interculturality, understood as a cultural incursion that could establish stability in the civic relationships in the region – implying closeness to the French system of interculturality.

Interculturalism is present in the magazine due to the diversity of themes and issues, of authors, with a special issue dedicated to interculturality. In the first issue of the magazine, the French sociologist Olivier Peyroux analyses the stereotypes that are present in the relationship between the French and Serbians. Sânziana Preda from Timişoara has published an article about the Czechs in the Banat region, the university professor Zoran Djeric has written about philosophical and political aspects of the Slav emigration in the 20th century. This issue

also contains poems written by Romanian and Serbian poets.

The second issue of the magazine, which is dedicated to elites, is opened by Petar Atanackovic who writes about political elites and the Serbian education system. The Serbian university professor Milan Ivanovic, from Osiek, Croatia, analyses the responsibilities of social elites in the transition process; Branka Bogavac, who comes from Montenegro and lives in Paris, has published an interview with Eugen Ionescu; Bozidar Vasiljevic has published poetry and Dragan Velikic has published his prose translated from Serbian.

The following issue is dedicated to interculturality. The texts published are written by Konrad Gyorgy from Hungary – a study about the idea of unification and separation; Alpar Losonz, a university professor from Novi Sad, who analyses the European dimension of Vojvodina: Zoran Arsovic, a university professor from Banja Luka, Republika Srpska, who writes an article about the contemporaneous confusion, Europeanism and the concept of Europe in the field of philosophy; a Ruthenian doctor from Novi Sad, Miroslav Kevezdi, who publishes the text The European Culture of Memory. Tomislava 342

cóõrdínätês

Zigmanov, a Croation from Subotica, publishes the article The Interethnic Relationships and the Identity of Vojvodina. Viorica Ungureanu, from Bălţi, Moldavia, publishes the article Humor as an Obstacle in Intercultural Communication. Alexander Genis, an Estonian from New York, the U.S.A., publishes the essay The Monarch’s Crown. The Slovakian Martin Prebudjila and the Serbian Goran Segedinac publish prose.

The fourth issue of the magazine is related to the migration theme. Thus, Milan Cvetanovic, Branislav Djurdjev and Sasha Kicosev from the Faculty of Geography in Novi Sad publish the study Refugees’ itineraries in Serbia – Montenegro and Romania between 1980 and 2005. The Ruthenian Mihal Rasmac writes about the Ruthenian migration and the Bulgarian Cveko Ivanov writes about migrations of people from Dimitrovgrad. Olivier Peyroux publishes a study about sociological aspects of realities and particular processes of Romanian minors, related to migration.

Branka Bogavac has made an interview with the Croation Predrag Matavejevic, and Radmilo Petrovici from Belgrade has written about migration as axiological catharsis; the Italian Christian Eccher has published the essay The Foreigner in Contemporary Italian Literature. The philological part of the magazine includes an article published

by Redzp Skrijelji from Novi Pazar: Bosnian Onomastics in Macedonia (1875-1970). Iavana Janic, a student in Novi Sad publishes the article Some Data on Aromanian Culture in the South of Serbia. Corina Tucu from Padova publishes an article about Livio Zanolini from Italy. The prose is written by the young Marko Selici from Novi Sad, and university professor Faruk Dizdarevic from Priboj, Serbia, publishes the article Culture at border.

The fifth issue of “Europa” magazine is dedicated to mass-media. University professor Dubravka Valic Nedeljkovic, from Novi Sad opens the issue 343

with the analysis Mass-media positioning in Serbia/ Vojvodina, Christian Eccher writes about Silvio Berlusconi’s mass-media Empire, Berlusconism and the crises of the Left Wing in Italy. The magazine also includes Claudio Magris’s essay The Language, and the section social and humanistic sciences includes a text about the announcer’s influence in children mass-media, written by Sladjana Milenkovic, a teacher from Sremska Mitrovica. The Serbian writers Jovan Zivlak and Slobodan Mandic publish poetry and prose.

Regionalism is the theme of the sixth issue of the magazine. The issue is opened by the Hungarian politician from Novi Sad, Sandor Egeresi, who writes about the European Identity of Multicultural Vojvodina and the Regionalization Processes. Ognjen Miric from Belgrade writes about the regional policy of the European Union. University professor Mariana Pajvanic from the University of Novi Sad publishes a fragment from her book The Constitutional Framework of the Regional State - Serbia’s example. Alesandru Popov publishes an article entitled For Decentralization before I come to Power.

Branka Bogavac has published a fragment from an interview with Emil Cioran, and Professor Yvonne Duplessis, from Paris, has published the first part of the study Surrealism in Romania. The writer Drasko Redjep has published a review of the poetry of Petru Cârdu. Filip Nenadici and Ivan Grahek have published The Unconscious Impact of Photographs on Human Estimation – the Sub-optimal Affective Priming, in the section social and humanistic sciences.

University professor Marco Lucchesi from Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, has published poetry, and Nedeljko Terzic has published prose translated from Serbian. Vladislav Popovic has presented his book The Myth about Patriarchate, and Simon Grabovac has written about the international theatre festival Infant, from Novi Sad.

cóõrdínätês

A characteristic of the articles published in “Europa” magazine is that, beside the English abstract, there is a Serbian abstract, so that those who are interested can read the essence of the published texts.

