Remembering the War: An Autoethnography of Survival

This is an autoethnography of World War II (WW2) survival and trauma based on a recovered family archive and a reflexive engagement with my own childhood memories. Driven by subjective imperatives to bear witness to forgotten war experiences, and to explore family mental health problems, I delve into not just personal memories but forgotten voices found in the archive whose stories have never been told thus offering a perspective of multiple subjects. My grandmother’s witness testimony of concentration camp survival recorded in 1946 compels me to research and reflect on life in the state of exception and the long-term and intergenerational impact on survivors. This autoethnographic work helps me examine the character of survival of war trauma as a form of exclusion from community and often an incomplete return from bare life to polis. Through engaging with the archive, I find some partial answers to questions about my family members, and reconstruct my family memory narrative.

Akinwumi Isola. Treasury of Childhood Memories. Translated by Pamela J. Olubunmi Smith. Austin, TX: Pan­ African University Press, 2016. 192 pp.

Review essay of Akinwumi Isola's Treasury of Childhood Memories. Translated by Pamela J. Olubunmi Smith. Austin, TX: Pan­ African University Press, 2016. 192 pp.

Unidades fraseológicas em Recordações de infância: (des)continuidades nas traduções portuguesas

Idioms in Childhood Memories: (Dis)continuities in Portuguese Translations. My study aims to present a comparative translation analysis of the phraseological units in Romanian and European Portuguese and is based on the two Portuguese translations of Amintiri din copilărie (Recordações de infância) by Ion Creangă. Relying on the concept of equivalence – a key element in translation studies and comparative phraseology, debated and contested to the same extent – I propose an analysis of phraseological units both from an interlinguistic and an intralinguistic perspective, as well as a classification of translation solutions according to the types of equivalence proposed by Corpas Pastor (2001). At the same time, the identification of a certain type of equivalence leads us to an analysis of the translation strategies used. In this way, I note a strong connection between translation strategies and the types of equivalence between the two languages. The similarities and the differences between the translation solutions analyzed in the two Portuguese texts highlight the characteristics of the original text, as well as the translators’ choices. Keywords: phraseological units, idioms, equivalence, translation strategies, source text / target text

Childhood in the memoirs of Russian female historians of the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries

The present paper studies ego-documents of Russian female historians written in the second half of the 19th and the early 20th centuries, with a focus on the works of N.I. Gagen-Thorn, E.V. Gutnova, M.M. Levis, V.N. Kharuzina, S.V. Zhitomirskaya, E.N. Shchepkina, and N.D. Flittner. How do these authors, in their childhood descriptions, discuss their professional choices? By producing ego-documents, the female historians wanted to preserve their memory of childhood events in the form of a new historical source. In so doing they followed the principles that they also adhered to when wri- ting historical essays. At the same time their texts are very subjective: each reflects the respective researcher's personal experiences. Each text is unique, and there are few overlaps with the memoirs of other female historians of their time, or with those of younger colleagues. In many ways, the women were influenced by authors of the Russian memoirist tradition; they often adhered to self-censorship (even when there was no clear ideological pressure from society). As a result, the narrative about childhood turned into a narrative about the prerequisites for the self-identification of women as scientists. Memories became a form of self-representation, and this conditioned the selective nature of childhood narratives; later success in the profession was projected back onto childhood memories. The childhood narratives of Russian female historians differ from texts of their male colleagues: women preferred to describe their impressions with references to material artifacts and to everyday rituals, writing carefully about their emotional experiences. One of the most important subjects in these womens memoirs and diaries was when they for the first time experienced the gender conflict in their lives: when they understood that their scholarly ambition runs against the common attitudes about gender attitudes that they had internalized in early childhood.

