Meša Selimović: Unraveling Literary Traditions | Writers & Novelists Biography

Описание: Selimović researched the roots of his family and found out that he originated from the Drobnjaci tribe. Most members of the tribe consider themselves to be Serbs, while some are Montenegrins. It is claimed that a part of the family converted to Islam in order to protect their Christian brethren.
In his 1976 letter to the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts, Selimović stated for the historical record that he regarded himself as a Serb and belonging to the corpus of Serbian literature. Selimović was a full member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
In his autobiographical narration, Sjećanja , which Selimović complements with a memoir features thus transforming them into memoir prose, Selimović describes environment and milieu of his Bosnian Muslim origin. He is using discursive self-perception, and confronts and auto-reflect his identity as a complex and composite. Since perception of national belonging is distinctly subjective and simplistic, auto-perceptions are considered discursive creations, representamen, where memoirs overlap with socio-historical context. In doing so, and through lens of imagology, his autobiographical discourse becomes textual construct, or an imaginary discourse. Selimović's imaginarium turns his cultural self-reflection of his Bosnian Muslim identity into oddity, but he also describes it as a complex. His memories author then transpose on entire group, with a series of images.
Through the rhetoric of the image, Selimović confirms the cultural differences of Bosnian Muslims, and in that sense, his autobiographical narrative representamen confirms and strengthens the cultural and collective ethnic identity of Muslims. Selimović clearly define himself by stating, "I am a Muslim", and, "I am attached to my Bosnian and Muslim origins".
On the other hand, when Selimović brought forward the information about his Christian origin, some Bosnian Muslim critics attacked him, claiming that "they also knew about their origin", and asking him what is to be achieved with publicly expressing such information.
Critics consider this to be a rationalization of his choice to seek recognition as writer belonging to Serbian literary circle, by claiming that his paternal heritage was that of Orthodox Christian identity, alleging a conversion to Islam back in the 17th century for pragmatic reasons. The chapter Parents in his Sjećanje provoked reaction and criticism in his native country, and will be deemed a "constructed phantasm", or imaginary discourse. Critics contemplated about the reasons for this, as they called, "falsification of one's own family heritage", explaining it as a "vengeful act of defiance", and stating that Selimović's main conflicts trace back to his Muslim roots and his expression of disappointment in Bosnian environment and Bosnian Muslim milieu.
He was a communist and atheist.
According to his grandson Nikola, Selimović considered himself to be a Serbian writer of Muslim origin. He claimed that his mother received threats from Sarajevo-based organizations because "he did not have a Muslim name", which was the kind of situations which led Selimović to leave Sarajevo and settle in Belgrade in the first place.#MešaSelimović #biography #novelist #VIS #VISLITERATURE #Author #Literature