Оригинални научни рад 821.163.42-14.09 Parun V.

Kornelija Kuvač-Levačić1 University of Zadar Department of Croatian and Slavic Studies Division of Croatian Language and Literature Zadar, Croatia

THE THEME OF MOTHERHOOD IN THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL DISCOURSE OF VESNA PARUN

Since the 1970’s, the theme of motherhood has been a theme of investigation in various branches of the humanities, replete with contradictions which are most evident in the cultural and literary practices by which it is represented. Research into the literary representations of motherhood has its place in the analysis of the constructs of national and cultural identities and stereotypes. Although Croatian literature in the 20th and 21st Centuries provides many texts in which the real practice of motherhood, outside the ideological and patriarchal models, is represented, giving voice to a women’s real bodily, emotional and spiritual experience, academic investigations into theme have been somewhat sporadic. The aim of this work is to disclose the representations of motherhood in the autobiographical discourse of the greatest Croatian woman writer of the 20th Century, Vesna Parun. The focus here will be on the theme of unfulfilled motherhood, as her texts often mention this theme, and how it influenced the narrative construct of its author and its author’s sense of identity. What will investigated here is how Vesna Parun took motherhood in its entirety as a major theme, especially the theme of unfulfilled motherhood (a theme that can be found in the works of Croatian literature preceding her own), as well as the procedures by which she distanced herself from the traditional concepts in which a woman’s identity is determined by her identity as a mother. Keywords: motherhood, autobiographical discourse, cultural and literary practices, Croatian literature, Vesna Parun

INTRODUCTION For many decades the theme of the maternal has informed a great deal of the investigations in many branches of the humanities. A major work on this theme, Maternal Genealogies: the figure of the Mother in/and literature (2006) by Gill Rye, evinces its importance. As focus of this investigation is a thematic analysis of the autobiographical discourse in the work of Croatia’s most renowned 20th Century woman poet, Vesna Parun,2 1 [email protected] 2 Parun, Vesna, Croatian writer (1922.–2010). From 1947 writing was her exclusive vocation. In 1962–67 she lived in Bulgaria. Her first book of poetry Zore i vihori (Dawns and Winds) (1947.), was claimed as an apolitical book, artistically void and decadent by the then prevalent social-realist criticism, as its themes were youthful vitality and love opposed to war, death and destruction. Her Lipar / Journal for Literature, Language, Art and Culture / Year XVIII / Volume 64

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scholarly works from the 1970’s onward are of great significance, especially those which focus on the biological and sociological theme of motherhood through various concepts of identity formation. Despite the fact that Vesna Parun accentuated her „unlived“ motherhood in almost all her works in prose and verse, this is also multifariously inscribed as an important element in the construction of the “history of one’s own identity” (as Ph. Lejeune defines autobiography) (cf. Zlatar Violić 2009: 37). This fact has close ties to statements made by Nancy Chodorow (The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender, 1978.), who emphasises that motherhood is deeply rooted in our concept of identity, in the construction of the individual subject and in the social organisation of gender. Julia Kristeva, on the other hand, emphasises the role of mother in the formation of the psyche and identity of the individual, yet does fail to apply her theory of motherhood from the position of woman as mother (this differs greatly from the position Simone de Beauvoir held in her book The Second Sex which is, despite its negative stance toward motherhood, the point of reference for the majority of both prior and more recent research). Julia Kristeva in her book Heretic love (1979., transl. in Croatian by V. Sabatin 1983.) questions the western concept of femininity when it is reabsorbed in motherhood, and she terms this is an idealised form of narcissism. According to Kristeva Christianity is one of the most refined symbolic constructs as it suffocates femininity, yet gives it such great prominence in motherhood (Kristeva 1983: 67), although this phenomenon can also be found in other civilisations (Kristeva 1983: 68). A work by Luce Irigaray (“And the One Doesn’t Stir Without the Other.” in: Signs. Vol. 7, 1981.), also emphasises the interconnection between motherhood and feminine subjectivity. In her case the motherdaughter relationship, within the confines of the patriarchy, is founded on rivalry and matricide, for femininity is negated in motherhood for the purpose of the function of motherhood. (cf. Rye: 2006) In order to differentiate motherhood as social institution and cultural construct from motherhood as a woman’s real experience, an important study by the feminist Adrienne Rich (Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, 1976.) has provided us with a plausible method. In this work, she differentiates between a) motherhood as an institution renowned volume Crna maslina (Black Olive) (1955) as well as Ropstvo (Slavery) (1957), Pusti da otpočinem (Let Me Rest) (1958) and Ti i nikad (You and Never) (1959) affirmed her as a love poet. A tragic sense of life prevails in Ukleti dažd (The Cursed Rain) (1969.), as well as darker moods and resignation. She also wrote drama (Maria i mornar) (Marija and the Sailor), (1960); (Magareći otok), (Donkey Island) (1979). Her children’s books are replete with motifs from the plant and animal world and humour She also published a book of sketches, fables and satire Pod muškim kišobranom (Under a Male Umbrella) (1987), and a book of meditations on pain, love and poetry Krv svjedoka (The Blood of a Witness) (1988.), autobiography Noć za pakost: moj život u 40 vreća (A Night for Mischief: My Life in 40 sacks) (2001). She translated from Slovenian, Bulgarian, French and German; especially esteemed are her translations of poems by J. W. Goethe, H. Heine i R. M. Rilke. She is the most translated Croatian women poet and her work is one of the most important chapters of Croatian poetry. (Hrvatska enciklopedija, http://www.enciklopedija.hr/Natuknica.aspx?ID=46830 ). All quotes in the article have been translated by Krešimir Vunić.

