Slavic languages and literature

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://digital.lib.washington.edu/handle/1773/4966

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Visions of Homeland in Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Literature, Film, and Culture
(2025-12-16) Eftimov, Taylor Blasko; Crnković, Gordana P.
This dissertation explores various visions of homeland in representative works of Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav literature, film, and culture. The first chapter focuses on the experience of homeland for characters from the Southern republics of Yugoslavia growing up in Slovenia. The main focus of this chapter is on Goran Vojnović’s book and film Čefurji raus! in which the main character, Marko, navigates his identity as a čefur (a migrant from the southern republics of the former Yugoslavia to Slovenia) and the ways in which it effects his relationship with his parents and his own idea of where he feels he belongs. The chapter explores the issues of postmemory, displacement, and the newly coined “outsiders” language in relation to the attempts of creating a new homeland. The second chapter explores conceptions of homeland from afar in the hostland through the works of Saša Stanišić and Irena Vrkljan who both migrated to Germany from Yugoslavia. This chapter points out formal elements of their prose such as the fragmentation, lists, and cataloging prose that are used throughout to attempt to replicate the ways in which the authors curated the writing from their memories. The third chapter takes a somewhat contradictory stance and posits the homeland as nowhere with a discussion of Bekim Sejranović’s novel From Nowhere to Nowhere and the short story collection I’m Not Going Anywhere by Rumena Bužarovska. Characteres in both of these works feel a sense of nonbelonging as they find that they cannot fit in to the culture they were born into nor into the culture and space they migrate to. Sejranović’s novel further suggests that homeland is nowhere, and he only finds this eventual homeland in death. The fourth chapter focuses on Macedonian films by Milcho Manchevski and Teona Strugar Mitevska, in which main characters return to similarly tense political landscapes of Macedonia—Manchevski’s character in Before the Rain, Aleksandar, returns in 1994 during the Yugoslav wars and Mitevska’s character in How I Killed a Saint, Viola, returns at the moment of the 2001 Insurgency in Macedonia. The two films foreground, thematically and formally, the change in Macedonian physical and mental landscape that both characters feel they do not quite understand because of their living abroad, and their reaction to this change by trying to find alternate homelands elsewhere, including in magic and dreamscapes. The fourth chapter also explores motherhood, starting from Viola’s journey to realizing her motherhood (when she kidnaps her child back from an American diplomat) and discussing multiple other Mitevska films and their focus on gender, depicting different ways of women’s experience of the Macedonian homeland. The last chapter explores visions of homeland in the works of Luan Starova which are based on his own migrations with his family from his native Albania to Macedonia. This means Starova’s conceptions of homeland are both Macedonian, since Starova grew up in Macedonia, as well as those of the diaspora since he is technically a migrant to Macedonia. Starova realizes homeland in his father’s library, the home that his mother curates, the animals that occupied his childhood (specifically goats and eels), as well as through knowledge and community itself. Connecting most of the works in this dissertation is the theme of characters accepting and themselves creating “new” or unexpected homelands as they re-envision the basic concept of “homeland” and navigate their changing lives.
Searching for the self at the crossroads of Central Asian, Russian and Soviet cultures: the question of identity in the works of Timur Pulatov and Chingiz Aitmatov
(1996) Qualin, Anthony J
The primary focus of this study is on manifestations of multilingualism and multiculturality in the prose fiction of Timur Pulatov and Chingiz Aitmatov. The dissertation discusses the works of both authors, not only treating direct and allegorical reflections of the tensions inherent in a post-colonial situation but exploring the stylistic ramifications of having access to multiple cultural traditions along with the alienation caused by the colonizer's educational system.Part One of the dissertation is primarily concerned with each author's development as a writer and in the evolution of their attitude toward the various cultural and value systems that surrounded them. The second part of the study focuses on the topics of alienation, identity, and the fate of the individual who finds himself at the nexus of two or more cultures.In approaching Aitmatov's and Pulatov's works as post-colonial literature this dissertation offers new insights into both authors' writing. Moreover, the similarities and differences that are revealed to exist between the two writers allow us to attain a better understanding of the role played by the different colonial relationships that Soviet Russia had with primarily nomadic Kyrgyzstan and the sedentary cultures of the Central Asian oases. That not all of the differences in the two authors' outlooks can be attributed to the divergence in their experience with Soviet power helps to reveal the extent to which the response to a post-colonial situation can vary among individuals.
Design and materials for an electronic textbook for first-year Russian
(1996) Frumkes, Lisa Ann
Technology today is advancing at an astounding rate. Better hardware and software packages are being developed daily. It is not acceptable to simply use technology in teaching merely because it exists; technology must be integrated into education in a principled manner. This dissertation proposes a blueprint for an electronic textbook for teaching first-year Russian at the post-secondary level. The concepts explored are relevant to the teaching of other languages and topics as well.Chapter One presents the principles and theories of pedagogy and the specific requirements of language pedagogy. The importance of presenting information in a manner in which students can absorb it is discussed here, as well as the effects of individual learning styles. In Chapter Two, the qualities of existing textbooks are explored and contrasted with those of the electronic textbook; the electronic textbook is intended to provide more individualization and interactivity. Chapter Three deals specifically with the role of the computer in education and the changes that the widespread use of the computer will have on instructors and students. Chapter Four outlines the Russian materials which the electronic textbook will present and includes discussions of existing Russian textbooks. Chapter Five contains the conclusion and an overview of the computer demonstrations which have been included as pocket materials in the dissertation. These presentations provide a more concrete picture of the way the ideas developed in the dissertation will take shape.The creation and use of an electronic textbook represents the logical next step for language education. It will incorporate technological advances, supply instructors and students with a wide range of materials which can be modified as needed, and provide a laboratory for future research into language education.

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