Page 42 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 42
Ideology in the 20th Century: studies of literary and social discourses and practices
it)”. And when Elsaesser points out that “what Sebald is doing in his sto-
ries—rescuing lives that would otherwise fall into oblivion—is strong-
ly rooted in the European imagination because of the millions of lives
that the Germans destroyed or ended during World War II and the Hol-
ocaust” (31), Frljić settles that Holocaust in the memory of the entire 20th
century as well as into the new millennium: spanning from the war in the
former Yugoslavia through the Rwandan genocide, to the entirely fresh
refugee and humanitarian crisis in Syria and Europe.
Both of them inhabit their prose and theatre with half-fictional and
half-authentic characters met by the readers and the audience in different
places and times.
The photographs and postcards that [Sebald] so thoughtfully mixes be-
42 tween the pages of his books do not illustrate the text and at the same time
they do not differ from the text but invite the chance meetings and sudden
discoveries which we as readers create between the text and the stage and
which in this way become one more collection of punctuation marks in the
flow of the reported speech (Elsaesser 2014, 34);
Frljić achieves something similar with the different tactics: by repeating
gestures, as well as visual, musical and textual motifs he builds a frag-
mented structure which tells the stories. Sometimes these stories arise in
parallel and in harmony with the word, image and sound, sometimes they
counteract. Johannes Birringer interprets that process as a special type of
‘ritualized semoiotics’ in which
the iconography of signs of terror is meant to provoke shock on both Right
and Left ideological spectrums, thus it attacks the violence of terror and
shows the radical illusions of consensus, complacency, or ‘feel-good hu-
manitarianism’ (Birringer 2016, 642).
The Spectator as the Secondary Eyewitness
In the majority of his productions, Frljić uses the spectator as an eyewit-
ness who (similar to Sebald’s reader whom the narrator draws into the
mysteries of the consequences of the Holocaust) through reception be-
comes a secondary eyewitness, someone who follows the primary eyewit-
ness of historical events or the testimony of them.
The disturbing effect on the spectators when using such a strategy is
strongest in Frljić’s production Kukavičluk [Cowardice] which thematis-
es the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica and the co-responsiblity for
it of the Serbian theatre and the cultural community. By transforming
it)”. And when Elsaesser points out that “what Sebald is doing in his sto-
ries—rescuing lives that would otherwise fall into oblivion—is strong-
ly rooted in the European imagination because of the millions of lives
that the Germans destroyed or ended during World War II and the Hol-
ocaust” (31), Frljić settles that Holocaust in the memory of the entire 20th
century as well as into the new millennium: spanning from the war in the
former Yugoslavia through the Rwandan genocide, to the entirely fresh
refugee and humanitarian crisis in Syria and Europe.
Both of them inhabit their prose and theatre with half-fictional and
half-authentic characters met by the readers and the audience in different
places and times.
The photographs and postcards that [Sebald] so thoughtfully mixes be-
42 tween the pages of his books do not illustrate the text and at the same time
they do not differ from the text but invite the chance meetings and sudden
discoveries which we as readers create between the text and the stage and
which in this way become one more collection of punctuation marks in the
flow of the reported speech (Elsaesser 2014, 34);
Frljić achieves something similar with the different tactics: by repeating
gestures, as well as visual, musical and textual motifs he builds a frag-
mented structure which tells the stories. Sometimes these stories arise in
parallel and in harmony with the word, image and sound, sometimes they
counteract. Johannes Birringer interprets that process as a special type of
‘ritualized semoiotics’ in which
the iconography of signs of terror is meant to provoke shock on both Right
and Left ideological spectrums, thus it attacks the violence of terror and
shows the radical illusions of consensus, complacency, or ‘feel-good hu-
manitarianism’ (Birringer 2016, 642).
The Spectator as the Secondary Eyewitness
In the majority of his productions, Frljić uses the spectator as an eyewit-
ness who (similar to Sebald’s reader whom the narrator draws into the
mysteries of the consequences of the Holocaust) through reception be-
comes a secondary eyewitness, someone who follows the primary eyewit-
ness of historical events or the testimony of them.
The disturbing effect on the spectators when using such a strategy is
strongest in Frljić’s production Kukavičluk [Cowardice] which thematis-
es the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica and the co-responsiblity for
it of the Serbian theatre and the cultural community. By transforming