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(which is determined by the dominant discourse) and b) motherhood as a practice (which presents itself as the individual experience of every woman). A. Rich, at the very beginning of this book emphasises that this based on the real research of men and women, as well as on her own experience, when motherhood itself is questioned (Rich 1995: 9 and 13). From what has been mentioned prior it is evident that motherhood is a phenomenon which can be analysed from the vantage point of an intercultural literary theory which, according to Ortrud Gutjahr (2002, in: Hofmann 2013:14) applies a procedural and dialogical concept of culture which is based on the possibility that a society can itself be a topic and that the contextual changes of meaning and people can be investigated. Boundaries are relaxed and then set up anew here, as well as the relations of power, violence and gender. The concept of interculturality takes the passage from one boundary into another into consideration: neither the external nor the internal constitutes a boundary here, but that which is in between, inter. Because of this, what we are dealing with here are the means of the function of the determination of identity which support, transform or reactivate the processes of culturation. (Hofmann 2013:14) MOTHERHOOD – THE FRAMEWORK OF A “HYBRID” IDENTITY This work will investigate the thematic range of motherhood in autobiographical texts of V. Parun and the ways in which a denied motherhood (as the result of trauma originating in a relationship with a man) became one of the foundations in the construction of her identity. In opposition to what was unlived, V. Parun also has the lived motherhood of her own mother as a theme (in the real circumstances in a patriarchal community on a Dalmatian island in the first decades of the 20th Century), yet removes it from the culturally accepted myths of motherhood which, on the one hand, idealise it, and, on the other, make it a taboo, yet also placing it in the aforementioned construct of the self.3 By doing so, the author develops a form of self-expression within the framework of a specifically “hybrid” identity which challenges the possibilities of a single meaning (Hofmann 2013:15), yet here, in the domain of the categories of gender roles, the construction of one’s self as woman – (non)mother. The dominant currents in cultural, psychoanalytical and philosophical studies all insist that the construction of identity is achieved through difference, i.e. through the process of differentiation and this can be found in the autobiographical texts of Vesna Parun, especially when motherhood is her theme. Identity is constructed only via the relationship to the Other, via 3 F. Eigler, having referred to James Olney’s Metaphors of Self (1972.), singled out its author’s conclusion that all autobiographies focus on one subject and one motive behind all human endeavour in any field. This is the experience of being a human being, in fact. (cit.: Eigler 2002) Lipar / Journal for Literature, Language, Art and Culture / Year XVIII / Volume 64

