#Croatian Literature

[daweyt]

“Listen: I always return to myself.”

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

[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-

[morebedsidebooks]

Sons, Daughters by Ivana Bodrožić

“We radiated potential that was thwarted from the get-go. Misfits. We betrayed decorum, and decorum is to most of our lives what water is to an organism. Our desires spilled over the limits of the permissible. Our bodies betrayed us and the leaking commenced in all directions. People edged away. We were unbearable.”

Sons, Daughters by Ivana Bodrožić is a trenchant novel of life on the margins.

After a car crash, Lucija awakens to a hospital room in a state of locked-in syndrome. Her trans boyfriend barred from visiting by the seemingly doting mother at bedside. In poetic shifting narration each cast their minds back to the circumstances that have led here. Stretching from war to conflict over Croatia’s adoption of the Istanbul Convention through the different violence, limits, restrictions, and private pain.

Like the lives it portrays, this is a difficult, claustrophobic, but meaningful novel. Recognised by literary award and written “as an apology to all those who are forced to live, invisible, in this society and world, convinced since childhood that they do not deserve love, dignity, and above all, freedom.”

Sons, Daughters by Ivana Bodrožić is available in English translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać, in print and digital from Seven Stories Press

[emcyan]

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

[theforeverlearner]

Thursday, September 19

I started my bachelor's degree in Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrian/Serbian (BCMS) this week.

To be exact, it's called in French a Licence LLCER (Langues, Littératures et Civilisations Étrangères et Régionales) BCMS (Bosniaque Croate Monténégrin Serbe).

This program is taking place online which is a great for people working full-time like me.

I browsed the different courses that I'll be taking this semester: linguistics and grammar, grammatical exercises, translation, written and oral expression, literature, history...

Today, I mostly worked on reviewing A2 vocabulary/grammar. I am joining the B1 level but first I want to make sure that I am starting with a solid (grammatical) foundation.

[vinnyberries]

Mećava - Pero Budak

[theoffingmag]

I realized that becoming an adult is primarily a question of class. The only ones who grow up are those who have to. My friends are a bunch of mischievous girls and boys, in revolt, residing in Neverland with other lost children whose parents, despite initial objections, still pay their monthly rent. I stopped being resentful. My independence has its price and its compromises, but it’s mine. There is no family wealth to perpetuate, no inheritance I can be blackmailed with.

Dino Pešut, “Daddy’s Boy,” translated from Croatian by Vladislav Beronja

[murakamijeva-muza]

currently reading 🐖🩸🩸🩸🥺

[propalitet]

Korka has beef with a different historical figure each day istg

[ceruleanharley]

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

[roughghosts]

An explosion of strong female voices. Balkan Bombshells: Contemporary Women’s Writing from Serbia and Montenegro compiled and translated by Will Firth

An explosion of strong female voices. Balkan Bombshells: Contemporary Women’s Writing from Serbia and Montenegro compiled and translated by Will Firth @Istros_books

First we meet Marijana, the daughter of a farmer who imagines a fantasy encounter with “A Man Worth Waiting For,” someone to sweep her off her feet, knowing well that the first facsimile of a “hard-working young fellow with house, land and cattle”—be that a forester with a cabin in the woods—who asks for her father’s permission to marry her will be sufficient to send her packing. Dreams will be…

[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-geordie-nerd]

“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

[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.

[theforeverlearner]

About me

26 years old

Woman

French-Bosnian living in France

Graduated in 2022 with a Master's degree in International and European Law

Currently working full time

I started in September 2024 a second bachelor's degree in Slavistic (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrian, Serbian) – online program.

Languages I speak: French (C2), English (C2), German (C1), Bosnian/Serbo-Croatian (B2)

Languages I would like to learn one day: Spanish, Korean or Mandarin

Current language goals: pass the Goethe Zertifikat C1, pass the TOEIC exam and finish my bachelor in BCMS.

I enjoy reading!

I also practice yoga and I run quite often. I am currently training for a 21km run.

I'm an ENTP type.

Weirdly enough, I have a horrible memory! Makes my life a little bit harder than necessary.

[as8bakwthesage]

How Hacker Feels About the Mercs (and Vice Versa)

Scout

Hacker sees Scout as a lil brother kind of figure. They see him trying to flirt with Miss Pauling, and they think it's cute. However, they are also very quick to tease him about anything they know won't actually hurt him too badly. They want him to be happy, and they always go out of their way to help him out when he needs it (with much teasing of course.)

Scout sees Hacker as an older sibling. He's the kind of guy who will go "He uses they/them pronouns!" and completely miss what he is doing wrong. But he is supportive of Hacker's everything. He does ask semi privacy invadey questions sometimes, but never maliciously. (He also starts shipping Hacker with Medic as soon as he sees them interacting in a friendly way.)

Soldier

Hacker often teases Soldier by calling him a coloniser, but they know he doesn't really know what the settlers of the past did to their people, so they don't really mind Soldier's strange patriotism. However, if he ever goes on any weird tangents about nationalities, they will smack him. (Hacker also will protect Soldier from Merasmus, despite not needing their help.)

Soldier will call them a real American in a way that implies that he knows Hacker is Indigenous. Soldier is also aggressively and violently supportive, but in a way that is "he's a lil confused, but he's got the spirit." Soldier is also genuinely a good friend who will listen to Hacker's stories and vice versa.

