László Krasznahorkai's War and war as an apocalyptic metahistorical novel

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-65
Keyword(s):  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
The Past

Abstract This paper looks at a novel by László Krasznahorkai in the context of the narrative turn in history, which also stimulated a revaluation of the fictional historical narrative. War and War was one of a series of Hungarian historical novels, or mixed novel formations with a historical theme, published at the turn of the millennium, whose primary aim was not to recount a self-assured historical tale but rather to highlight, via the story, the models/schemas/shifts/blank spaces in our present-day comprehension of the past. This paper interprets the novel with reference to historic-philosophical conceptions (Löwith, Koselleck), tracks its references to the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and argues that it transforms the teleological idea of the historical process into an apocalyptic model of history.

scholarly journals A new myth regarding the Great Trek: Reinvention of identity in Die pad na skuilhoek [The path toSkuilhoek] by Hans du Plessis.

Literator ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlies Taljard
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Myth ◽  
The Way

This article aims to illustrate how Hans du Plessis, in his novel Die pad na Skuilhoek [The path to Skuilhoek] (a place of shelter), subverts the way in which history had been presented in historical novels in the past by addressing social issues that contemporary readers find relevant. The first part of the article deals with the social codes that shape the identities of the main characters and how these identities are relevant in terms of the social framework within which the novel is received. In the second place the focus will shift towards Du Plessis’s representation of cultural and national identities. The question: ‘Who were the Afrikaners at the time of the Great Trek?’ will be answered with reference to these identities. In conclusion it will be pointed out how Du Plessis avoids dated practices of historical interpretation by choosing ecocrticism as the ideological framework for his novel and is, in this way, constructing a new social myth about the Great Trek.

Reading the Historical Novel: Reworking the Past and the Relation of Blackfeet History in James Welch's Fools Crow

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-100
Author(s):  
SARAH MARTIN
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Historical Novel ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
The Novel ◽  
James Welch ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Impact

The article considers the political impact of the historical novel by examining an example of the genre by Native American novelist James Welch. It discusses how the novel Fools Crow represents nineteenth-century Blackfeet experience, emphasizing how (retelling) the past can act in the present. To do this it engages with psychoanalytic readings of historical novels and the work of Foucault and Benjamin on memory and history. The article concludes by using Bhabha's notion of the “projective past” to understand the political strength of the novel's retelling of the story of a massacre of Native Americans.

scholarly journals A JOURNEY TO (OWN) MEMORY: LVIV BETWEEN AND DURING WORLD WAR II IN CONTEMPORARY TEXT (BASED ON NOVELS "THE MUSEUM OF ABANDONED SECRETS" BY OKSANA ZABUZHKO AND "TANGO OF DEATH" BY YURII VYNNYCHUK)

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 278-355
Author(s):  
Khrystyna RUTAR
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
The Novel ◽  
World War ◽  
Access Memory ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ukrainian Text

In the article basing on theoretical framework of memory studies, two historical novels written by modern Ukrainian authors have been analyzed. The main references to the interwar Lviv and Lviv during the war in works are singled out and the importance of inclusion and comprehension of places of those two periods in modern Ukrainian text is indicated. The main strategies of returning to memory of interwar Lviv and its inhabitants are analyzed. The traumatized memory and ways of talking about the 20th century cultural traumas were analyzed in the 21st century novel, those traumas, which for more than a half of century were surrounded by curtain of fear, censorship and inability to speak openly about it. Attention is drawn to the names of streets are obtaining features of memory prosthesis and becomes an access memory tool. The author concludes that the novel, which had the opportunity to take a fresh look at the traumatic pages of the past, remains in the shadow of stereotypes and silence. The abilities of literature in memory studies is analyzed and are noted that literature can be both as a tool of memory and as an object of memory studies. Keywords memory, Lviv, Oksana Zabuzhko, Yurii Vynnychuk, Museum of abandoned secrets, Tango of Death, trauma, war, interwar period.

scholarly journals THE IDENTITY CRISIS IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION IN THE NOVEL BY OLGA TOKARCZUK “FLIGHTS”

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Identity Crisis ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
Perpetual Motion ◽  
National Memory ◽  
Philosophical Aspect ◽  
Nobel Prize Laureate ◽  
Original Type