My name is Bernardino Cruces, 85 year-old, I am a farmer

<p>My name is Bernardino Cruces Pedraza, I am 85 years old, and I am a producer of asparagus (<em>Asparagus officinalis</em>; editor’s note) in the ejido of Acuescomac, municipality of Atenco, State of Mexico. Many important things have happened in the country throughout my life, but nothing like the pandemic we are going through. At first, I thought it was fake news, I thought it was only meant to scare the people. I remembered the news about the ‘chupacabra’ in 1994. Or maybe it was something similar to the flu, which in my opinion was just a fleeting, harmless cold.To tell you the truth, I have never believed everything the news says, but as the months went by, I realized that this disease was really dangerous. I began to understand its importance when they closed the Iztapalapa supply center since that is where I sell my asparagus. The buyer told me that the government had made the decision to close the center due to a damn virus and that, as a consequence, the price of my product would go down, which would obviously affect me economically, me and my workers. In talks with friends, we made fun of and joked about the disease. It was rumored that it was just a government ploy to weed out the senior population as it couldn’t keep paying so much support. That made me angry, made me want to curse because people from the countryside do not live off the government. We work hard and our work is the most honest and the most worthy… We are not a burden to the government. By then it was the Spring-Summer season, and I was sowing asparagus, corn, and cabbage, in order to take advantage of the good rain and temperature of May, the month of my birthday. I felt safe in the field since I knew that the air there was good and that is why I would not be infected with anything; indeed, my lungs would be cleaned. That is why I did not wear a face mask, especially when I was working on my crops. Being in the field reassures me. When I’m weeding the field, my mind fills with memories of my childhood...memories from my entire life...memories of when we were not aware of anything else in the world, not like today...memories of my father, Mr. Narciso Cruces. He dedicated his life to working in the fields and raising cattle. Ever since I had use of reason, I helped him with that work, until I was 14 years old. It was then that American household appliance companies arrived, and I started working in the General Electric factory as a welder. Through hard work, I became a floor supervisor. I worked for that company for 40 years. Despite the hard work I did in the factory, I never left my father alone with the farm and livestock activities. It was only when I retired that I returned to work full-time to crop production. I changed from corn to vegetables due to a desire to relive my childhood. I know that working in the fields does not reward sentimentality. Working in the field requires hard work, commitment, and effort. It is true that the government provides some to agricultural producers in the form of livestock feed, fertilizer, tools, and agrochemicals, but I don’t like to depend on anyone. That is why I strive not to depend on external help but to be self-sufficient, with my own work.</p>

YULII MYKOLAIOVYCH YATCHENKO (1928–2020). MEMORIES OF THE ARTIST [publication of the document]

The article is a publication of the memories of Yulii Mykolaiovych Yatchenko, a Ukrainian painter, graduate of the Kyiv State Art Institute (KSAI), student of S. Hryhoriev, M. Sharonov, H. Melikhov, and K. Ieleva. Yulii Yatchenko dedicated almost his entire life to pedagogical and organizational work: Director of the Republican Art Secondary School named after T.H. Shevchenko, Professor of the Department of Drawing and Vice-Rector for scientific work of the KSAI, as well as he headed the Directorate of Art Exhibitions of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR. The manuscript work «Memories of the Artist» of Yulii Mykolaiovych Yatchenko was prepared by him for printing in 2014. The manuscript contains two parts: «Memories of the Artist. The Story» and «Work on the Images of Princes and Kings». Now the first part is published, in which the author recalls both his training at the KSAI (now — «the NAFAA») and the methods of work and education of the teachers; describes moments of the creative process over the painting «With the Dream of Peace. Rescuing Works of Dresden Art Gallery by Soviet Troops in 1945» (1959) and other major paintings; revives in memories trips to Dresden and communication with the management of the Dresden Gallery, visits of the Ukrainian delegation for culture to Portugal, creative trips to Lithuania and Latvia, stay in Sedniv and Kanev; as if relives the pleasant moments associated with personal exhibitions in the halls of the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture. Yulii Yatchenko also draws attention to the issues of pedagogy, drawing teaching methods, reflects on the needs of creative youth. Finally, the author dives into his childhood memories, verbally describing his family and his ancestors. The feature of «Memories of the Artist» of Yulii Yatchenko is the absence of a rigid chronology and informality of presentation; the artist wrote down his own memories in the sequence in which they surfaced in his memory. After reading the «Memories», there is a feeling of personal communication with Yulii Mykolaiovych Yatchenko. The publication is a unique original testimony of the artist, a representative of that generation, whose creative path began in the difficult postwar period, in times of severe ideological constraints. The material of his memories is useful for teachers, graduate and undergraduate students, as well as connoisseurs of art in general and the creativity of Yulii Mykolaiovych Yatchenko in particular.

