IS THERE AN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPEAN POST-COLONIALISM? TOWARDS A UNIFIED THEORY OF (INTER) LITERARY DEPENDENCY

• Authors: Andrei Terian
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper interrogates the existence of the East-Central European post-colonialism, which has known considerable dissemination in the post-colonial studies of the last decade. There are two versions to this mentioned: (1) that of “remote” pot-colonialism, according to which East-Central Europe was the field of the colonization carried out by the great Western powers, which was seen in the construction and propagation of the so-called “East-European Orientalism”; and (2) that of post-colonialism “by annexation”, according to which East-Central Europe was colonised by the regional empires. The thesis of “remote” post-colonialism is rejected, as “Orientalization” is a process which was applied not only by Western Europe to Eastern Europe, but it can equally well be said to characterize the relations between countries situated only in the West or only in the East of Europe. Therefore, in its current configuration, such a thesis faces the anger of blending any conceptual distinction in a post-colonialism without shores. In order to prevent such conceptual indeterminacy, the thesis of post-colonialism “by annexation” is reformulated here within a theory of (inter) literary dependency, based on Wallerstein´s world systems analysis, Even-Zohar´s poly-system theory and Ďurišin´s theory of inter-literary process. The author´s study differentiates among 4 types of “dependent” literatures – minority, marginal, post-colonial and mimetic – which are used in the characterization of the position of East-Central European literatures over the past two centuries. The conclusion of this paper is that with the exception of the former Soviet Republics, post-colonialism represents a valid instrument in the analysis of East –Central European literatures only for several provinces in the Tsarist and Austro-Hungarian Empires.

Keywords

EN

POST-COLONIALISM; EAST EUROPE; WEST EUROPE; LITERATURE; INTER LITERARY DEPENDENCY

• Publisher: Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: World Literature Studies
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 4 (21)
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 21 – 36

Contributors

author

Andrei Terian

• Faculty of letters and arts, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, 5-7 Victoriei Blvd., 550024 Sibiu, Romania