Author: Christian Voss
Humboldt University of Berlin
Translation from German by Radoslava Minkova
Published in Slavyanski dialozi, XX, 2023, 32.
Abstract: The article tries to explain and contextualize the immense international success of Georgi Gospodinov’s new novel Time Shelter (Времеубежище). At the same time, I will summarize my teaching experience at the Department of South Slavic Studies in Berlin and my seminars on transnational literature from the Balkans. Unfortunately, the comparative teaching of Post-Yugoslavian and Bulgarian literature have disappeared from German-speaking universities. Only the intraregional comparative approach would enable the identification of the unique selling points of Bulgarian as well as Post-Yugoslavian literature. Additionally, the comparison may help in overcoming Western essentialist culturalizations of the Post-Yugoslavian, Balkan and/or Slavic realities.
Following the concept of Pierre Bourdieu, I will try to describe the Bulgarian literary field of Gospodinov by analyzing narration techniques and plots in the writings of Dimitré Dinev, Angel Igov, Miroslav Penkov, and Aleko Konstantinov.
Gospodinov’s success can be explained by his strategies of glocalizing and lifting the primary and extensively described Bulgarian nostalgy onto a new, European level. Examples of this are the already used figure of the Minotaur and Ancient mythology in Physics of Sorrow (Физика на тъгата) to transpose the experience of socialist Bulgarian sadness onto an internationally relevant and postmodern context.
Key words: Transnational literature, integral South Slavic Studies, intrategional
comparison, glocalization, literary field, Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter