Postmodernism and Historicity in Serbian Literature: The Double Engagement of Serbian Postmodernism

Abstract

The contribution looks at the Serbian postmodernist novel and its paradoxical historicity, which was one of the primary reasons for the exclusion of postmodernism from the Serbian literary system. Disapproval took the form of literary-historical omission and a public polemic between the postmodernists and the so-called traditionalist in 1996. Postmodern concepts of history as a reflection of the broader social (scientific and philosophical) context of the latter half of the 20^th century also made their way into the Serbian region and profoundly upset the deep-rooted historical perceptions and the concomitant traditional concepts of literary creation. The invalidation of “grand narratives” (grand authorities) proved problematic particularly in cultures with a powerful epic tradition, which Serbian certainly is. The Serbian literary system saw this invalidation as detrimental especially in the 90s, which marked a crisis for the Serbian nation during which the need for an engaged literature in the service of tradition/nation was pronounced. Postmodernist literature evades such functionality through its internal (self-referential metafictional) structure, which gained considerable momentum in Serbia at the time as it undertook to separate political and literary discourse, which were closely intertwined in the Serbian literature of the 20^th century. We can thus talk of a double implicit engagement of Serbian postmodernism. The contribution outlines the literary-historical development of Serbian postmodernism and Serbian historiographic metafiction. As well, it shows why and in what ways the historicity of literary narration was a subject of conflict in Serbian literature through an overview of some of the central postmodern innovations of historical concepts and their (non)integration into the social-political situation of the national literary system.