Mirnes Sokolović & Tomislav Marković
Can There Still Be Poetry After Srebrenica?
Guest production
Reading & Discussion with Mirnes Sokolović and Tomislav Marković
Moderator: Silvia Stecher
Introduction: Julia Knaß, Paul Klingenberg
How can one write poetry when language is shattered and corrupted, when horror is unspeakable, when intellectualism has not only failed to prevent barbarism but has actually promoted it, and when reality has caught up with the avant-garde’s attacks on poetry? Thirty years after the genocide against the Bosniaks, literary critic Mirnes Sokolović, in his essay “Can There Still Be Poetry After Srebrenica?”—published in German translation by Klingenberg— once again raises the question of the ethical-aesthetic connections of literary writing—following Adorno’s dictum “to write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric” and Danilo Kiš’s Poet(h)ik. The essay is supplemented by textual examples from Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav literary history, including poems by Tomislav Marković.
In short readings and a conversation with Silvia Stecher, who co-edited and translated the volume with Dijana Simić, Mirnes Sokolović and Tomislav Marković offer insights into trends and counter-trends in Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian poetry and their poetological positions within the pan-European (post)genocidal context —a context that is particularly concentrated in Graz.
Event is held in German language, parts of the discussion will be in English!
