Page 15 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
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Introduction: The Crossroads of Literature and Social Praxis 15

and the author’s socio-critical stance. Even more, this image is important-
ly influenced by the position of drama and theatre in contemporary so-
ciety. Maja Murnik’s contribution is based on the assumption that over
the last decade it has no longer been possible to strictly distinguish be-
tween drama and theatre, as we are now dealing with the ‘no-longer-dra-
ma’ (Poschmann) and postdramatic theatre (Lehmann). In the crisis of
representation and drama form, we are encountering heterogeneous, per-
formative and open structures. They are embedded into the present-day
transformed position and status of art whose modern autonomy has fall-
en apart, while art has begun to appropriate other procedures and func-
tions. Murnik examines several Semenič’s plays as well as several politi-
cally-shaped and activist examples of recent performing arts where the
textual part plays a significant role. These range from simple political ag-
itation plays to complex examinations of social and political issues. Varja
Balžalorsky’s contribution discusses the specific historical moment when
woman’s discourse became inscribed into the structure of the literary sys-
tem, focusing on the tensions between ideology and the women’s poetic
discourse as shown in the poetry book Shadow in the Heart by Ada Škerl.
Balžalorsky also sheds light on the problem of how Škerl’s book was re-
ceived in the literary system.

Roland Orcsik presents one of the most significant ex-Yugoslav poet-
ry styles after the Second World War: ludism in the context of Hungar-
ian authors from Voivodina gathered around the literary magazine ‘Új
Symposion’ (1965–1992, Novi Sad). These poets found themselves under
the pressure of the ambivalent political ideology of the SFR Yugoslavia.
Hungary does not have a tradition of ludism, which was one of the sig-
nificant differences between Hungarian poets in Hungary and those in
Voivodina in the period after the Second World War. The study tack-
les the main poetical characteristics of ludism, its South Slavic authors
(Tomaž Šalamun, Iztok Geister Plamen, Ivan Slamnig, Branko Maleš,
Delimir Rešicki, Vojislav Despotov, Vladimir Kopicl, Vujica Rešin Tucić
etc.), and the works of Hungarian ‘Symposionists’ (István Domonkos,
Katalin Ladik, Ottó Tolnai, Ottó Fenyvesi). Ludism has been sometimes
accused of blurring borders between popular culture, subculture, and al-
ternative and high culture. The paper focuses on artistic results of this
method (e.g. the poetics of video montage and collage). Symposionist au-
thors were accused of being ‘cosmopolitans’, ‘anarchists’ and ‘nihilists’ by
the Voivodina officials. The art of Symposionists did not change the po-
litical system of Voivodina during the period of the SFRY or later on, but
it did provide an alternative space of artistic freedom.
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