Borders and Crossings

In this paper, I examine representations of Croatian identity in contemporary Croatian film through their links with the theme of travel. In particular, I look at practices of displacement as a specific element of travel writing, which “emerge as constitutive of cultural meanings rather than as their simple transfer of extension (Clifford 3; emphasis in the original). I argue that, following the emergence of physical borders after the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Croatianness may be defined through the encounters with different types of travelers within the “complex and pervasive spectrum of human experiences” (Clifford 3). Their presence highlights not only “the discovery of places but also … their creation” (Bishop 143), demonstrates that the imaginative geography of the country becomes “less a matter of physical geography than a qualitative assessment” (Bracewell and Drace-Francis 343), and turns its territory into a field for articulation of “different imaginative practices...

Invisible Cities, Calvino's novel, or rather antinovel, is about very many things. It is actually one of the few literary attempts that have managed to palpably approach the realization of Mallarmé's ideal Book, into which the entire world would collapse. Consequently, it has attracted all kinds of interpretation, including sociological, urbanist, even political. Such practices have contributed to bypassing what Invisible Cities is in the first place: a linguistic artifact. Once appreciated as such, the (anti)novel starts opening up as language on language, and as literature on literature, which, according to the author of the article, is the novel's prime concern. Its self-referentiality is presented so condensedly and thoroughly (despite the modest size of the book) that the initiated reader will have made his journey through the fifty-five cities, woven together (precisely as a textus!) by the narrator's voice and the conversations between a fictional Marco Polo and an equally such ...

This paper provides an examination of the effects of contact between Europe and Asia in the early modern period, especially with regard to the exchange of linguistic data and ideas. The contact induced by transcontinental travel - with various motives, including missionary work and increasing colonial expansion - added fuel to the intellectual study of language. Both Europe and Asia gained access to new languages and approaches to language, which enabled an exchange of linguistic data and methodologies, which can now be seen as one of the origins of the development of modern linguistics. In order to illustrate the main developments within modern linguistics, earlier systems are briefly addressed along with some of the roots of their transformation or displacement. Latin treatises, including De antiquitate et affinitate linguae Zendicae, Samscrdamicae et Germanicae dissertatio and De Latini sermonis origine et cum orientalibus linguis connexione dissertatio, serve as examples of the ear...

The White Guard, an epic narrative on the Russian Civil War, is also an urban novel based on the author’s personal experiences in Kiev during the tumultuous years of the Revolution and Civil War. Following the traditions established by F. Dostojevsky and I. Bunin, Bulgakov introduces the City, Kiev, not only as the setting of the novel, but as one of the main protagonists – one that changes, develops and takes part in the lives of the other protagonists. The city is thus transformed into a psychological dimension where the violence of war and the mental world of the characters are reflected onto the city itself. As intertextuality is one of the main characteristics of Bulgakov’s style, he employs numerous allusions to the Book of Revelation when describing the events in the novel and when constructing the image of the city. Following his typical ambivalence, Bulgakov depicts Kiev as a place of beauty, light, and happiness, similar to the New Jerusalem from the Revelation, and as a plac...

In the first half of the 20th century, the Sicilian Princess Topazia Alliata di Salaparuta kept a diary (1938–1941) of her voyage and stay in Japan with her husband, Fosco Maraini, and her three daughters. This journal intime was then passed on to her eldest daughter, Dacia Maraini, the renowned Italian writer, who created a multilayered narrative account entitled La Nave per Kobe: Diari giapponesi di mia madre (The Ship to Kobe: My Mother’s Japanese Diaries), which was published in 2001. The female-voiced factual text explores, through two sets of eyes and two people’s experiences, the transcontinental contacts from several perspectives. From the physical voyage on board of the Italian ocean liner Conte Verde to their very first days and daily life in Japan – first in Hokkaido and then in Kyoto, before the family’s deportation to a concentration camp in Nagoya – Maraini focuses on the subtle plots of interpersonal dynamics, enriching the account with her own childhood memories and her...

The aim of this paper is to present the term 'city' both as a constructive element and a key to interpreting the same-named novel. The paper is focused on the term’s etymology and contemporary definitions, and on the novel’s interpretations in the postmodern framework. In order to understand all the layers, the intertextual and intermedial theories are also important. Gould and his governess Shatzy Shell are the main characters of the novel. Gould is a teenager who has been recognized as a genius, which has brought him loneliness and desire to achieve success. That loneliness could be compared to some descriptions of postmodern cities, and on the other hand the cities could be compared to postmodern literature. The novel’s most important city is Closingtown – a city that does not appear on any map. It is a town in the West where the time has stopped. The town is compared to a fragmented postmodern literary work and this novel, as Baricco said, is a representation of what a city might b...