#Croatian Literature

[daweyt]

“Listen: I always return to myself.”

Vesna Parun, from “A Return to the Tree of Time,” tr. Vasa D. Mihailovich.

[dr-george-ordell]

Oh potjeh how I love you as a character

[0luna123]

Therapist: OG haters aren't real, they can't hurt you The OG haters:

full pic below

they dissed his house :(

[emcyan]

after death, josip pupačić // šibenik, croatia // the unbuilt house, josip pupačić (my translations)

[saintsaensreads]

The growing TBR Pile : 2024 edition

I'm not a fast reader. Case in point : Storygraph has me pinned as someone reading a book in... 2 months. I say this is slander. I think. I'm not sure. There might be some truth somewhere. But I consume a lot of content either via YouTube or Tumblr about books.

The consequences are dire : my TBR pile grows and grows! So here are some of my 2024 discoveries that I want to read (at some point, I don't know when exactly, it's difficult to say - but it will happen?).

First stop : Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian literature.

At the beginning of the year, I happened on a very short article (in an otherwise very dense newspaper) listing some of the latest translations by a single translator of BCS language. She mentioned the similarities and differences between all those languages, leading me to read more and more about her work and those languages. It made me quite curious about translated literature from that region and ended up compiling a few of them.

Source : interview in French of Chloe Billon, the translator in question, in Pages Sauvages.

Na Drini ćuprija - The Bridge over the Drina -, Ivo Andrić (1945)

The town of Visegrad was long caught between the warring Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, but its sixteenth-century bridge survived unscathed--until 1914 when tensions in the Balkans triggered the first World War. Spanning generations, nationalities, and creeds, The Bridge on the Drina brilliantly illuminates a succession of lives that swirl around the majestic stone arches. Among them is that of the bridge's builder, a Serb kidnapped as a boy by the Ottomans; years later, as the empire's Grand Vezir, he decides to construct a bridge at the spot where he was parted from his mother. A workman named Radisav tries to hinder the construction, with horrific consequences. Later, the beautiful young Fata climbs the bridge's parapet to escape an arranged marriage, and, later still, an inveterate gambler named Milan risks everything on it in one final game with the devil.

Adios, Comboy, Olja Savičević Ivančević (2011)

Dada’s life is at a standstill in Zagreb—she’s sleeping with a married man, working a dead-end job, and even the parties have started to feel exhausting. So when her sister calls her back home to help with their aging mother, she doesn’t hesitate to leave the city behind. But she arrives to find her mother hoarding pills, her sister chain-smoking, her long-dead father’s shoes still lined up on the steps, and the cowboy posters of her younger brother Daniel (who threw himself under a train four years ago) still on the walls.Hoping to free her family from the grip of the past, Dada vows to unravel the mystery of Daniel’s final days.

Second Stop : Polish literature

I learned a lot this past year about Poland (for personal reasons). I started reading about the history of the country, the language, its culture etc. I was at first quite ashamed to be so oblivious to another country from which quite a few of my friends's family come from, and with which French history is so closely linked. Obviously, I started piling up some polish writers in my TBR as a result.

Bezrobotny Lucyfer - Lucifer Unemployed -, Aleksander Wat (1927)

In these nine stories the Polish writer Aleksander Wat consistently turns history on its ear in comic reversals reverberating with futurist rhythms and the gently mocking humor of despair. Wat inverts the conventions of religion, politics, and culture to fantastic effect, illuminating the anarchic conditions of existence in interwar Europe. The title story finds a superbly ironic Lucifer wandering the Europe of the late 1920s in search of a mission: what impact can a devil have in a godless time? What is his sorcery in a society far more diablical than the devil himself? Too idealistic for a world full of modern cruelties, the unemployable Lucifer finally finds the only means of guaranteed immortality. In "The Eternally Wandering Jew," steady Jewish conversion to Christianity results in Nathan the Talmudist reigning as Pope Urban IX. The hilarious satire on power, "Kings in Exile," unfolds with the dethroned monarchs of Europe meeting to found their own republic in an uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean.