Heavy

Hacker sees Heavy as a brother in arms. Since Russia and Yugoslavia are both slavic countries, Hacker thinks he's super cool. Hacker can even say phrases to him in Serbo-Croatian and Heavy will partially understand it (and vice versa.) The two can be seen having lengthy discussions about literature. They know Heavy wouldn't betray them or hurt them purposefully, and so they feel very safe around him as well.

Heavy sees Hacker as a little sibling who he must protect. As soon as he hears about Hacker's history, he goes full "brother bear" mode. He also doesn't like how their respective governments have treated them as children and wants better for Hacker. He likes to give Hacker advice whenever he can.

Demo

Fellow colonised fellow? Fellow colonised fellow. Hacker and Demo bond over their love of mythology and magic. The two can often be seen trading stories about their families and about their own people's struggles. Hacker especially feels comfortable around him because of the solid head on his shoulders (even while drunk.) They also think he's a real gentleman when he wants to be.

Demo thinks Hacker is a real one, and a great drinking buddy. He admires their honesty and loyalty. He's also a major fan of the fact that Hacker also has some magical capabilities. He's also one of the first people to properly introduce himself to them.

(Also, a Scot and an Indian drinking together? Chaos. /j)

Medic

Hacker takes one look at Medic and thinks he's adorable. Not scary or creepy. Just adorable and silly. But later on, they very much develop a crush on him. Hacker loves talking to him and listening to him ramble about his experiments. It helps that they aren't squeamish in the slighest. They also love his doves and will get cute aggression whenever they see the birbs. Hacker is also very protective over him, and will tase a bitch to death if he’s hurt. 

Medic sees Hacker as a possible liability at first, but after seeing what they can do in battle and on computers, he’s impressed. He finds them to be strange, but in an endearing way. He’s always happy to talk to them, and he also enjoys talking about art history with them. His own affections for them begin a few months into them knowing each other. He thinks they are definitely crazy, but also ridiculously smart.

Both also bond over the trauma their respective governments have committed against their people. (Medic being Jewish and Hacker being Indigenous.)

Engie

Hacker sees Engie as a fellow man of the machine, and because of that, they love talking to him about anything to do with tech. They are always happy to help him with any project he may need programming help for. They find his southern charm interesting, and generally think he’s kind of a dork. They like spying on him while he’s playing the guitar. 

Engie definitely has a more easy going attitude, and enjoys the vibe Hacker brings to the team. He’s deeply charmed by their energy and loves having conversations with them about technology. He’s a little bit jealous of how skilled they are with computers (Hacker is also jealous of how good he is with engineering), but it doesn’t get in the way of their friendship. The two learn a lot from each other as well, and Engie finds that to be an important aspect in any kind of team. Engie also finds that it is easier to talk techno babble with Hacker as they will instantly understand what he is saying.

Pyro

Hacker thinks Pyro is fun. Burning shit? Let’s go! Hacker can be one chaotic motherfucker and Pyro doesn’t help with that chaos, bringing his own brand of madness to Hacker’s own brand. Hacker can talk and talk around her, and all Pyro will do is listen. Hacker does like to keep Pyro out of their tech in fear of the firebug burning their shit. Hacker also gets very good at interpreting what Pyro is saying, much to the bemusement of everyone else.

Pyro thinks Hacker looks like a lot of happy rainbows. Hacker is fun, and Pyro likes that. He’s not afraid to be herself around them. Pyro enjoys listening to Hacker talk about their life, even if it is rather sad. However, she can tell Hacker is telling this to him in confidence, so she doesn’t tell anyone. Pyro always tries to cheer Hacker up when they are sad.

Spy

Hacker immediately clocks onto the fact that Spy is Scout’s dad after seeing the two interact, and is very quick to encourage Spy to tell Scout about it. Hacker takes every opportunity to also tease Spy for his country of origin also being a colonising one. They find his gadgets interesting and manage to work out some of the kinks in the code. Hacker does think Spy needs to confront his problems/past but won’t tell him that to his face. He’s not easy to talk to, so he isn’t their go-to person for a drink. However, they will share a smoke with him.

Spy finds Hacker to be immensely annoying, especially because he can’t really find anything on them. However, after a while, he does realise he can just ask them and they will tell him if they trust him. Spy does think Hacker should stay out of his business, but secretly knows that they have a point about Scout. He doesn’t really interact with them unless he thinks he should/they approach him. The tobacco Hacker grows is some good stuff though. 

Sniper

Hacker thinks Sniper’s piss jars are disgusting, but understands why he does it. It is an effective strategy, and they commend him for the commitment to the nastiness. One of the great joys of knowing Sniper, in Hacker’s opinion, is the fact that he is ridiculously fun to just hang around with. Sniper is quiet and calm, which contrasts nicely with Hacker’s off the walls energy at times. However, it’s when they feel depressed or in a low energy mood that they enjoy spending time with him the most. They will both get some coffee/tea and the two will just sit on top of Sniper’s van and watch the sun set.

When Hacker is in a hyper mood, Sniper prefers to stand aside. However, when Hacker has low energy, he’s very open to just sitting in silence with them. The two have talked about their professions and how they both make money, and Sniper finds their technological prowess to be interesting and impressive. He’s always one to learn about neat facts about his coworkers. However, Hacker becomes a fast friend when they start bringing him late breakfast when he doesn’t eat in the mornings.