Naslov
The Continuity and Discontinuity of the Elites in Croatian Transition from Communism to Post-Communism: the Case of Literature

Autori
Šesnić, Jelena

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, neobjavljeni rad, znanstveni

Skup
Interdisciplinary workshop organized by the Institute of Art History of the CAS, v.v.i. and Department of Sociology of the FA of Charles University in Prague within the programme Strategy AV 21. 20 November 2015, Prag. Elites in the 20th Century: Continuity or Discontinuity

Mjesto i datum
Prag, Češka Republika, 20.11.2015

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Ratko Cvetnić, Pavao Pavlićić, communism, post-communism, transition, literature

Sažetak
As the popular story goes, the demise of communism toppled the old and inaugurated the new social elites. Still, the variants of the story change from one to another country of the Eastern bloc, including the case of Croatia. In Croatia, the story of swift and successful transition from one system to the other was foiled by several developments: the shift from socialist to capitalist economy ; the fall of multi-national Yugoslavia and the institution of the separate national republics (so-called Yu-successor states) ; the war of succession ; the end of communism and the institution of a democratic order. Any one development taken in isolation would be a challenge for a literary-cultural historian, let alone all these intertwined interests. However, a more detailed examination of literary texts that deal with the period of the late 1980s and the 1990s, the period that displayed all the foregoing tendencies, shows that the transition was under way but that it was not a simple, unidirectional process, nor that its participants and agents acted in a unanimous way. It therefore proceeds that the elites that were expected to facilitate and carry out transition exhibit both an attachment for the previous era (continutity) and a distance towards some of its less palatable aspects (dicontinuity). This ambivalence furthermore complicates more simplistic narratives of a radical break that came about with the end of communism, the collapse of socialism and, in Croatian case, the break-up of Yugoslavia. This complexity is then best illustrated in exemplary literary texts, such as Ratko Cvetnić's and Pavao Pavličić's novels dealing with the period of transition.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija

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