Third and Final Stop : under the Influence

I used to watch TikTok at some point, and most of the content left me frustrated, with a hint of dissatisfaction. But sometimes, sometimes, I happened on a great content creator, full of enthusiasm, or a very very avid reader sharing their love for one book. This, unfortunately, doesn't leave me unbothered. And I do admit, witnessing the passion of someone else about a book, made me want to dive into the novels myself !

Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas - The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas -, Machado de Assis (1881)

Machado de Assis is not only Brazil's most celebrated writer but also a writer of world stature. In his masterpiece, the 1881 novel The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (also translated as Epitaph of a Small Winner), the ghost of a decadent and disagreeable aristocrat decides to write his memoir. He dedicates it to the worms gnawing at his corpse and tells of his failed romances and half-hearted political ambitions, serves up hare-brained philosophies and complains with gusto from the depths of his grave. Wildly imaginative, wickedly witty and ahead of its time, the novel has been compared to works by Cervantes, Sterne, Joyce, Nabokov, Borges and Calvino, and has influenced generations of writers around the world.

The Safekeep, Yael van der Wouden (2024)

It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season. Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation—leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.

[bookcoversaroundtheworld]

Die Verwandlung - Croatia (1977)

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes."

[roughghosts]

On through the dark forest: Celebration by Damir Karakaš

This taut novella opens in 1945. Above a little village, Mijo lies hidden in the woods, looking down at he house where his wife and sons live. In his yellow-brown uniform he must stay out of sight. The war is over and the soldiers of the Nazi-allied Ustaša force are now on the run or in hiding. He hopes against hope that he will someday be able to return to the little family he left behind when…

[ceruleanharley]

went out for afternoon drinks in the city. came home with 3 books i do not need. so.

[obsessioncollector]

Hi friends! Inspired by @librarycards I wanted to make a post celebrating Women in Translation Month! Anglophone readers generally pay embarrassingly little attention to works in other languages, and that's even more true when it comes to literature by women, so I will jump at any chance to promote my faves 🥰 Here are some recs from 9 different languages! Also, I wrote this on my phone, so apologies for any typos or errors!

1. Trieste by Daša Drndić, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursać (Croatian): An all-time favorite. Much of Drndić's work interrogates the legacy of atrocities in Europe, particularly eastern Europe. Trieste is a haunting contemplative novel centered on an elderly Italian Jewish woman whose family converted to Catholicism during the Mussolini era and were complicit in the fascist violence surrounding them in order to protect themselves.

2. Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, trans. Anton Hur (Korean): A collection of short stories that are difficult to classify by genre–speculative fiction in the broadest sense. The first story is about a monster in a woman's toilet, which sounds impossible to pull off in a serious, thought-provoking manner, but Chung does so easily—these are the kind of stories that are hard to explain the brilliance of secondhand.

3. Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy, trans. Tim Parks (Italian; Jaeggy is Swiss): Another all time favorite! The cold, sterile homoerotic girls' boarding school novella of your dreams.

4. Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories by Taeko Kono, trans. Lucy North (Japanese): I think I read this in one sitting. Incredibly unsettling—these stories will stay with you. They often focus on the unspoken psychosexual fantasies underscoring mundane daily life.

5. The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector, trans. Katrina Dodson (Brazilian Portuguese): I think Lispector is the best known writer here, so she might not need much of an introduction. But what a legend! And this collection is so diverse—it's fascinating to see the evolution of Lispector's work.

6. Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga, trans. Melanie L. Mauthner (French; Mukasonga is Rwandan): Give her the Nobel! Mukasonga's books, at least the ones available in English, are generally quite short but so impactful. Our Lady of the Nile is a collection of interrelated short stories set at a Catholic girls' boarding school in Rwanda in the years before the Rwandan genocide. These stories are fascinating on many levels, but perhaps the most haunting element is seeing how ethnic hatred intensifies over time—none of these girls would consider themselves particularly hateful or prejudiced, but they easily justify atrocities in the end.

7. Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962-1972 by Alejandra Pizarnik, trans. Yvette Siegert (Spanish; Pizarnik was Argentinian): Does anyone remember when my url was @/pizarnikpdf... probably not but worth mentioning to emphasize how much I love her <3 Reading Pizarnik is so revelatory for me; she articulates things I didn't even realize I felt until I read her words.