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that which the identity is lacking, that which is a constituent externality (Hall 2001: 219, op. cit. Zlatar Violić 2009:38). What one is dealing with here is an element which is often expressed as an autobiographical narrator’s experience of difference, which is definitely connected to Vesna Parun’s corpus of poetry, especially in her cycle Psalmi nerotkinje (Psalms of a childless women),4 inter alia). Autobiography is taken here as an ontological genre, as its theme (an author’s own life) is a re-questioning of personal truths which appear ambivalent: as essential truth and as the fiction of an author-persona. (Oraić Tolić 1996: 113) In the research work thus far into the representations of motherhood and the practice of motherhood in the more recent Croatian literature5 the results have shown that there are four major models of the formation of the identity of female characters: motherhood represent as a woman’s mythic power, conflicting motherhood, motherhood as unfulfilled desire and socially exploited motherhood.6 The concept behind such representations is connected to the representation which is not pictorial, merely visual, not an “icon”, but an idea, a symbol as well as a signal. It points toward a defined system of values which exist before the representation itself. The representation signifies the image but also its means and modes of manifestation. (Pageaux 2009:130) It is for this reason that research into the literary representations of motherhood has its place in the analysis of the constructs of national and cultural identities and stereotypes (cf. Leerssen 2009:100). The aspect of the privation of motherhood (physical infertility), which was something which marked Vesna Parun’s real life experience, is connected to her autobiographical texts, yet is not synonymous with the cultural representations of marital infertility in which the blame is put on the wife in a patriarchal society (which was a topic of earlier researches7). Although it was an unlived experience, mother is multifariously represented in both Vesna Parun’s poetry and prose. On its own, simply because her choice of this theme is paradoxical, the subversive potential of this is quite high: barriers can clearly be broken by this (man – woman, reproductive potency-impotence, mother – non-mother, body – soul, and numerous others). The corpus of texts by Vesna Parun which will inform this work can be generally characterised as autobiographical (the essays: Pod muškim kišobranom (Under a Male Umbrella), 1986, Poljubac života (The Kiss of Life), 1993.), and, first of all, those which are dominantly autobiography 4 Tin Lemac has researched the theme of motherhood in Vesna Parun’s poetry (2013), focusing on her cycle „Psalmi nerotkinje” in the volume Ti i nikad. Lemac has concluded that Parun’s stance toward motherhood here is an anti-feminist one and that the overall matrix which informs her conceptual framework is ideologically related to that of the reproductive-heterosexual. (2013:41) 5 Cf. Kuvač-Levačić 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015. 6 A paper presented by K.K.L. at the 6th Croatian Congress of Slavistics (2014) titled Motherhood and the Identities of the Modern Female Characters of Croatian Literature (from the end of the 19th to the first half of the 20th Century). 7 Cif. Kuvač-Levačić 2013.

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(Noć za pakost. Moj život u 40 vreća), an autobiography written between 1999 and 2001). Both of these aforementioned texts were included in this volume, published in 2001. When necessary, mention will be made of Parun’s poems which she herself collected and published in her book Ja koja imam nevinije ruke (I Who have the more Innocent Hands) (2009). Krv svjedoka (1988.) is also autobiographical in nature, and in the epilogue to her book Začarana čarobnica (The Enchanted Sorceress) (1993.) she included an autobiographical text written in the third person “Vesna Parun o Vesni Parun” (“Vesna Parun on Vesna Parun”). (Brešić 1997:1260). As it is obvious that there are no set and singular formal characteristics of autobiography, as A. Zlatar Violić stated, and that different means of expression can be easily included (narrative and non-narrative means, prose and verse, the literary and the non-literary), literary scholars have long since ceased to uncover the basic characteristics by which autobiography can be explicitly defined. Since post-structuralism, the concept of autobiography has been used in a wider sense, so that different forms can now be subsumed under the concept of autobiographical discourse. Rather than referring to autobiography as a genre, contemporary scholars make use of terms such as the autobiographical act (E. Bruss), the autobiographical figure (De Man), the autobiographical contract (Lejeune) and autobiographical activity (A. Fleishmann) (Zlatar Violić 2009: 37). According to M. Velčić as well, what characterises autobiographical discourse is that it can be included in all genres of speech and that it can be made manifest in all kinds of texts (Velčić 1991: 30). M. Medarić uses the term autobiographism, claiming that this is found in works in which the literary procedure is represented by the reflection of the genre of autobiography and that such works do not need to be perceived strictly as autobiographies. (1993: 46) SUBVERSIVE POTENTIAL OF MOTHERHOOD IN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL TEXTS OF VESNA PARUN In Noć za pakost (2001), two forms of describing motherhood are dominant: motherhood as a personal concept, occasionally idealised, inscribed into the ethnoscape of a community and especially contrasted to the socially verified concept. The second form is motherhood as the real experience of an island woman, the mother of the narrator of this autobiography, which is inseparable from the rules and customs of the patriarchal society in Dalmatia (the Croatian region along the Adriatic Sea) during 20th century.

