Summary
The article analyses multilingual and multicultural diversity in the narrative prose of the Croatian writer Nedjeljko Fabrio. Set in the borderlands of Dalmatia and Kvarner, Fabrio’s novels evoke the lives of people belonging to different ethnic and speech communities – Croats, Italians, Austrians, Serbs, Yugoslavs, or as yet to be defined individuals – from the beginning of the 19th c. until today. Staging ‘weak protagonists’ rather than ‘strong heroes’ and inclining to sociolects and dialects rather than to standard language, his novels create a universe in which the characters’ individual experience counters Croatian national narratives. Fabrio’s narratives suggest that multilingual settings might either lead to conflicts between ethnic groups or to reconciliation between them. Ignoring social rules, individuals join other communities, moving up and down the class ladder. Such mésalliances result in complex genealogical trees out of which a hybrid culture emerges. Through allegorical transfer, the author signals the possibility of reconciliation between different conflicted communities.
Acknowledgment
My gratitude to Christine Richards Rostworowska and Ellen Elias-Bursać for their proofreading of this article.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Mapping Minority Multilingualism: Perspectives from Central and South-Eastern European Borderlands – Introduction to the Thematic Issue
- Section 1: The Sociolinguistics of Contact Zones in post-Habsburg South-Eastern Europe: Revisiting Historical Language Practices
- Im Spannungsfeld von Mehrsprachigkeit und Variantenvielfalt: Sprachpolitische Positionen zum Kroatischen im Burgenland am Beispiel Ignac Horvats
- Stumme Zeugen des Sprachgebrauchs: Friedhöfe und Volkszählungen als Indikatoren der Entwicklung des Slowenischen in Kärnten/Koroška
- Multilingualism in Sarajevo through the Lens of the Sephardim
- Section 2: Literary Multilingualism: (Re-)Imagining Habsburg Multilingual Borderlands
- Multilingualism in the Banat: A Focus on Intellectual Perspectives through the Analysis of Literary Works
- Imagining Borderlands and Remembering Multilingualism: The Adriatic Trilogy of Nedjeljko Fabrio
- Linguistic Diversity in East-Central European Minority Literature: The Post-Imperial Borderlands of Petar Milošević
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Mapping Minority Multilingualism: Perspectives from Central and South-Eastern European Borderlands – Introduction to the Thematic Issue
- Section 1: The Sociolinguistics of Contact Zones in post-Habsburg South-Eastern Europe: Revisiting Historical Language Practices
- Im Spannungsfeld von Mehrsprachigkeit und Variantenvielfalt: Sprachpolitische Positionen zum Kroatischen im Burgenland am Beispiel Ignac Horvats
- Stumme Zeugen des Sprachgebrauchs: Friedhöfe und Volkszählungen als Indikatoren der Entwicklung des Slowenischen in Kärnten/Koroška
- Multilingualism in Sarajevo through the Lens of the Sephardim
- Section 2: Literary Multilingualism: (Re-)Imagining Habsburg Multilingual Borderlands
- Multilingualism in the Banat: A Focus on Intellectual Perspectives through the Analysis of Literary Works
- Imagining Borderlands and Remembering Multilingualism: The Adriatic Trilogy of Nedjeljko Fabrio
- Linguistic Diversity in East-Central European Minority Literature: The Post-Imperial Borderlands of Petar Milošević