/ 1968
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STANLEY KUBRICK’S CYNICAL DIALECTICS OF ENLIGHTENMENT

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This paper analyses deceiving and self-deceiving aspects of society in Stanley Kubrick’s films, which illustrate the problems of enlightenment from the perspective of critical theory and poststructuralism. A Space Odyssey registers the source of Nietzschean power relations in human nature. A violent humanity is the foundation of the one-dimensional Cold War society and welfare state, where misinforming the communists or its own population is justified by a “higher cause”. Political interests deliver their own version of the truth. Pseudo-individuality and conformity are present not just on this very planet, but also among astronauts in space. The film also shows a countercultural opposition, and the critique of it is further developed in A Clockwork Orange. Kubrick does not accept a classic Marcusean view of the second dimension. The Nietzschean nature forms both language and action of youth subcultures, and the difference between the good and the evil is rhetorically blurred. Aggressive hero becomes the victim of Foucauldian prison discipline, and for Kubrick its consequence is the loss of free will to make moral decisions. By prohibiting lying and violence, i.e. by “normalizing”, good behaviour stops being an action of free will. Also, cruelty of the main character becomes a public virtue (Horkheimer and Adorno’s totalitarianism), and becomes useful to the social elites. Calculative and sadistic aspects of enlightenment are brought in collision, with no clear resolutions, forming life in the risky and reflexive modernity. Kubrick’s dialectics of enlightenment caries a cynical implication that lies and violence are both enemies and constituents of enlightenment.

/ 1968
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WHAT APPEARS IS NOT WHAT IS: JEANETTE WINTERSON’S ART & LIES AND THE PASSION

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It would be no mistake to state that among the commonest routes contemporary literature in English takes is one of asserting history’s and reality’s fictionality and dissolving the boundary between real and imaginary. The route is certainly common enough in the work of the controversial British author Jeanette Winterson, whose prose is a never-ending interplay between fact and fiction, reality and fantasy. Winterson’s critically neglected Art & Lies (1995) epitomises the disintegration of clear-cut lines between (auto)biography, history and fiction through a set of binaries like art/life, art/lie, or fact/fiction, transforming our ideas of truth and lie. Similar concerns inform The Passion (1987), which is more universally praised. The parallels between the two works suggest a continuum in Winterson’s literary explorations of the nature of truth and reality, the status of fiction and historical record, and the usefulness of binaries and labels. This paper aims at exploring how these polyphonic prose pieces rebel against single points of view, redefine the notions of history as fact and storytelling as fabrication, and exhibit a preference for the truth of the imagination and unofficial perspectives.

/ 1968
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THE LIES OF LIBERALISM IN IAN MCEWAN’S NOVELS

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The paper locates moments of exposure of ideological lies of liberalism on a corpus of three novels by Ian McEwan (Cement Garden, Black Dogs and Saturday). In spite of Ian McEwan’s reputation as a liberal intellectual, the paper demonstrates that the novels which are often read as homage to liberalism can in fact be interpreted as a critique of liberalism. In McEwan’s novels one can find moments of fierce critique of the nuclear family as the ideological bedrock of liberalism. Moreover, the novels also establish close links between liberalism and fascism and point to the existence of what Eco called “ur-fascism” in Western Civilization. Also, the paper sheds some light on the paradoxical feeling of a chronic lack of freedom in liberal societies and ends by giving examples of McEwan’s pessimistic attitude towards the future of the liberal society or the modern Western civilization encumbered by the historical baggage of fascism as well as the structural inability to overcome it within the bounds of liberal ideology.

/ 1968
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(DE)FALSIFICATION OF SCOTTISH HISTORY IN JOHN MCGRATH’S THE CHEVIOT, THE STAG AND THE BLACK, BLACK OIL

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McGrath’s purpose in staging the political play based on Scottish history was primarily to expose and de-falsify the destructive clearance pattern that had remorselessly been repeated in the last three centuries, but was officially depicted as progressive and developmental for the Scottish region. Although the “brutal” methods of the Highland clearances from the eighteenth and nineteenth century had definitely remained in the past, McGrath posed an important question of whether the phenomenon of clearances had actually been dispensed with in the twentieth century. The theoretical framework of the paper relies on the acutely relevant critical insights of Rich, Dawson, Farber, Brown, Innes, as well as McGrath himself.

/ 1968
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TRUE LIES OF MARIO VARGAS LLOSA

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Throughout his literary career, the Peruvian Nobel laureate, Mario Vargas Llosa, has almost constantly dealt with the problem of lies, in different ways. In his eighteen novels, numerous essays and several theatre plays, we can recognize the motif of various forms of lies – mainly expressed through the hypocrisy of the society, military and the clergy – so we can safely say that lies are one of the key themes of narrative and essayistic works of Mario Vargas Llosa. From his point of view, lies are not only part of everyday life, vessels of every society and every subject of fiction, but they are also an integral part of each individual, as well as of life itself. In this paper we have tried to research all the aspects of his interest in the topic – from his childhood to the electoral period in Peru (1990), described in Fish in Water (El pez en el agua, 1993) and his latest novel Five corners (Cinco esquinas, 2016). We have paid special attention to Mario Vargas Llosa’s theoretical views regarding literature and lies, expressed in his various essays: True Lies (Las mentiras verdaderas, 1980), The Art of Lying (El arte de mentir, 1984), The Truth About Lies (La verdad de las mentiras, 1990), The Temptation of the Impossible (La tentación de lo imposible, 2004), as well as his lectures after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature (2010).

