Law and Justice in Yugo-Slavian Literatures

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Davor Beganovic
• Subject Area: European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 530618096

The project examines texts of the literatures of the former and later Yugoslavia, in which critically presented legal cases or practices are the focus, with regard to the legal understanding conveyed in each case. It thus positions itself in the research paradigm of law and literature, which has so far hardly been applied to South Slavic literatures. The focus is on three historical phases of the first two thirds of the 20th century: in Bosnia, that during the so-called interregnum before the First World War was no longer part of the Ottoman Empire, but belonged to Austria-Hungary, the now implemented law of the Habsburg Empire continues to appear 'foreign' from the perspective of the Serbian national movement; Petar Kočić is examined as a paradigmatic author here. In his texts he alludes to an autochthonous law based on oral traditions. In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the interwar period, independence has indeed been gained, but in the socially critical works of the Marxist-minded Miroslav Krleža, the deficits of the legal system are clearly exhibited and the 'wrong', ruling one, is opposed to a just one which should be striven for. In the People's Republic of Yugoslavia, at last, the two authors Meša Selimović and Ivo Andrić set their novels revolving around legal questions in historically distant Bosnia at the time of the occupation by the Ottoman Empire, but use this to criticize aberrations of their contemporary legal system. In this respect, and that is the project's main thesis, there is a recurring pattern that can be traced across the historical changes within the period under investigation: prevailing (un)law or prevailing injustice is marked as 'foreign', which is countered by a 'one's own' understanding of law associated with justice. This is combined with the opposition of positive law as the applicable law on the one hand and natural law as a just system according to the ideal of a human nature on the other. Methodologically, the project follows, firstly, the combination of legal historical and narratological analysis of the selected literary texts practiced in American law and literature research. A second strand of research relevant to the project is reflections on the concept of the state of emergency as a point of transition in a situation in which the hitherto prevailing law has been suspended – discussions such as those held following Jacques Derrida's interpretation of Walter Benjamin's work "Critique of Violence". Thirdly, reflections from the fields of law, philosophy, literature and art on the relationship between natural law and positive law play a role which can be found in recent German interdisciplinary studies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants