RATOVI I GRADOVI U ROMANU MATIJASA ENARA „ZONA“

Abstract

The paper examines war discourse, globalization and intensification of violence in the 20th and 21st century, though the research of the whole issue is placed in the context of the archetypal experience of war and war chaos in literature known since Homer’s Iliad, on which Énard insists in this contemporary epic. Since the protagonist, the grandson of the Ustasha collaborator with Maks Luburić, took part in the war in the former Yugoslavia, the question of inheriting and perpetuating evil, hatred and destruction arises. The conflicts in the Balkans are being re-examined, especially the period from the First World War onwards, however, this is not the only chronotope of this novel. Through an imaginary journey across the Zone (a hallmark for the Mediterranean basin), through the stream of consciousness and the memory of Francis Servain Mirković, the narration maps the cities that at some point in the history were also a scene of conflicts and crises – Beirut, Baghdad, Barcelona, Algeria...