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Motherhood as a personal concept, inscribed into the ethnoscape of a community Even on the first pages of the text Poljubac života (The Kiss of Life), which focuses on the author’s experiences in the post-war period (World War II) when she suffered from typhus while on work duty in Bosnia (ordered by the communist authorities), which she herself chose to do as she wanted to see the man she loved (although this love was not reciprocated) and which would mark the rest of her life (infertility being a result of an abortion), the author expresses her own identity by using the motif of motherhood. This personalised and idealised concept is made explicit in the trope of a mother’s love as being the strongest possible feeling toward a man, which links this to the iconic imagery of the Mother of God8: “Možda je imao pravo zamrziti me, prezreti moje majčinsko tjelohraniteljstvo i skrb.” (Parun 2001:19) (Perhaps he had the right to hate me, to despise my motherly nurture and care).

In her essay Noć za pakost, the author describes motherhood in the ethnos of the community at the moment of her birth in the year 1922 (by way of imagery that is very much a part of the Dalmatian (and Croatian) cultural landscape), while also using imagery suggestive of the profound cultural changes which were occurring in Dalmatia at the time). The term ethnoscape here is in accordance with Anthony Smith’s research (1999, in Oraić-Tolić 2014): a poetic landscape informed by tradition and a sense of the sacred, replete with memories of important moments and people from the history of a community. This is the symbolic construct of the homeland/community which, by its natural beauty and inscribed historical content, ensures the longevity and existence of a certain people. As a symbolic construct, according to Anthony Smith landscape/ethnoscape originates in two ways: by historicising nature and territorialising ethnic memory. This informed D. Oraić-Tolić’s (2014. et al.) research of Croatian literature, in which the focus was on landscape in the work of one of Croatia’s greatest modernist and most influential writers A. G. Matoš (1873.–1914.). Both procedures can be found in the work of V. Parun, but in the following way: the backdrop to motherhood in the ethnoscape is included in an allegory on the spread of communism and fascism in Europe. The image of the homeland as suffering mother is an image one often finds in the work of A. G. Matoš 9: 8 Joep Leerseen’s of the imageme will undergo a redefinition here, which he describes as the „imprint“ which lies at the basis of various concrete, individual actualisations which one can find in a text (Leerssen 2009: 110). This concept is related to the deep structure of natural stereotypes, which is characteristic of like Janus-like ambivalence and contradiction in the very nature of the imageme, and in this example it is applied to the stereotypical representation of motherhood in the concept of Christianity (which is what Julia Kristeva took into account in the essay which was quoted in this paper). 9 Cif. For eg. D. Oraić-Tolić, Što je Matoš rekao o ženama, Vijenac, 523, http://www.matica.hr/vijenac/523/%C5%A0to%20je%20Mato%C5%A1%20rekao%20o%20%C5%BEenama%3F / (5. 11.

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“Je li naslutila toliko zlo taktovima rumbe i charlestona zbunjena vila dalmatinska, koju su kroz stoljeća uzastopce i silovali i udarali, na glavu joj stavljali krunu i skidali je, tjerali je da plače i da prosi, da rađa i da porod svoj golim rukama pod trsove loze i pod grane maslina zakapa...” (Parun 2001: 63) (Could she have sensed the extent of this evil, this fairy of Dalmatia perturbed by the beats of the rumba and charleston, constantly raped and beaten through the centuries. A crown was placed on her head and she was stripped bare, forced to weep and beg, forced to give birth and bury her brood beneath the reeds and the olive trees with her bare hands…)

Motherhood is also an important element of the selfhood of the autobiographical narrator: “Tko sam ja? (...) Žena nerodilja, ali ne i žena nemajka.” (Parun 2001:149) (Who am I? (...) A barren women, but in no way a women and non-mother)

By separating the biological fact of motherhood and the idea of it, the author takes on a position which subverts commonly understood social and cultural concepts. This particularly comes to the fore in her text Pod muškim kišobranom (Under a Male Umbrella), in which the institution of motherhood is positioned among the sublime, openly proclaimed, yet betrayed social values: “Pjesnici koji se krivo zaklinju Poezijom, Rodoljubi Domovinom, ideolozi Idejom, majke Materinstvom, religije Bogom!” (Parun 2001:41) (Poets who falsely testify to poetry, false patriots who do the same to their country, ideologues who betray the Idea, mothers who do such to motherhood, religions which have falsified God!)

In her own personal concept of motherhood the author also includes elements of the animal imagery connected to the communal ethnoscape we mentioned earlier: “Taj hrbat otoka ovalan, ispupčen, nisu li to leđa goleme morske medvjedice, isplivale na površinu zbog zraka i ondje se skamenile? (...) Morska medvjedica nije me, doduše, rodila – ali bila mi je dadiljom možda.” (Parun 2001: 221) (This island ridge oval and prominent, isn’t this the back of a giant mother monk seal, lying on the beach for air in perfect quietude?)

Vesna Parun’s concept of motherhood, thus, not only negates the biological connection to the fact of giving birth, but also the very concept of the human, which only confirms the thesis that the traditional boundaries of this construct have been overcome here; the infertile mother can be a mother, the mother of man can be an animal and this includes no-living nature, such as landscape. 2015.) In this context it is important to mention the most popular Matoš’s poem “1909.” which depicts the homeland through the allegory of the suffering mother. Lipar / Journal for Literature, Language, Art and Culture / Year XVIII / Volume 64

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Motherhood as the real experience of an island woman The second actualisation of the concept of motherhood, also strongly inscribed in the work of Vesna Parun, are the real experiences of her own mother, which had emphatically helped to mould her identity as a writer.10 In her text Pod muškim kišobranom (Under a Male Umbrella), the writer narrates the event of her own birth as if were a revolt against her father, defining herself by her difference from her mother, whose submissiveness and subservience is described by use of paradox and hyperbole: “Otac, neraspoložen da se po oštru kamenju, u mraku uzvere čak do u selo po babicu Voku, naredio je majci neka se strpi – za miloga Boga – bar do svanuća. Majka, strpljiva i predana kakva je bila, zacijelo bi mu bila ispunila i taj nemogući supružanski prohtjev. Ali ja sam bila bezobzirna. I to je bio moj prvi nijemi sukob sa onim koji mi je još u majčinoj utrobi namijenio ime SUVIŠNA.” (Parun 2001:37) (Father, unwilling to traverse over sharp stones in the dark to seek aunty Voka, ordered mother to be patient – for God’s sake – until dawn. Mother, patient and dedicated as she was, certainly would have also fulfilled this impossible spousal command. Yet I was reckless. And this was my first mute conflict against him who had given me the name of the SUPERFLUOUS even while I was in my mother’s womb)

An island woman’s experience of motherhood is an experience of physical and emotional abuse without resistance: “Majka, patnica i žrtva onih preostalih, upela se svom snagom da preživi u njihovoj blizini da bi im pomagala, vjerujući da dobro na kraju ipak pobjeđuje. Ali dobro nije pobijedilo. (...) Otrijeznili su je udarci, modrice, zlostavljanja i sudske parnice u kojima sam bila svjedokinja na njezinoj manjinskoj i od SUP-a nezaštićenoj strani.” (Parun 2001:74) (Mother, a victim suffering for others, gathered all her strength so she could survive living among them and help them, holding on to the belief that good would prevail in the end. Yet good did prevail. (...) She was sobered by beatings, bruises, abuse and those legal actions during which I was her witness, in a minority and without the support of the authorities, on her behalf)