8. Flight and Metamorphosis: Poems by Nelly Sachs, trans. Joshua Weiner (German): Sachs actually won the Nobel in the 1960s, so it's surprising that she's not better known in the Anglosphere. Her poems are cryptic and surreal, yet deeply evocative. Worth mentioning that this volume is bilingual, so you can read the original German too if you're interested.

9. Frontier by Can Xue, trans. Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping (Chinese): Can Xue is another difficult-to-classify writer in terms of genre. Her short stories are often very abstract and can be puzzling at first. I think Frontier is a great place to start with her because these stories are interconnected, which makes them a bit more accessible.

[queer-scots-geordie-dyke]

“In 1941, after a dramatic turn of events, both outside and inside the country, Croatia proclaimed independence, becoming a puppet state of the German Third Reich. The Independent State of Croatia (NDH – Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska) was born. Almost immediately, racial laws were introduced. Fritz (my grandfather) had just come back from his travels abroad when the new law forced him to return to the town of his birth in order to register as a Jew and get a yellow star on his sleeve. His sisters who stayed in Bosnia were in hiding. Both of them had married Serbs because, even with Serbs being hated and persecuted, it was still better to be a Serb than a Jew.

“It’s still better to be a Serb than a Jew” – I would hear that same exact sentence from a Hungarian consul in London in 1993, while we were applying for a visa. The consul meant it as a joke. But my husband and I, people with no country or passport at the time, did not laugh. We could not understand how this man had managed to identify us as a Serb and a Jew respectively, although we ourselves had never mentioned those facts and our travel documents did not hold that information. Are all racists of this world connected in some unknown, mysterious way? Do they know facts about us that even we don’t know?

Fritz was torn. He had an invitation to emigrate to Israel. My mother would mourn his refusal to take that offer throughout her whole life. Why didn’t he leave? He was a fairly well-known figure in Zagreb. One of his best friends was Bozidar Adzija, a respected leftist writer and politician. A street in Zagreb bore his name until the right wing Tudjman government changed it in the nineties.

This group of young people was infected by progressive ideas about a world without nationalism and religious sectarianism. Fleeing to Israel must have seemed like giving up on those ideas. It meant seeking refuge with your own tribe and thus denouncing the idea of being a citizen of the world. At least I presume that was one of the reasons to stay. There was also the well known human habit of refusing to believe the worst could ever happen. Also, finding solace in the word of the law, even if that law seems wrong (If I obey the law, they would not hurt me, would they? The answer is: yes, they would.)

Fritz obediently returned to his town of Bijeljina and registered as a Jew. He went searching for his sisters who chased him away: he was a danger to them. They were hiding in a Serbian Orthodox church where the authorities didn’t dare to touch them. They both took their husbands’ Serbian names. They didn’t want to risk capture because of their brother. Later on, in discussions with my Jewish family in Belgrade, I would always detect an animosity towards Fritz: how dared he endanger the family? Fritz was on his own, without protection from anyone. He was immediately captured by the Bosnian pro-Nazi Muslim police and transferred to the Croatian Ustashas. And that’s how he found himself in Jasenovac concentration camp.

That beautiful, soft, elegant, educated man was now digging mud from the smelly ditch surrounding the camp, at the mercy of enthusiastic killers. It wouldn’t last long. How old was he when he died? I could never find out. He had disappeared without a trace. Branka spent the war in Zagreb, under the strict antisemitic laws, studying French and Yugoslav literature at the university. She would hide from all the horror behind books. They were saving her life. On the practical front, she started using her biological mother’s name, Savić, because – as I said before – in that time and that place it was still better to be a Serb than a Jew. But what really protected her during the Nazi years in Croatia was her adoptive mother, Ljuba.”

- Mira Furlan, Love Me More Than Anything In the World

[dr-george-ordell]

I want to write something exploring the effects of slavery on Jaša and his friend Viško to explore their psychology. Like there's gotta be a little damage left on the psyche at having to sleep on empty sacks in a barn, let alone the entire process of slavery. Even if it was the 1470s. ☠️

[0luna123]

Ya know what? HECK YOU!!!