A theme that has always been of interest is chosen for the seventh issue of the “Europa” magazine: religion and faith. Miroslav Kevezdi writes about religious postmodernity in Europe and Professor Roman Miz writes about ecumenism. Vladislav Djordjevic analyses differences between Catholic and Orthodox religion, while the Swedish Asa Apelkvist

analyses parallels between Swedish and German languages. University professor Faruk Dizdadarevic has a contribution related to the most talented Bosnian prose writer, Camil Sijaric.

Another characteristic of the articles published in “Europa” magazine is that, beside the English abstract, there is a Serbian abstract, so that those who are interested can read the essence of the published texts. The Scientific and the Consultative Board also have a multiethnic form.

Translated by Luiza Caraivan

344

345

cóõrdínätês UDC 791(497.113)

Sonja Jankov

The Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina, Novi Sad Serbia

MoCAV: Film and Video in Vojvodina Technology to the People - Case Study: Film and Video in Vojvodina Curators: Aleksandar Davić and Gordana Nikolić 19th February – 15th April 2013, MoCAV, Novi Sad

The Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina in Novi Sad has been acknowledged as a highly professional institution, with standards that are enabling ambitious programmes with largescale multimedial exhibitions focusing on case studies. The beginning of 2013 was marked by the project Technology to the People – Case Study: Film and Video in Vojvodina, realised as the cinema, a series of lectures, presentations and discussions, which provided insights into production in the medium of film, video and television and an exhibition of archival documents, techniques and stills in combination with projections. The project by its detailed approach represents an encyclopaedic representation of history of the autonomous and, usually conceived as marginal, spaces of working on films and video.

Projections included over 90 works, since 1912 to the latest works, and their constellation revealed the intercultural aspect of art production in the region.

Black and white The Summer Movie (Nyári mozi, 1999, 67’) with music written by Félix Lajkó and The Hour Glass (Fövenyóra, 2007, 110’) based

on the novel by Danilo Kiš, represent the work of contemporary film director Tolnai Szabolcs. These are the first movies in Hungarian the viewers had opportunity to see while entering the gallery space.

They are followed by The Knife Thrower (Késdobáló, 1984, 89’) by Vicsek Károly, featuring Katalin Ladik and documentary Seven Hungarian Ballads (1978, 30’) filmed by Želimir Žilnik, whose representative film noire Early Works (1969, 87’) and documentary Newsreel on Village Youth, in Winter (1967, 15’) were also included. However, Healthy People for Fun (1971, 15’) directed by Karpo Godina Ačimović with music by Sound Laboratory portrays the multiculturalism of Vojvodina the best. Godina’s awarded film presents ethnical minorities in the region, moving from a documentary anthropological movie into an artistic one, inseparable from the music.

Godina’s filmed version of the play Gratinated Brain by the troupe Pupilia Ferkeverk (Žlahtna plesen Pupilije Ferkeverk, 1970, 11’) is another among the films that marked the golden years of the production company “Neoplanta Film” in Novi Sad. 346

cóõrdínätês

The authors Davić and Nikolić presented the variety of film, video and television production in Vojvodina in a way that reveals the richness of production and centres for the exchange of knowledge, as much as the enthusiasm of the co-called amateurism. Apart from “Neoplanta Film”, the project focused on the production companies “Panfilm” from Pančevo, “Filmske novosti” from Belgrade, with documentaries related to Vojvodina, such as A Disco Club in Inđija (1971), Youth Championship in Skydiving for Women (1956), Tito Visiting Novi Sad Fair (1963), while “Fruška Gora Society” produced the first colour film in the region (1935), which was premiered during the exhibition. The Academy of Arts Novi Sad was included as an important centre for video art, which was represented with works by collective Apsolutno, Bogdanka Poznanović, Dragan Živančević, Mia Stojanović, Maja Bekan and others.

The thematic sections of the project included The Pioneers of Film, animated films by Borislav Šajtinac and Mira Brtka, and films on the New artistic practice and Conceptual art in Vojvidina, showing works by Božidar Mandić and Slavko Matković, as well as a documentary on the artistic group Bosch+Bosch. Representation of festival production in Vojvodina was focused on works first shown at the Yugoslav Festival of Low-budget Films (selection by Stipan Milodanović), which was launched in Subotica in 1998 and those shown at the festivals Film Front, Medusa Filmnapok in Subotica (selection by Atila Sirbik) and Videomedeja.

The socialist slogan “Technology to the people” follows the name of the magazine “Technology to the people” that had shown the latest innovations

347

in techniques and is based on the process of bringing the culture of new technological and media culture closer to the working people. The authors of the exhibition devoted particular attention to amateurism in film production and focused on film clubs in Sombor, Ruma, Novi Sad and other towns in Vojvodina between 1950s and 1980s. This segment of film production was firstly in focus with the Festival of 8mm Amateur Film in 1954. Among the works included was the one-minute-long film I Love You by the group of authors “CVI”. The film shows, in a flash, the red star, being the symbol of communist regime, in a series of blank shots, while the rest of the shots are completely red, in relation to the colour of love or cardiovascular diseases associated by the name of the group.