And yet, what connects the two different actualisations of motherhood (the first is on the level of the idea, occasionally idealised, and the second is on the level of a description of the experience of an island woman), is the experience which definitely marked this narrator’s life and which is inseparable from it and ambivalent. What this is actually alluding to is the motif of the abortion of a child whose father was the man to whom the author had dedicated the best known poem in her entire opus 10 She explored the theme of motherhood in her prose poem Hrvatska kraljica (The Croatian Queen) from 1999.

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of poetry – Ti koja imaš nevinije ruke. In the final pages of her book Noć za pakost. Moj život u 40 vreća, the physical impossibility of the act of giving birth is disclosed as a trauma which the protagonist of this autobiography had been carrying inside her entire life: which illuminated not only the models of how the model of motherhood were to be described here, but also important portions of her poetry written in an intimate tone: “U kobnoj – i po svijet i po mene – noći između 21-og i 22-og lipnja 1941., na trećem katu kuće u Ilici broj 100, u Zagrebu, u ordinaciji liječnika R. H., Židova, uz dim lomača Inkvizicije endehazijske ja se zauvijek oprostih s materinstvom. Boljanin P. B., čijom robinjom bijah od svoje šesnaeste pa do trideset i treće godine, bio je otac. Pjesma „Ti koja imaš nevinije ruke“? Najtragičnija istina mog života, s naslovom što neoprostiva je samooptužba. Starokršćanska somnabulna žrtva.” (Parun 2001:339) (During that perilous night – for the world and for me – between the 21st and 22nd of June 1941, on the third floor of a house at 100 Ilica Street in Zagreb, in the office of doctor R.H, a Jew, amid the smoke rising from the pyres of the NDH inquisition, I gave my farewell to motherhood forever. P.B, from Bol, to whom I had been a slave from my sixteenth until my thirtieth year, was the father. The poem „Ti koja imaš nevinije ruke“? The most tragic truth of my life, a title which is my most unforgivable self-accusation. An ancient- Christian somnambulist victim.)

Bodily and emotional trauma is what links her to the experience of her mother. In her commentary to the poem cited here, and in other sections of her work, the author states: “Napisano potkraj ljeta 1953., po izlasku s pshihijatrije Rebro gdje sam pet mjeseci liječena od pokušaja suicida. Nije teško odgonetnuti razlog.” (Parun 2009:49) (Written toward the end of Summer 1953., after discharge from the Rebro psychiatric hospital after five months of treatment for a suicide attempt. The reason why is not difficult to uncover).

In the same volume of selected works, which the author chose herself and for which she wrote the commentary, under the title of the poem Ti koja imaš nevinije ruke, in the commentary for her Ropstvo volume (1957), the physical and emotional trauma of abortion is described in greater detail. The author uses a procedure of citation and connects it to the story of Abelard and Eloise, while constructing her gender identity as if it were originally male: “U srednjem vijeku bila sam ne Eloisa, nego Abelard. Svećenik. Redovnik. Francuz. Zbog grijeha bludnoga kastriran. To jest, zbog grijeha s Eloisom, iz kojega im se rodio sinak.” (Parun 2009:54) (In the Middle-Ages I was not Eloise, but Abelard. A priest. A monk. A Frenchman. I was castrated for my sin. In truth, for my sin with Eloise, from which came our son.) Lipar / Journal for Literature, Language, Art and Culture / Year XVIII / Volume 64

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After this she describes herself as the reincarnation of Abelard in the body of a woman poet: “I Abelard, pjesnik, morao je stvoriti najgoru i najpoželjniju prigodu da bi se rodio ponovo, ali ovaj put kao pjesnikinja, žena, na jednom barbarskom mačo-arhipelagu Bogu iza leđa (...)” (Parun 2009:54) (And Abelard, a poet, was compelled to create the worst and most desired circumstance so that he be born again, but this time as a poetess, a woman, on a barbaric macho-archipelago far from the eyes of God.)

She constructs the man, because of whom she suffered the physical and emotional trauma of abortion, as Pierre, the extra-marital son of Eloise and Abelard, who seeks vengeance upon his father, who now inhabits a woman’s body, the body of a poetess: “A sin ono dvoje ljubavnika (...) svoju je novu karmu odabrao nadomak mojoj karmi, na susjednome otoku. Na nedragome meni, a od Tina preljubljenom Braču. Ime očevo uzevši, Petar, dao je da ga odgoje majstori za mušku djecu, dominikanci, pa da onda odjedri k meni, morskoj nimfi, jednoga ljeta (1938.) na otok Vis (...) I kao što se Edip osvećivao ocu, i taj se mali Pierre osvećivao svojemu. To jest, meni. I to krvavo. Čupana mi je ženska utroba, lomljeni živci, šibana i bičevana psiha.“ (...) (Parun 2009:54-55) (And the son of these two lovers (...) chose a karma close to my own, on a neighbouring island. On an island I do not hold dear, the island of Brač which Tin Ujević loved so dearly. Having taken the name of my father, Petar, he allowed himself to be raised by those who were masters over the male children, the Dominicans, and then to set sail to me, a sea nymph, during a Summer (1938) on the island of Vis (...) and as Oedipus sought vengeance upon his father, so would Pierre seek vengeance upon his own. His womb had been plucked, his nerves wrecked and his psyche put to the whip.)

The author connects Abelard’s castration to the castration of her own body, which was manifested by her infertility which was the result of an abortion. THE INTIMATE REALM OF THE PUBLIC (FEMAL WRITER) AUTOBIOGRAPHY (CONCLUSIONS) Vesna Parun’s autobiographical discourse, when researched via the thematic complex of motherhood, displays definite ties to Ricoeur’s concept of man as both subject of knowledge and subject of speech, but with the theoretical experience of identity as the identity of the second agent of the ethical subject, free of any pragmatic task, as stated by A. Zlatar Violić (commenting on such works by Ricoeur as Soi-même comme un autre (1990), La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli (2000) i Parcours de la reconnaissance (2004)). Thus, seen from this perspective, autobiographical writing is an 214

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applied practice by the ethical subject which is focused on self-analysis and, simultaneously, by way of such writing, enters the net of – responsibly set – social relations. (Zlatar Violić 2009: 42) The way in which the theme of motherhood is inscribed into Vesna Parun’s autobiographical discourse confirms a partial adherence to the concept of so-called woman’s writing (as it was understood in Croatia in the 1980’s, and which is the matrix from which the majority of texts under analysis here have been selected) which is marked by a subversive expression against power and violence, a search for the authentic experience of one’s own body and the voice of nature within oneself. Such expressions evince a poetic intensity in its openness to the Other and to others (Jakobović 1983: 5). In Vesna Parun’s work this primarily deals with her relationship toward the otherness of her own mother, followed by the two men inscribed into the construct of her selfhood, they being her father and her lover respectively (P. B., Boljanin). It is important to note that the author does not create a public autobiography through the construct of the selfhood as one of the socially accepted poetic greats; rather it is the intimate realm which is given space and the private sphere is placed before the public one. The representations of motherhood in Vesna Parun’s autobiographical discourse are characterised by a distancing from stereotypical representations at all levels. On the one hand, one finds an idea of motherhood which is not connected either to the biological act of giving birth or even to the category of the human, and on the other, this idea is inscribed into the real experience of motherhood as the result of emotional and physical trauma which originated in a relationship with a man. Motherhood as an element of gender imagery in a communal ethnoscape is connected to the first concept, while the second (and the removal of its taboo) concerns physical infertility as the result of an abortion. In conclusion, both themes are characterised by an incredibly strong sense of engagement in both the intimate and social realms.