-presses play, we're watching Čudnovate Zgode Šegrta Hlapića, an animated movie made in 1997, based on a 1913 novel of the same name by Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić, a Croatian writer who was recognized as Croatia and the world's most significant children's book writer-

[frameacloud]

September 2024

[Originally posted to Orion Scribner's Patreon blog on September 16, 2024.]

I've been thinking for a long time that I need to get back into posting regular updates to my Patreon about what I'm doing instead of assuming you all are following me on other sites where those things are happening. Here are some of those things, which are mostly writings from my original research about otherkin, therianthropes, and other alterhumans.

I have a store on itch.io now! My creations that I've put on it, available to read for free:

A Simple Introduction to Otherkin and Therianthropes, version 2.4.8. My two page long essay explains what we are, in a way that the average person can understand. Written in the limited vocabulary of Simple English, it doesn't use any special words. If you read this essay many years ago and found it sounded rather stilted, don't worry, I completely rewrote this version! It also cites primary sources for each idea. I'm working with volunteers to translate it into many languages. Thanks to them, it's in German, Dutch, Estonian, and Polish. Chinese, Croatian, and Spanish are in progress. On the page, I give links to the ko-fi accounts of the translators so you can tip them, if they chose to allow that.

The Otherkin Timeline. This is my community history book that helped make it possible for other researchers to write about us, so most academic papers on otherkin cite it. Version 2.1 is mostly the version that has been in circulation for more than a decade, plus a few small additions and corrections. The next update of the book will change and expand it considerably, because it will be a collaboration between my fellow community historian and partner system, the House of Chimeras.

I also curated and reviewed collections of other people's creations about alterhumans. Find out where you can play tabletop role-playing games where each of you are members of a plural system on a magical adventure; read 1990s-style punk zines about therianthropy; take your time with literature anthologies of otherkin; or play video games with animal protagonists.

Presentations that I've given in this past year:

While I was staff at this summer's OtherCon 2024, I presented the panel Phantom Limbs and Phantom Sensations, Human and Otherwise. (To watch the video, you need to be signed into Youtube so that you can say you're at least 18. It's an 18+ topic because of some health issues it talks about.) The first half of this is a review of the medical literature on phantom limb phenomena, plus some etiquette tips about how to be respectful of people who have limb differences. The second half summarizes my original research project, the results of my survey, with tons of help from my partner and statistical expert, Page Shepard. This inquired about people who feel sensations of nonhuman body parts, for example, of wings or tails. It was open to people whether or not they call themselves otherkin, therians, or some other sort of alterhuman. It received more than a thousand usable responses, making it the largest recorded survey focused on otherkin or therians. My presentation ended up being overambitious for the time slot, so sometime I want to re-record it with better pacing.

In March, I was staff at the first Centaurus Festival. Together with my partner systems Chimeras and Page, we did a presentation there: How to Run Surveys of the Alterhuman Communities.

Articles I've written for the Otherkin News blog:

I've been covering "anti-furry" bills in the US. These are laws that Republicans have been proposing against students who behave or identify as non-humans. The bills aren't based on based on anything that students are doing in real life. They're based on an urban legend that Republicans made up to satirize transgender students asking for gender-appropriate restrooms by claiming that children who identify as cats ask for litter boxes in classrooms.

Meanwhile, children in real life have been getting into a fad popularized on TikTok in which they exercise on all fours (quadrobics) and craft animal masks. Some of these self-described therians are familiar with therianthropy as a serious integral part of one's identity, whereas others of them only know it as a hobby. I collected a bunch of recent news articles about that from Finland: Therian quadrobics popular for children in Finland; two schools ban animal masks.

