Narrating Identity Identity Construction and Fragmentation in German Sadulaev’s Ja – čečenec! and Šalinskij rejd

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Chechen wars were for German Sadulaev, a writer of Chechen origin, the starting point for a broad reflection on identity and nationality in the post-Soviet era. This paper aims to scrutinise how issues related to identity are addressed in two works by the author, the collection of short stories Ja – čečenec! [I Am a Chechen, 2006] and the novel Šalinskij rejd [The Raid on Shali, 2010]. Specific attention is paid to the role that narratives play in the considered works. In this respect, the paper first considers ethnicity/nationality as a narrative construct. Then, it deals with fragmentation of identity self-narrative as the consequence of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Finally, it considers the act of narrating as an attempt to hold together collective and personal identities.

BETWEEN EMPIRE AND NATION STATE. URBAN SPACE AND CONFLICTING MEMORIES IN TRIESTE (19TH–EARLY 20TH CENTURY)

Cities are particular spaces in which such a fight for territory occurs. By their own nature, cities imply a work of transformation and appropriation of territory into a narrative construct or text. In the 19th and early 20thcentury, Trieste underwent a transformation of its own urban space that expressed the existence and concurrence of different national narratives. In the 18th and 19th centuries the Trieste's coastline performed the cosmopolitan elite's identity by highlighting the relation between social status, ethnic origins of elite's member, and the individuals’ conscience of participating in the exceptionality of a city ‘without history.’ As the elite's economic ground changed, the representation of identity in space changed consequently. The consolidation of fascist regime supported the construction of a new myth of Trieste characterized by an old Roman origin and the heroic efforts of its inhabitants to join the ‘Motherland’ that led to the creation of a new main urban axis constellated with sites highly representative of Trieste's ‘Latinity’ and permeated by a sense of collective participation in historical continuity.