Author: Marijana Bijelić
University of Zagreb
Published in Slavyanski dialozi, Х, 2013, 14
Abstract: The report focuses on Angel Karaliychev’s collection of short stories Rye with regard to the sacrificial-tragic aspect of the collection’s ethical and aesthetical function. In the analysis I mostly rely on René Girard’s mimetic theory concerning sacrifice and the tragic. In the collection, Dionysian and vitalistic elements are subjugated to moral reflection in which the only possibility of salvation from a crisis, conceptualized as an omnipresent sin, is found in the form of an internal ethical transformation ‒ that is, as an epiphany. Theophany is conceived in the form of divine intervention, a deep spiritual transformation, which on the one hand, is connected to the rejection of violence, and on the other hand, to every form of human creation, i.e. positive transformation that makes up the core of cultural phenomena.
Key words: Angel Karaliychev’s Rye, dichotomy sacrificial ‒ tragic, Dionysian ecstasy, the motive of the Epiphany