BEOGRAD IZMEĐU BERLINA I ISTORIJE U ROMANU OMAMA SLOBODANA VLADUŠIĆA

Abstract

ТIn our quest for post-war Belgrade in Slobodan Vladušić’s novel Omama, we also follow the footsteps of exiles who were forced to live and work in Berlin. This implies depicting Belgrade as a longed-for city, but also includes the consideration of historical facts as crucial points that significantly marked the experiences of the novel’s heroes and influenced their perception of the cities. Historical events constitute an essential part of the novel, revealing the cities and megalopolis ideology, but also the way of existence of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Through Miloš Verulović’s and Miloš Crnjanski’s binoculars, we see the complexity of and the correspondence between the two cities. History, which is shown in the novel through these heroes, shows how the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was shaped and altered as a state. With it, the awareness of history, as well as the awareness of everything experienced, is altered, and these changes significantly determine the lives of every individual. All this makes Belgrade a hero who lives his own life and exists on a completely equal basis with the other heroes of the novel. Therefore, Belgrade emerges as a big picture, as a scattered story of a city whose presence should be traced in all segments of life and existence of people and things (in the sense of eventness). The novel Omama testifies to this scatteredness but also to the comprehensiveness a city as such can have. Belgrade is outlined and present even in places where it is not expected. Deeply imprinted, it represents one of the codes for interpreting and understanding the reality of another city, exposing, among other things, the differences between Belgrade and Berlin.