Hearing Voices: A Corporeal Expression of Trauma in Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle

The study aims at giving the clinical symptom “Hearing Voices” a literary conceptualization through an analytical reading of Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle (1976). Shedding light on the synergy between the body, the voice, and trauma, the study specifically examines how the protagonist’s childhood trauma returns through the cracks of her consciousness in a form of hallucinations and hearing ghost voices in adulthood. The study also aims to explore how Atwood problematizes the notion of hearing voices to project her protagonist’s inner world. The ensuing discussion utilizes Sigmund Freud’s theorization on trauma’s embodiment through corporeality, as well as Cathy Caruth’s emphasis on the manifestation of trauma through both the voice and the body. Also relevant is Laura Di Prete’s focus on the interplay between embodied voices and speaking bodies. Keywords: Childhood memories; Corporeality of trauma; Hearing voices; Margaret Atwood,;Lady Oracle.

Reminiscences – a space of memory (Based on the film Childhood Memories by Elisabeta Bostan)

Ion Creangă’s “Childhood Memories”, the most complex and significant work of the classic of Romanian literature, has so far known a single screening, that of the director Elisabeta Bostan from Romania. The film, with the same title, highlights a landscape as authentic as possible of the time, morals, customs and traditions and reflects the national identity. Or else, the memories of the writer, the main character of the film, about his childhood, his native village, villagers, etc., remain a living expression of the time. The drama organically combines two timeframes and spaces: that of Nică’s childhood, spent in the picturesque landscapes of Humulești, and the second that of the writer Ion Creangă, who listed his memories in the “bojdeuca (hut)” from Țicău. The director remains faithful to Creanga’s text, to the same colorful language full of expressions characteristic of Moldovan speech, and creates a universe similar to that of the mid-nineteenth century. The film Memories from Childhood (1965), considered by critics to be the “bridgehead of screening”, remained “in the English Academy and the Los Angeles Museum of the Arts – as a reference film in the field of screenings”.

Imagining the Afro-Caribbean in García Márquez’s Fiction

In a few early short stories, Gabriel García Márquez created minor characters described as “mulattos” or “negros”; the memorable character of Petra Cotes in Cien años de soledad (1967) is a “mulatta.” In El otoño del patriarca (1975), El amor en los tiempos de cólera (1985), El general en su laberinto (1989), and Del amor y otros demonios (1994), the Colombian-born author develops a more historical vision of the Caribbean as a culture inseparable from the lived experiences of descendants of the African slave trade. This article addresses the problematic construction of Afro-Caribbean subjectivity in García Márquez’s fiction, with particular attention to work published after Cien años de soledad. The 1972 short story “Eréndira” takes the story of a mulatta child-prostitute from a brief episode in Cien años and effectively hypersexualizes the Afro-Caribbean body. So, too, does El otoño del patriarca, with its frequent use of the epithet “burdel de negros” to refer to an imaginary Caribbean nation. The hypersexualization of Afro-Caribbean female characters permeates El amor en los tiempos del cólera. A psychologically dependent relationship between Simón Bolívar and his mixed-race valet in El general en su laberinto and then the “triumph” of a Spanish Renaissance poetic voice over childhood memories of African languages in Del amor y otros demonios provide the backdrop for the author’s final attempts to imagine Afro-Caribbean subjectivity in his fiction.