This article considers the issue of the identity crisis in the context of globalization, represented in the novel Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, a Nobel Prize laureate and one of the best-selling Polish writers of our time. The artistic world of the novel reveals key features of globalization such as increasing global mobility, intensifying migrations, the dissipation of national borders, and the deactualization of national memory. O. Tokarczuk portrays an original type of a character acting in such conditions – a modern nomad that can be an emigrant, a refugee, a traveler, or a homeless person. This paper focuses on the correlation between memory collapse and identity crisis depicted in several stories from the novel. It mainly considers the philosophical aspect of the issue, namely, people’s fear of death and desire for immortality expressed through their propensity for perpetual motion and rejection of individual and national memory. The topic of plastination (a method of body preservation), deeply elaborated throughout the novel, is examined in the context of interdependency between human’s body and identity. Specific attention is dedicated to fragmentariness as essential characteristic of both formal side of the novel (composition, narrative) and its thematic range. Fragmentariness is also intrinsic to the artistic manifestation of memory, presented in the form of a heterogeneous archive. Providing an alternative, polyphonic narrative, O. Tokarczuk opposes it to any kind of a coherent, monolithic historical narrative. Written in 2007, this novel is particularly interesting to analyze nowadays, when impugning the globalization values is becoming a common tendency. In the new context, Flights can be construed as a warning about creating a world devoid of memorial meaning. This article highlights a well-pronounced appeal to recollection and verbalization of the past. In the “narrating” of life, O. Tokarczuk sees the way to salvation and liberation, thus affirming the crucial role of memory in dealing with the identity crisis faced by contemporary societies.

scholarly journals إسهامات الروائي الباكستاني نسيم حجازي في إسلامية الأدب: رواية "التراب والدم" نموذجاً (Pakistani Novelist Naseem Hijazi's Contributions in Islamic Literature: Novel "The Dust and Blood" as a Case Study)

1970 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
محمد علي غوري (Mohamed Ali Ghuri)
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Urdu Literature ◽  
The Great Migration ◽  
The Third World ◽  
Islamic Literature

