The relationship between ethics and literature has always been a contested one. I firstly discuss this relationship, arguing that literature is not ethical per se, which is the reason why it can ...serve ethical purposes. Secondly, I state, in line with Martha Nussbaum, why any ethical thinking today has to refer to global ethics. Drawing from this, I present three recent novels, all of which deal with fundamental twentieth century atrocities: Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie, The French Art of War by Alexis Jenni and The Walnut Mansion by Miljenko Jergović. They pose philosophical and ethical questions about war, violence and the great ruptures of civilisation. They are a component of world literature in the sense that the plot, and the ethical reflection triggered by this, is not related to a single nation state, but to the global situation. The authors make use of a historical profile encompassing a period of 60 to 100 years of narrated time. In this way, they can make a connection between personal and historical-political development visible. But this connection is less ensconced in the material history of the facts than in an ideology and "culture" that is responsible for the permanence of war and violent conflicts. The involvement of the characters in conflicts proves to be more than just a matter of character and of personal attitudes; it is also the result of social constellations. The personal and the political are never separated, which in no way releases the individuals from their responsibilities.
Transatlantic Mail Jergovic, Miljenko; Mehmedinovic, Semezdin
The Massachusetts review,
10/2010, Letnik:
51, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Letters by Miljenko Jergovic and Semezdin Mehmedinovic expressing their experiences during the postwar years are presented. Jergovic tells his experiences in Zagreb, a city that had not seen war ...since the time the Turks had tried to conquer it but failed. He felt the war more intensely in Zagreb in 1994 and 1995 than in Sarajevo in 1992 and 1993. On the other hand, Mehmedinovic shares how the postwar change the world and everything that surrounds him. This huge change leads him to read more books about the happenings during the 1980s.
iljenko Jergović is one of the contemporary writers from the former Yugoslavia who has devoted a large part of his recent work to the problem of memory and forgetting in a radically changed and ...changing world. This article examines how the processes of trauma, fantasy, and remembering have been inscribed in two of his works, Mama Leone and Historijska čitanka, and how the combination of these texts' narrative playfulness and their desire for memory creates a memory text that produces a highly ambiguous access to the past.
Presenter The chairman of the HDZ ruling Croatian Democratic Union floor group, Andrija Hebrang, has denied claims by the Zagreb-based tabloid Jutarnji list columnist Miljenko Jergovic that he ...displayed unashamed admiration for Ustasha Croatian nationalist Nazis criminal Maks Luburic who was commander of the Ustasha WWII concentration camp in Jasenovac in an interview for the Belgrade-based weekly NIN. Hebrang announced a suit against Jergovic. Barbara Vid reports:
Thompson reviews FATA MORGANA by Svetislav Basara and translated by Randall A. Major, THE WALNUT MANSION by Miljenko Jergovic and translated by Stephen M. Dickey and Janja Pavetic-Dickey, YUGOSLAVIA, ...MY FATHERLAND by Goran Vojnovic and translated by Noah Charney and SIGNS BY THE ROADSIDE by Ivo Andric and translated by Stanislava Lazarevic.