/ 1968
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WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME – LIE AND TRAUMA IN KRISTIAN NOVAK’S ČRNA MATI ZEMLA

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The paper focuses on the concept of lies and lying as an auto therapeutic act, as represented in Kristian Novak’s novel Črna mati zemla. Novak illustrates the complexity of the philosophical and literary concept of truth (and lie) by means of a heterogeneous narrative structure. The novel consist of five non-chronologically arranged chapters which deal with different versions of truth, or rather, which point to the fact that the truth about the protagonist’s life changes depending on who perceives and interprets it, and when. The elaborate relationship between the truth and lie is additionally complicated by the author’s play with different genres or forms of narrative, which includes the representation of scientific research, fictional representation of the protagonist’s adult life and an autobiographical story of the protagonist’s childhood. Lying is simultaneously represented as a creative and a destructive act because inventing stories is the very basis of literary creativity (both Novak and his literary protagonist are writers, which establishes a metatextual relationship between the novel as a fictional creation and the reality) and it helps the protagonist cope with the trauma of his father’s death. However, at the same time, lying and believing in imaginary people and situations serve to psychologically destabilize the protagonist, both as a boy and as an adult.

/ 1968
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LIE, DECEPTION, PHILOSOPHY OF ETHICS AND THE NARRATIVE NETWORK OF THE COMFORTS OF SATURDAYS BY ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

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From an angle of critical sociolinguistic analysis, a methodology of narrative networks is applied in order to argue for a relative interpretation of the narrative in a piece of detective fiction, The Comforts of Saturdays by Alexander McCall Smith. Some of the central narrative themes of the novel, lie and deception, forgiveness and penance, are interpreted within the theoretical and methodological framework which postulates that a text cannot be understood in isolation, in a social vacuum. The concept of narrative network, in which the text itself is but a single “knot” while the rest of the network is made up of a wide range of socio-historical factors, accompanying texts (interviews with the author, publisher advertisements, etc.), attitudes and interpretations of different types of reading audiences as well as the act of reading itself, allows us to better understand the relative and variable meanings of the plot and the moral directive force it proposes, opening up new spaces for a more complex, multi-layered understanding of the narrative fabric in its entirety.

/ 1968
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THOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST

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First, the paper tries to establish a meaning of the concept of falsehood and the deriving notions. There are references to understanding of falsehood in Christianity as the foundation of the European civilization i.e. of the modern and contemporary philosophy. And while Christianity makes a clear cut distinction between falsehood and truthfulness, philosophy renders this distinction relative and meaningless (Schopenhauer). Further on, the paper portrays a relationship between Manuel Komnenos and Stefan Nemanja as given in the texts of Constantine Manasses and Eustace of Salonika. Both of them celebrate Manuel up to a point where they compare him with God. On the other hand, Nemanja is attributed epithets related to Satan. Contrary to that, when writing his father’s biography, Stefan the First Crowned portrays the Emperor Manuel in good light. The consequences of the Emperor’s conquests soon disappear when the Empire ceases to exist, while the Grand Prince’s feats – the territorial expansion, winning independence and founding Hilandar remain. In the end, Nemanja becomes a saint, while Manuel does not. The final conclusion is that a falsehood uttered by the powerful and dominant does not last forever.

/ 1968
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ANALYSIS OF BUDGET EXPENSES FOR FINANCING OF CULTURE IN THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA

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Establishment of a system for monitoring of the execution of budgetary expenses allocated to culture as a segment of executive rule is a basic form of support to its development in the Republic of Serbia. Inadequacy of the present accounting system is caused by procedures and legal restrictions which complicate and fail to stimulate development of the cultural sector. Focusing on the budget as a fundamental financial institute we will discuss to which degree the cultural needs can be satisfied.

/ 1968
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THE ROLE OF ARTS AND HISTORY IN THE REPRESENTATION OF HOLOCAUST

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Following the famous Adorno’s sentence: ˮWriting poetry after Auschwitz is barbaricˮ, we can ask ourselves if representing holocaust in art is ethical, and if so, what is the proper way of doing it? The Holocaust discourse has motivated and moved many artists and critiques to consider and discuss open questions of holocaust representation. Who has the right to try and represent the holocaust? How should we represent the holocaust and how can we deal with the question of responsibility in a postwar world? Poetry, ritual, music, film, photography, art in general, help us to remember, remind those not yet born that they have to feel suffering they were lucky to avoid, not only as a tribute to the victims, but to stay human. In Auschwitz, culture, science, art and progress became monstrous pictures in the mirror of human existence. A question was raised and constantly repeated after Auschwitz: ˮIs Auschwitz the end – the peak of our culture or a tipping point that we still do not understand? Is it possible for art to express the truth about Auschwitz?ˮ If holocaust represents a historic turning point for the application of extreme violence of mass killing, then this turning point also presents completely new challenges to individual remembrance and collective memory.