Technology to the People presented the project “Memorabilia: Lost and Found” by Nataša Vujkov, who is digitalizing film tapes, dia-positives, photographs and postcards found in abandoned objects in Novi Sad. Apart from that, it included lectures and discussions, accompanied by projections, on video production of The Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, collective Apsolutno, on filmography of “Panfilm” (1971-1991) and included some evenings dedicated to works by individual authors: Predrag Šiđanin, Karpo Godina Ačimović, Želimir Žilnik, Szabolcs Tolnai, Marin Malešević and Miloš Pušić. The exhibition also included films by, later deceased, Nikola Majdak, namely his documentary Pregnant Earth (Trudna zemlja, 1975) and a documentary on the film pioneer Ernest Bošnjak, Hollywood on the Danube (1978). The closing phase of the project will be an extensive and detailed publication.

Instructions for Authors

We kindly ask authors to submit their manuscripts and other enclosures in electronic form to the Editorial’s Office e-mail address zkvrazvoj@ nscable.net, prepared in the following way: 1. General Guidelines Manuscripts should be written in Latin using font Times New Roman, font size 12, line spacing 1.5, on an A4 paper.

Each manuscript, if deemed as a contribution to The Intercultural Research, should contain the information about the author of the text: first and last names, full name and place of the institution where the author is employed, or a name of the institution where the author has completed his research (for more complex organizations a complete hierarchy is given i.e. University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Philosophy – Department of Serbian Literature, Novi Sad), a title, an abstract in Serbian and English (no more than 250 words long), key words (no more than 7 in Serbian as well as in English), the text and a reference list. The text should not be more than 24 computer pages long, whereas 16 pages is the minimum. If the manuscript is intended for Views (essays, research papers) it should contain an abstract

in Serbian and English (no more than 250 words long) and a reference list, while the scope of the text may be between 10 and 24 computer pages.

2. References – The titles of the works should be in italics.

– When cited or referred to in the text, the source should be given in the following way: in brackets, author’s last name, the year of publication, colon and page number. But, in the reference list it should be given with all the information.

– In the reference list, when monographic publication is concerned, the author’s last and first names, the title of the text in italics, place, publisher and the year of publication are cited. In the reference list, when serial publication is concerned, the the author’s last and first names, the title of the text inside the quotation marks, the name of the serial publication in italics, the number of book or chapter, (year and full date), colon followed by the page numbers of the text.

The texts retrieved from the internet are cited in the following way: monographic publications: the author’s last and first names, the title in italics, the internet address from which the text was 348

ìñtèrkùltùràlnòst Magazine for stimulation and affirmation of intercultural communication / OCTOBER 2013 / NO. 06

retrieved, the date of access. Periodical publications: the author’s last name, the title of the text inside the quotation marks, the title of periodical publication in italics, number and date of publication (if it is not included in the internet address), the internet address, the date of access.

– In the reference list, bibliographic units should be written in language and letter in which they have been published, enlisted in alphabetical order.

– Footnotes are given at the bottom of the page and are used for additional comments. Continuous numbering is marked with Arabic numerals form 1 further on, followed by the punctuation mark.

– Foreign names and terms undergo transcription which is adjusted to Serbian language (according to Serbian Orthography), but when a foreign name or term is mentioned for the first time, the original form is given in the brackets as well.

When mentioned next time in the text, it should be consistently and identically transcribed, without mentioning the original form. The exceptions are latin terms, which are left in the original form.

When foreign phrases are cited, the translation should be given in corresponding footnote.

349

* Photographs which the authors enclose with their papers should be sent as high-resolution photographs in .jpeg or .tiff format with the author’s signature and the year of making.

Note Papers published in the journal shall not be reprinted neither in parts or as a whole, without the the publisher’s prior consent. Manuscripts are reviewed and are not given back to the authors.

Structure of the Journal We ask the authors to adjust their manuscripts to the thematic and formal structure of the journal, as well as to specify for which column they are written. ïñtércûltúrål stûdíës

–

scientific research papers from the areas of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, musicology, theatrology, cultural politics, literature and arts... pêrspëctîvés – essays, research papers diãlôgüés – scientific interview cóõrdínätês – translations, reviews The journal is issued twice a year (March, October)

CIP - Каталогизација у публикацији Библиотека Матице српске, Нови Сад 316.72 ÍÑTÈRKÙLTÙRÀLNÒST : časopis za podsticanje i afirmaciju interkulturalne komunikacije / glavni i odgovorni urednik Aleksandra Đurić Bosnić. - 2011, br. 1 (mart)- . - Novi Sad : Zavod za kulturu Vojvodine, 2011-. - Ilustr. ; 30 cm Dva puta godišnje. - Sa povremenim izd. na CD-ROMu. ISSN 2217-4893 = Interkulturalnost COBISS.SR-ID 261430535

350

351

352 Aleksandra PeroviÄ&#x2021;