Prešov as Peripheral Metropolis: Memory and Transcultural Identity

Session Submission Type: Panel

Affiliate Organization: Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center

Brief Description

The study of local histories and literatures challenge the longstanding scholarly neglect of smaller communities. The city of Prešov in Eastern Slovakia fostered a unique multicultural environment that shaped the region’s literary landscape across multiple languages and traditions under shifting imperial and ideological structures. This panel examines works in non-hegemonic (including ​​Jazyčije, and Romani) and hegemonic languages (including Czech, Slovak, and Russian, Ukrainian) by Prešov-based writers. Each paper examines a collection of texts at the nexus of identity and memory. The first panelist analyzes clergy texts on the collective memory of Slavic-Jewish coexistence. The second panelist explores an unpublished collection that provides insight into Prešov's memory before WWII. The third panelist studies a woman writer’s response to the Holocaust in Ukrainian. The last panelist examines the representation of Roma in Slovak literature by a Romani author. Taken together, these papers analyze the literary portrayal of inter-ethnic relations and the memory of multiculturalism and multilingualism. Ultimately, this panel argues that these linguistically hybrid literary voices, when juxtaposed with dominant narratives, provide a more nuanced and complex representation of memory and identity in border regions. This perspective reframes Prešov as a center in the periphery with unique trajectories that diverge from mainstream central narratives.

Sub Unit

• Literature: 20th Century

Chair

• Maria Silvestri, John and Helen Timo Foundation

Papers

• Jewish-Slavic Relations and Memory in the Literary Works of Clerics in Prešov - Adriana Amir, U of Prešov (Slovakia)

• The Mountains and the Forests: Andrii Karabelesh and the Politics of the Memory - Nicholas Kyle Kupensky, US Air Force Academy

• Holocaust Memory in the Prose of Yeva Biss - Ali Karakaya, Stanford U

• The Translingual Trajectory of Elena Lacková’s Memoir of Eastern Slovak Romani Life - Charles Sabatos, Yeditepe U (Turkey)

Discussant

• Patricia Ann Krafcik, Evergreen State College