Post-Yugoslav Women Writers Writing Yugoslavia: In Search of a Lost Past and its Literary Consequences

Analizirajući prozu autorki iz Hrvatske, Bosne i Hercegovine i Srbije, u ovom se tekstu pokušava objasniti kako je uopšte moguće pričati o postjugoslovenskoj književnosti, kao i šta bi takvu književnost suštinski obeležavalo. U tekstovima ovih postjugoslovenskih autorki traganje za prošlošću je jedan od ključnih književnih prosedea. Ta je prošlost jugoslovenska prošlost. Ipak, uprkos tome što fakta svedoče da Jugoslavija jest postojala, ona je postojala u prošlosti, dakle, više ne postoji. Ambivalentnost istovremenog fikcionalnog i stvarnog postojanja Jugoslavije uspostavlja podudarnost između statusa literature (čiji je odnos prema stvarnom i fikcionalnom takođe konstitutivan) i statusa prošlosti. Ova se podudarnost dalje razvija kroz svoje melanholičke aspekte, da bi se na kraju melanholičnost prošlosti literarizovala i oblikovala kao instanca književnog teksta. Kroz ironijske, autofikcijske i metafikcijske strategije konstituiše se jedan od hronotopa postjugoslovenske književnosti – Jugoslavija kao prošlost.This paper presents an analysis of works of contemporary women writers from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, offering an explanation of how the discussions of post-Yugoslav literature were possible in the first place and what the essential features of this literature would be. The search for the past is one of the basic literary pursuits of post-Yugoslav women writers. The past in question is a Yugoslav past. However, even though the facts show that Yugoslavia did exist, it existed in the past, which means that it no longer exists. The ambivalence of the simultaneous fictional and real existence of Yugoslavia creates congruence between the status of literature (which is also defined by its relation towards the real and the fictional) and the status of the past. This congruence is developed further through melancholy, ultimately literarizing the melancholy of the past, thus making it an element of the literary text. The use of ironic, autofictional and metafictional strategies creates one of the chronotopes of post-Yugoslav literature – Yugoslavia as the past