ملخص البحث:كان الاتجاه الإسلامي في الأدب ثالث أهم الاتجاهات التي تجاذبت الأدب، وخاصة في مجال القصة والرواية. و كان جل كتاب القصة الأوائل ذوي نكهة إسلامية إصلاحية، ومن هؤلاء نذير أحمد وسرشار وعبد الحليم شرر الذي كان له تأثير كبير في أهم الروائيين الإسلاميين في باكستان، وهو نسيم حجازي الذي تميز كأستاذه بالروايات التاريخية. وهذا النوع من الروايات هو الذي ميز الروائيين الإسلاميين أكثر من أي نوع آخر من الروايات، ومع ذلك كتب نسيم حجازي روايات واقعية ذات مستوى عالمي، وِمن أهم هذه الروايات الواقعية روايته "خاك أور خون" ومعناها: التراب والدم. وهذه الرواية كغيرها من الروايات الباكستانية التي كتبت بعد قيام باكستان عام 1947م تناولت موضوع الهجرة الكبرى والمشاكل التي نجمت عنها، فكانت محاولة نسيم حجازي والآخرين لتذكير المسلمين بما فعله الهندوس والسيخ في رجالهم ونسائهم وأطفالهم وشيوخهم، لذا فإن هذه الرواية ممنوعة من التداول في الهند التي لا تفتؤ تحاول القضاء على كل ما له علاقة بالإسلام، وما جريمة هدم المسجد البابري عنا ببعيد! ويقال عن رواية التراب والدم إنها سيرة كاتبها الذاتية، حيث أودعها أفكاره وآراءه ومواقفه من القضايا المختلفة، وقد انطلق في كل ذلك من منطلق إسلامي واضح، فأحيا بها –أي بهذا الرواية- كثيراً من المعاني الإسلامية التي كادت تغيب عن الساحة الأدبية اليوم، فهي بحق رواية إسلامية عالمية تستحق الدراسة والتحليل.الكلمات المفتاحية: الأدب الإسلامي-الأدب الأردي-رواية "خاك أور خون-المحتوى-روائع الأدب الإسلامي. Abstract:The trend of Islamic literature in the third world is the most important trends studied literature, in the area of the story and the novel. Most of novelists in the past were those with an Islamic flavor reform, as Nazir Ahmad, Sarchar, and Abdul Halim Sharar, whom had a significant impact on the most important novelists of the Islamists in Pakistan Nasiim Hijazi, who characterized as his teacher about historical novels. This kind of novels is distinguished novelists Islamists more than any other type of novels. However, Nasiim Hijazi wrote realistic novels in international level, the most important of which is “Khac or Khun” (the dust and blood). This novel, like other novels of Pakistan, was written after the establishment of Pakistan in 1947 and deals with The Great Migration and the problems that caused it. It was an attempt from Nasiim Hijazi and others to remind Muslims what the Hindus and Sikhs did with the Muslims. This novel was banned from trading in India that was trying to eliminate everything has relation Islamic. The crime of destroying the Babri mosque is not far away from the event.  It is said that the novel is as  a biography of  the author, where he includes  his ideas, his views and viewpoints from various issues, where his assumption was from an Islamic perspective, to  revive - through this novel - a lot of Islamic meanings which  are almost absent from the literary study nowadays . It is truly a global Islamic novel.ListenRead phonetically.Keywords: Islamic Literature- Urdu Literature- Novel "Khak Oor Khoon"- Contents- The Beauty of Islamic Literature. Abstrak: Pendekatan islam merupakan pendekatan ketiga yang penting yang paling mendapat perhatian dalam bidang sastera terutamanya dalam bidang penulisan cerita dan novel. Kebanyakan novel-novel yang terawal telah mendapat nafas baru menerusi pendekatan islam seperti yang yang telah dihasilkan oleh Nazir Ahmad Srchar, Abdul Halim Sharar yang telah memberi kesan yang mendalam kepada penulis-penulis yang beragama islam di Pakistan terutamanya Nasim Hijazi yang terkenal dengan penghasilan novel-novel sejarah. Genre novel berunsurkan sejarah islam Hal ini telah menaikkan nama penulis-penulis islam berbanding genre yang lain. Oleh itu, kebanyakan karya yang dihasilkan oleh Nasim Hijazi merupakan karya yang realistik bertaraf dunia terutamanya novel “Khac Orr Khan” yang bermaksud “Tanah dan Darah”. Novel ini sama seperti novel-novel lain di Pakistan yang menceritakan tentang kisah penghijrahan secara besar-besaran dan faktor-faktornya selepas penubuhan Pakistan pada tahun 1947. Penghasilan novel bergenre sejarah ini adalah satu usaha dari Nasim Hijazi dan seangkatan dengan beliau untuk mengingatkan orang islam tentang apa yang telah dilakukan oleh orang Hindu dan Sikh kepada rakyat Pakistan. Oleh yang demikian, novel ini telah diharamkan oleh kerjaan India daripada diterbitkan malah cuba menghapuskan apa-apa yang berkaitan dengan islam termasuklah merobohkan Masjid Babri. Justeru, novel “Tanan dan Darah” merupakan pengalaman penulis sendiri yang mana beliau telah melontarkan buah fikiran, pendapat dan pendirian beliau terhadap isu-isu yang berbeza dari sudut persepektif islam yang sebenar. Novel ini banyak mengetengahkan nilai-nilai islam yang sudah hampir dilupakan dalam bidang kesusateraan hari ini dan novel islam global ini layak dikaji dan dianalisa.Kata kunci: Sastera Islam – Sastera Urdu – Karya “Khak Oor Khoon” – Isi kandungan – Keindahan Sastera Islam.  

scholarly journals Literature and History: Study of Nigerian Indigenous Historical Novels

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lere Adeyemi
Keyword(s):  
Party Politics ◽  
New Historicism ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Reality ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Relationship

The assumption that history posits itself as a fact, while literature is to be taken as an artistic form, only for entertainment (i.e., the difference between truth and falsehood, reality and illusion) has long been debated by formalists and soclologlsts of literature. In Yoruba society, literature and history are im­portant in explaining the fullness of life and the world around us. It is against this background that this paper examines the relationship between literature and history and how Yoruba novelists use their works as vehicles for the repre­sentation of history. We adopt the theory of New Historicism to analyze T.A.A. Ladele's lgbi Aye n yi and Olu Owolabi's Ote Nibo. Some of the findings reveal that: both Yoruba literature and history are closely related, they are both based on Yoruba experience and Yoruba existence either in the past or present; while Ladele Interprets the history of the dignity and royal glamour of the Yoruba oba in the precolonial era as a form of domination which is often achieved through culturally-orchestrated consent rather than force; Owolabi represents the hlstory of party politics in Yoruba society as fraudulent, deceltful, full of bitterness and violence. The paper concludes that both novelists are subjective in their representation of Yoruba history, but they successfully establfsh the fact that the novel is a repository of history; however, such history is not a mere chronlcle of facts and events, but rather a complex description of human reality and a challenge to the preconceived notions of the societies from which they emerged.

scholarly journals Сreating the Narrative on the Cossacks’ History of the Civil War Era in the South of Russia in the System of the Soviet Ideology of the 1920s – 1930s