[wumingfoundation]

«Fiume o morte!» In Igor Bezinović’s extraordinary film, the decolonizing tale of an invaded city

Fiume o morte! [Rijeka or Death!] by Igor Bezinović, fresh winner of the Rotterdam Film Festival, is an extra-ordinary work in every respect. The film reconstructs the so-called «Impresa di Fiume» [Rijeka Enterprise] of 1919-1920, at long last from a non-Italocentric perspective, surprisingly enacting the talking back of anticolonial and decolonial literature: the reversal of the point of view, the counter-narrative. Here such a narrative is entrusted to the memories –family, archival, urban, architectural memories– of the city itself, the Fiume/Rijeka that was then invaded. Gabriele D’Annunzio and his legionnaires acted in advance of Italian imperialism in the Balkans, they were its spearheads. The blitz was intended to make up for the so-called “mutilated victory” in the First World War. “Mutilated,” because at the Paris negotiations the Kingdom of Italy had failed to get all the former Austro-Hungarian lands it was aiming for. Missing from the list were Fiume and Quarnaro (or Carnaro, as it used to be called), as well as the much-coveted Dalmatia. Since the 1990s it has been in vogue to reevaluate the occupation of Fiume “from the left” or in a “libertarian” sense. In the timely review we publish today, the Nicoletta Bourbaki collective remarks on the unfoundedness and narrow italocentrism of such interpretations. Ignorance of non-Italian sources is one with indifference to the Croatian-, Hungarian-, German-, and even Italian-speaking inhabitants of Fiume/Rijeka who were opposed to annexation. They really do not come to mind, they are subjectivities excluded a priori, tacitly declared non-existent. What they experienced and suffered does not matter. What remains out of the picture is the imperialist and especially racist aspect of that invasion. 

[legallybrunettedotcom]

could u drop the names of the vampire folklore books you’re reading pls? They sound interesting!

they're all in croatian 😭 you won't be able to find them anywhere, but one that is in english, that i read last year was vampire burial and death: folklore and reality by paul barber that is not long and might be a good start. also a mutual and i compiled this reading list that is mostly buffy the vampire slayer recs, but at the bottom there is general vampire lore literature that might interest you.

[zozobruh]

Get to know your mutuals!!!

Thank you for the tag @b1uetrees 💚

What's the origin of your blog title? Once in university I misspelled my own surname and submitted that essay with the part of my surname containing Zozo instead of Kozo. It kind of became a joke and a nickname my bf uses for me. I'm a Spanish language and literature student and I like the word zozobra, but to be less obvious I added bruh so it's zozobruh lol

OTP(s) Shipname: kinnporsche 4ever, JWDS from Beyond Evil, Victuuri, lately I'm on Gelphie train, many more 😂

Favourite colour: green (emerald and sage greens especially)

Favourite game: Animal Crossing :D

Song stuck in your head: Basic being basic, I'm excited for the Djo new music!

Weirdest habit/trait? If I have a receipt or a piece of paper in my pocket, I will shred it with my thumb and index finger. Idk if that's weird, but I can't think of anything weirder rn

Hobbies: writing, playing cozy games, journaling, watching TV shows and anime, reading, learning languages (currently I'm looking to get into Thai!)

If you work, what's your profession? I used to work as an IT support specialist, but I realized it wasn't for me and the three shifts (morning, afternoon and night) were killing my health so I quit. This gives me time to finally complete my master's studies, I hope I will be done soon!!!

If you could have any job you wish, what would it be? During university my favorite classes were data science classes so I for sure want to work with data, I would love a data analyst job.

Something you're good at: learning languages

Something you're bad at: singing :D

Something you love: sitting in my armchair with a cup of tea and a book on a rainy day

Something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: whatever piece of media I'm into and linguistics

Something you hate: rude and inconsiderate people

Something you collect: stickers and washii tape

Something you forget: to take my pills (I swear I'm taking one after this)

What's your love language? I give physical touch (and quality time), I like to receive quality time!

Favourite movie/show: everything everywhere all at once

Favourite food: potato salad my beloved

Favourite animal: TOO HARD. I love cats, frogs, ducks, turtles, dolphins, bears, dogs, lizards and wombats (AND MANY MORE)

What were you like as a child? Bubbly social butterfly

Favourite subject at school? English, Spanish and Croatian

Least favourite subject: Chemistry

What's your best character trait? I'd say that I'm easy to talk to

What's your worst character trait? I can get nervous easily

If you could change any detail of your life right now, what would it be? I just want my degree already so that I can hunt for jobs more easily!!!

If you could travel in time, who would you like to meet? Marija Jurić Zagorka (Croatian writer, queen, girlboss!)

No pressure tags: @dummerjan @vanillalipstick66 @longswordlesbians and any mutuals who feel like it :D