Unwanted Neighbours, Unwanted Memory. Slovak–Roma Relations in Marek Vadas’s Six Strangers
| Autor: | Rafał Majerek |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | English<br />Polish |
| Rok vydání: | 2024 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Vol 2023, Iss 3, Pp 271-279 (2024) |
| Druh dokumentu: | article |
| ISSN: | 2084-3933 1897-3035 20843933 |
| DOI: | 10.4467/20843933ST.23.024.19443 |
| Popis: | In contemporary Slovakia, the Roma population are often seen as unwanted neighbours – a marginalised community, which experiences discrimination in various spheres of life. Anti-Romani sentiment, which constitutes the basis of negative attitudes to- ward the Roma minority, is hardly a new phenomenon; its manifestations, including specific acts of violence, can be found in the past. One of the examples of this kind of violence – the bloody pogrom in Pobedim carried out against the Romani populace by their Slovak neighbours in 1928 – offer a starting point for Marek Vadas’s Six Strangers (Šesť cudzincov, 2021). The historic site of the massacre, which is not commemorated in any form, has be- come a non-site of memory, while the tragic events have been pushed out of Slovak historical consciousness. Vadas’s prose is an attempt to bring them back to the collective conscious- ness and raise a number of important questions concerning the operation of cultural codes that permit and justify violence, the position and responsibility of the bystanders, as well as silence as a form of complicity in acts of aggression. In addition, it introduces a contemporary perspective, pointing to the persistence of mechanisms of discrimination, stigmatisation and exclusion of the Others, understood in many different ways, from the community. |
| Databáze: | Directory of Open Access Journals |
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