References Eigler 2002: F. Eigler, O statusu autobiografskog teksta, Zagreb: Kolo 12 (2), 173-190, Retrieved from http://www.matica.hr/kolo/289/O%20statusu%20 autobiografskog%20teksta/ (20. 11. 2017.) Hofmann 2008: M. Hofmann, Interkulturalnost, stranost, različitost, Zagreb: Jat, 1, 10-34. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/Korisnik/Downloads/jat_ prijelom_10_7_2013_10_34.pdf (20. 11. 2017.) Jakobović 1983: S. Jakobović, S., Upit(a)nost ženskoga pisma, Zagreb: Republika 11/12, 4-6. Kristeva 1983: J. Kristeva, Heretika ljubavi, Zagreb: Republika 11/12 :67-84. Kuvač-Levačić 2015: K. Kuvač-Levačić, Tematika majčinstva unutar ženskog pisma Ivane Brlić Mažuranić, in: B. Majhut, S. Narančić Kovač, S. Lovrić (Ed.), Šegrt Hlapić Lipar / Journal for Literature, Language, Art and Culture / Year XVIII / Volume 64

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kao konstitutivni element karakterizacije modernih ženskih likova. Takva tematika širi perspektive istraživanja književnih tekstova prema kulturnoantropološkom okviru unutar kojega se razmatra problematika identiteta žene i čimbenika koji ga biološki i društveno determiniraju. Istraživanja literarnih reprezentacija majčinstva otkrivaju modele konstruiranja nacionalnih i kulturalnih identiteta i stereotipa. Iako hrvatska književnost 20. i 21. stoljeća donosi mnoštvo tekstova u kojima se reprezentira stvarna praksa majčinstva, izvan ideoloških i patrijarhalnih modela, kojom se daje glas stvarnom ženskom iskustvu, tjelesnom, emocionalnom i duhovnom, koje je isprepleteno upravo u iskustvu majčinstva, znanstvena istraživanja ove teme još uvijek su sporadična. Cilj ovoga rada je otkriti reprezentacije majčinstva u autobiografskom diskursu jedne od najvećih hrvatskih spisateljica 20. st., Vesne Parun. Središte istraživanja je na temi neispunjenog majčinstva, budući da njezini tekstovi (poetski i prozni podjednako), ovu temu često spominju i literarno obrađuju. Stoga se postavlja pitanje kako je neispunjeno majčinstvo utjecalo na narativne konstrukte autorice kao i na njezin konstrukt identiteta ispisan u autobiografskim tekstovima. Istražuje se kako V. Parun majčinstvo u cjelini obrađuje kao jednu od svojih glavnih tematskih preokupacija (pri čemu je važno napomenuti da se neispunjeno majčinstvo može pronaći i u djelima drugih hrvatskih književnica (čak i književnika, npr. M. Begovića) koje su joj prethodile (npr. Mila Miholjević), a isto vrijedi i za one koje stvaraju nakon nje (npr. J. Matanović), pa je dakle riječ o temi koja u Paruninu stvaralaštvu ne predstavlja izuzetak, nego uključenost u prepoznatu (a nedovoljno istraženu) tematsku paradigmu hrvatske književnosti. Ovo istraživanje pokazuje kako tematika majčinstva u autobiografskim tekstovima Vesne Parun ostvaruje subverzivni potencijal s obzirom na tradicionalne koncepte u kojima se identitet žene determinira isključivo identitetom majke. Majčinstvo se kod V. Parun upisuje najprije kao osobni koncept povezan s iskustvom neuzvraćene ljubavi i fizičke neplodnosti kao posljedice abortusa (Poljubac života), zatim upisan u etnolik Dalmacije (u eseju Noć za pakost) između dvaju svjetskih ratova, te majčinstvo kao stvarno iskustvo otočke žene, počevši od njezine majke pa sve do nje same, u prvoj polovici 20. st. (Pod muškim kišobranom). Ono što ih obje povezuje je tjelesna i emocionalna trauma u odnosu s muškarcem, iz koje je kod autobiografskog subjekta V. Parun proistekla nemogućnost majčinstva upisana u njezinu antologijsku pjesmu Ti koja imaš nevinije ruke. Ključne riječi: majčinstvo, autobiografski diskurs, kulturalne i literarne prakse, hrvatska književnost, Vesna Parun Примљен: 02. новембра 2017. Прихваћен за штампу новембра 2017.

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