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Zusatztext [Gordana P. Crnkovic] offers an enlightening path, filled with new possibilities, experiences, and discoveries. ... These “essays of invitation” open the portal to an invigorating world of lesser-known, or lesser-appreciated Informationen zum Autor Gordana P. Crnkovic is Professor of Slavic and of Comparative Literature, Cinema and Media at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. Her writings include Imagined Dialogues: Eastern European Literature in Conversation with American and English Literature (Northwestern University Press 2000), over thirty articles on literature and film, as well as texts from the experimental video Zagreb Everywhere . Vorwort Essays on literary and cinematic works from Eastern Europe in the socialist and immediate postsocialist era. Zusammenfassung Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia—no longer on the map. East Europe of the socialist period may seem like a historical oddity, apparently so different from everything before and after. Yet the masterpieces of literature and cinema from this largely forgotten “Second World,” as well as by the authors formed in it and working in its aftermath, surprise and delight with their contemporary resonance. This book introduces and illuminates a number of these works. It explores how their aesthetic ingenuity discovers ways of engaging existential and universal predicaments, such as how one may survive in the world of victimizations, or imagine a good city, or broach the human boundaries to live as a plant. Like true classics of world art, these novels, stories, and films—to rephrase Bohumil Hrabal—keep “telling us things about ourselves we don’t know.” In lively and jargon-free prose, Gordana P. Crnkovic builds on her rich teaching experience to create paths to these works and reveal how they changed lives. Inhaltsverzeichnis Introduction: On Invitations and Discoveries Part I: Invitations 1. The Flight of Form: This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Tadeusz Borowski, Poland, 1948) 2. The Gift of a Story-Teller: The Bridge on the Drina (Ivo Andric, Yugoslavia, 1961) 3. Over There, the War Does Not End: The General of the Dead Army (Ismail Kadare, Albania, 1963) 4. On Kindness: Two Films from 1960s Czechoslovakia (directors Miloš Forman, Ján Kádar & Elmar Klos) 5. That Was There Too: Man Is Not a Bird (Dušan Makavejev, director, Yugoslavia, 1965) 6. The Fireworks of Different Desires: Daisies (Vera Chytilová, director, Czechoslovakia, 1966) 7. The Most Important Thing: Lovefilm (István Szabó, director, Hungary, 1970) 8. Fiction Against Fiction: A Tomb for Boris Davidovich (Danilo Kiš, Yugoslavia, 1976) 9. On Mice and Books: Too Loud a Solitude (Bohumil Hrabal, Czechoslovakia, 1976) 10. Taking Things Too Literally: Man of Marble (Andrzej Wajda, director, Poland, 1976) 11. A Terrifying Simplicity of History: The Czar’s Madman (Jaan Kross, Estonia, 1978) 12. Human Judging and Animal Love: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera, Czechoslovakia & France, 1984) 13. A Non-Readers’ Lesson to Writers: The Door (Magda Szabó, Hungary, 1987) 14. Intelligence, Artificial: Decalogue: One (Krzysztof Kieslowski, director, Poland, 1988) 15. Nela’s Courage: The Oak (Lucian Pintilie, director, Romania, 1992) Part II: Probing Deeper 1. The Victim’s Double Vision and the Long Road to The Pianist (Roman Polanski, director, Poland etc., 2002) 2. Imagining a Good City: One Who Sings Thinks No Evil (a.k.a. One Song a Day Takes Mischief Away , Krešo Golik, director, Yugoslavia, 1970) 3. The Reign of Images and the Good Icons: Mothers (Milcho Manchevski, Macedonia, 2010) 4. Easing Into the Non-Human Future: Border State (Tõnu Õnnepalu, Estonia, 1993) <...
