Georgetown University LogoGeorgetown University Library LogoDigitalGeorgetown Home
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   DigitalGeorgetown Home
    • Georgetown University Institutional Repository
    • Georgetown College
    • Department of German
    • Graduate Theses and Dissertations - German
    • View Item
    •   DigitalGeorgetown Home
    • Georgetown University Institutional Repository
    • Georgetown College
    • Department of German
    • Graduate Theses and Dissertations - German
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Turning “Wounds” into Words: Literary Representations of Loss in the Wake of the Yugoslav Wars and Their Aftermath

    Cover for Turning “Wounds” into Words: Literary Representations of Loss in the Wake of the Yugoslav Wars and Their Aftermath
    View/Open
    View/Open: Starcevic_georgetown_0076D_15060.pdf (1.3MB) Bookview

    Creator
    Starcevic, Aleksandra
    Advisor
    Pfeiffer, Peter C
    Abstract
    This dissertation examines literary responses to the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s and their aftermath by migrant authors from the former Yugoslavia who write in German. In particular, I analyze Marica Bodrožić’s autobiography Sterne erben, Sterne färben: Meine Ankunft in Wörtern (2007), Danko Rabrenović’s autobiographies Der Balkanizer: Ein Jugo in Deutschland (2010) and Herzlich willkommenčić: Heimatgeschichten vom Balkanizer (2015), and Saša Stanišić’s semi-autobiographical text Herkunft (2019). Each work under analysis offers unique and multifaceted individual and collective representation and assessment of this topic, illustrating the intricacies of the Yugoslav Wars and their effects. As the authors navigate difficult subjects of war, trauma, loss, and nostalgia, they depict how the Yugoslav Wars and the loss of language, identity, Heimat, and belonging affected them and how they dealt with these traumatic experiences. In my analysis, I compare these various works to discuss the similarities and differences in the authors’ responses to the Yugoslav Wars, their aftermath, and their new life and integration in Germany based on some of the following factors: authors’ ages, gender, where they grew up, when and why they left their home country. Looking at trauma as something that should not be evaluated by direct or indirect exposure to the war and atrocities or by how much one was exposed, I argue that the Yugoslav Wars affected everyone from the former Yugoslavia in some way, even those who left many years before or at the brink of the wars, influenced by the particular lens of their individual experiences. Using theories on identity, Heimat, memory, and nostalgia from various scholars as well as notions of “Third Space” by Homi Bhabha, “imagined community” by Benedict Anderson, and lieux de mémoire by Pierre Nora, the study demonstrates the major themes of these texts as they grapple with the human, ethical, and intellectual losses of the wars. This dissertation serves to include a wider range of the literary responses to the Yugoslav Wars and to provide a fuller understanding and more pluralistic view of the discourses about these wars as well as more productive commemoration of the former Yugoslavia, its people, and culture.
    Description
    Ph.D.
    Permanent Link
    http://hdl.handle.net/10822/1062653
    Date Published
    2021
    Subject
    Germanic literature; German literature;
    Type
    thesis
    Publisher
    Georgetown University
    Extent
    259 leaves
    Collections
    • Graduate Theses and Dissertations - German
    Metadata
    Show full item record

    Related items

    Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

    • Thumbnail

      Fictive Ills: Literary Perspectives on Wounds and Diseases 

      Graham, Peter W. and Sewell, Elizabeth (1990)
    Related Items in Google Scholar

    Georgetown University Seal
    ©2009 - 2022 Georgetown University Library
    37th & O Streets NW
    Washington DC 20057-1174
    202.687.7385
    digitalscholarship@georgetown.edu
    Accessibility
     

     

    Browse

    All of DigitalGeorgetownCommunities & CollectionsCreatorsTitlesBy Creation DateThis CollectionCreatorsTitlesBy Creation Date

    My Account

    Login

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Georgetown University Seal
    ©2009 - 2022 Georgetown University Library
    37th & O Streets NW
    Washington DC 20057-1174
    202.687.7385
    digitalscholarship@georgetown.edu
    Accessibility