Social memory and applied criticism

On turning poetry into an ideological beating stick

Abstract

The su­bject of this text is the so­cial me­mory, which the aut­hor un­der­stands as the con­se­qu­en­ce of com­plex re­la­ti­on­ships of mo­dern po­li­tics, hi­story and cul­tu­ral pro­duc­tion in the bro­a­dest sen­se. As for the ma­jo­rity of aut­hors who en­ga­ge in so­cial me­mory, for her this phe­no­me­non is in­se­pa­ra­ble from the pro­cess of cre­a­ting a na­tion, as well. In the con­text of cre­a­ting a na­tion in Eastern Euro­pe the con­di­ti­o­na­lity of the­se phe­no­me­na is re­cog­ni­zed thro­ugh the spe­ci­fic part that the lan­gu­a­ge and li­te­ra­tu­re played in tho­se pro­ces­ses. The­re­fo­re, in this re­gion, the hi­e­rarchy of po­wer re­flec­ted it­self al­ways, maybe mo­re pro­mi­nently than anywhe­re el­se, in the fi­led of con­trol­ling the so­cial me­mory, and par­ti­cu­larly in con­trol­ling the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of old li­te­rary works. Furt­her mo­re, the po­wer in that fi­eld vi­sibly af­fir­med it­self. By con­nec­ting her re­se­arch to Yugo­sla­vian na­tion, the pe­riod im­me­di­a­tely af­ter the World War Two and the fun­ction of li­te­rary cri­ti­cism in esta­blis­hing the Yugo­sla­vian ca­non for the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the past, the aut­hor exa­mi­nes in this text on of the ways of sha­ping the so­cial me­mory in the ti­me of ac­ti­ve cre­a­tion of the Yugo­sla­vian na­tion. The fo­cus of re­se­arch is on the so­cial con­di­ti­o­na­lity of con­struc­ting me­mory from the po­li­ti­cal an­ti­ci­pa­tion of con­tem­po­rary and fu­tu­re ne­eds of the so­ci­ety. By re-exa­mi­ning the the­sis of so­cial me­mory as an ex­pres­si­on of the sta­te’s aspi­ra­tion to ex­pla­in to the na­tion its past and to adjust it to cur­rent ne­eds, the aut­hor in her re­se­arch fol­lows the af­ter-war re­in­ter­pre­ta­tion of se­ve­ral clas­sic aut­hors who en­te­red the Yugo­sla­vian ca­non of in­ter­pre­ting the past.