"The war in the Balkans that took place between 1991-1995 forms the context of this book. It has been variously viewed as ethnic strife, religious conflict, or civil war but seldom has it been described as a war against cities. Belgrade and Sarajevo offer a fascinating comparative case study, not only because the two cities belong to the same historical narrative of the breakdown of Yugoslavia, but because of the ways in which their various performances both complement and contradict one another. This book examines how performance and theatricality became modes of being and acting in the city, even strategies of physical and ethical survival; yet so often it is exile, both as marginalisation within and exodus from the city, that emerges as the defining consequence of living in Sarajevo or Belgrade in the 1990s. "--
The war in the Balkans that took place between 1991-1995 forms the context of this book. It has been variously viewed as ethnic strife, religious conflict, or civil war but seldom has it been described as a war against cities. Belgrade and Sarajevo offer a fascinating comparative case study, not only because the two cities belong to the same historical narrative of the breakdown of Yugoslavia, but because of the ways in which their various performances both complement and contradict one another. This book examines how performance and theatricality became modes of being and acting in the city, even strategies of physical and ethical survival; yet so often it is exile, both as marginalisation within and exodus from the city, that emerges as the defining consequence of living in Sarajevo or Belgrade in the 1990s.
|
|
|
vii | |
| Series Editors' Preface |
|
viii | |
| Acknowledgements |
|
ix | |
| Introduction: Cities of War, Cities of Exile |
|
1 | (16) |
|
Part I Belgrade: The City of Spectacle |
|
|
|
|
|
17 | (39) |
|
Theatricality ethics and the fear factor |
|
|
21 | (6) |
|
Angels in the City: rituals of political decontamination |
|
|
27 | (12) |
|
Interperformativity of place |
|
|
39 | (6) |
|
|
|
45 | (7) |
|
|
|
52 | (4) |
|
2 At the Confluence of Utopia and Seduction |
|
|
56 | (37) |
|
|
|
58 | (11) |
|
Three walks through Belgrade: from utopia to geopathology and back |
|
|
69 | (16) |
|
Belgrade rocks: seductive performatives |
|
|
85 | (8) |
|
3 Epilogue: Endemic Geopathologies |
|
|
93 | (22) |
|
|
|
94 | (4) |
|
`All my life I've been waiting for the chance to sing rock-and-roll in Belgrade' |
|
|
98 | (2) |
|
Building sites and demolitions |
|
|
100 | (15) |
|
Part II Sarajevo: Imaginaries and Embodiments |
|
|
|
4 Waiting for Godot: Sarajevo and its Interpretations |
|
|
115 | (14) |
|
|
|
116 | (8) |
|
`The most real place in the world' |
|
|
124 | (5) |
|
|
|
129 | (27) |
|
|
|
131 | (15) |
|
|
|
146 | (10) |
|
6 Theatricality versus Bare Life |
|
|
156 | (11) |
|
|
|
156 | (5) |
|
|
|
161 | (6) |
|
|
|
167 | (28) |
|
|
|
171 | (8) |
|
Postscript: the multicultural subconscious of the city |
|
|
179 | (16) |
|
|
|
|
8 In the Comfort of Non-Place |
|
|
195 | (18) |
|
|
|
202 | (4) |
|
|
|
206 | (5) |
|
|
|
211 | (2) |
| Notes |
|
213 | (6) |
| Works Cited |
|
219 | (5) |
| Index |
|
224 | |
SILVIJA JESTROVIC was born in Belgrade and lived in Toronto. She is Associate Professor at University of Warwick, UK. Her previous books include Theatre of Estrangement: Theory, Practice, Ideology (U of Toronto Press, 2006) and the edited collection (with Yana Meerzon) Performance, Exile, 'America' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). She has also written for stage and radio.