2019 ◽  
pp. 135-147
Author(s):  
Vasilina Klopikhina
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of

Introduction. The article is devoted to the problem of forming the narrative on the history of the Don, Kuban and Terek Cossacks during the Civil war in the system of Istparts (Commissions on the history of the October revolution and the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)) of the North Caucasus. The experts had not only the task to write a “different” history of modern times, but also to form a historical narrative, which was to reflect the interpretation of events permitted by the authorities as the basis for a new model of historical memory. Creating the narrative in the operation system of Istparts determined the principles of selecting material and formulating key research issues. Methods and materials. The study is based on the methodology of “new local history”. The author analyzes local historical narratives as images of the past created by Istparts of the North Caucasus with the help of discursive analysis. Analysis. The paper analyzes the interpretation of the Cossacks’ history in the period of the socio-political crisis. It was found that in the 1920s the attention of researchers was focused on the search for class differentiation and struggle in the Cossacks’ history. As a result, local historical narratives present an original interpretation of the Cossack stratification, which demonstrates the authors’ desire to present the history of the Cossacks in accordance with the methodological instructions of the Commission on the history of the October Revolution and the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). At the same time, they reflect judgments that are not limited to the ideological paradigm. This is due to the fact that in local historical narratives it was not always possible to combine the peculiarities of the historical process in the region with the proposed scheme and settings of the center. In the 1930s, there was a change in substantial aspects of constructing a new model of historical memory and historical narrative as its basis associated with the assertion of Stalin’s sole power. Published works were publicly criticized and banned. The authors of such works were repressed in the era of the Great terror. At this time there appeared new ideological interpretations of the Cossacks’ history. Since 1936, the political campaign “for the Soviet Cossacks” had been reflecting in creating the narrative in the system of Istparts. Results. Scientific analysis of sources and coverage of complexity and ambiguity of the historical process in the region were replaced by simple but “correct” ideological statements. With the help of interpreting the past focusing research attention on class stratification and explanation of the Cossacks’ place in the history of the Civil war a new image of the Cossacks was formed in public consciousness.

Hydraulic Laboratory at University of Liège

2018 ◽  
pp. 80-89
Author(s):  
Willi H. Hager
Keyword(s):  
Basic Research ◽  
The Novel ◽  
University Campus ◽  
Current Position ◽  
Professional Background ◽  
The Past ◽  
Comprehensive Picture

The Hydraulic Laboratory of Liège University, Belgium, is historically considered from its foundation in 1937 to the mid-1960s. The technical facilities of the various Buildings are highlighted, along with canals and instrumentation available. It is noted that in its initial era, comparatively few basic research has been conducted, mainly due to the professional background of the professors leading the establishment. This state was improved in the past 50 years, however, particularly since the Laboratory was dislocated to its current position in the novel University Campus. Biographies of the leading persons associated with the Liège Hydraulic Laboratory are also presented, so that a comprehensive picture is given of one of the currently leading hydraulic Laboratories of Europe.

The Pornographer and McGahern's Allusive Practice

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-297
Author(s):  
Tom Walker
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Present Value ◽  
The Past

Allusions to other texts abound in John McGahern's fiction. His works repeatedly, though diffidently, refer to literary tradition. Yet the nature of such allusiveness is still unclear. This article focuses on how allusion in The Pornographer (1979) is depicted as an intellectual and social practice, embodying particular attitudes towards the function of texts and the knowledge they represent. Moreover, the critique of the practice of allusion that the novel undertakes is shown to have broader significance in terms of McGahern's whole oeuvre and its evolving attempts to salvage something of present value from the literature of the past.

Imagining Mary Magdalene

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Jodie Eichler-Levine
Keyword(s):  
Comic Books ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
Religion And Spirituality ◽  
Mary Magdalene ◽  
The Past ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Do So

In this article I analyze how Americans draw upon the authority of both ancient, so-called “hidden” texts and the authority of scholarly discourse, even overtly fictional scholarly discourse, in their imaginings of the “re-discovered” figure of Mary Magdalene. Reading recent treatments of Mary Magdalene provides me with an entrance onto three topics: how Americans see and use the past, how Americans understand knowledge itself, and how Americans construct “religion” and “spirituality.” I do so through close studies of contemporary websites of communities that focus on Mary Magdalene, as well as examinations of relevant books, historical novels, reader reviews, and comic books. Focusing on Mary Magdalene alongside tropes of wisdom also uncovers the gendered dynamics at play in constructions of antiquity, knowledge, and religious accessibility.

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