Memory and Myth

This article explores Troy as a multi-layered site of memory, narrative, and cultural heritage, within the context of a graduate-level heritage education course. Inspired by Pierre Nora’s concept of lieux de mémoire, the study interprets Troy not merely as an ancient city, but as a symbolic memory space reconstructed through myths, archives, silences, and reinterpretations. From Homeric epics to Hittite treaties, and from museum practice to digital culture, it argues for a deeper understanding of cultural identity through memory.

The master’s thesis “Mythopoetics in the early plays of Jordan Plevneš” comprises interpretations of the plays of the Macedonian writer Jordan Plevneš, which point out to the mytopoetics system formed in his early creative phase.

In the first part, the pre-apocalyptic predictions in the drama world of Plevneš are presented, as well as his dramaturgical efforts for politically engaged theatre and his poetics in the Balkan theatrical context.

The second part observes the five early plays of Jordan Plevneš: “Erigon”, “Mazedonische Zustände”, “Yu-Antithesis”, “R” and “Free Hunt”, with all of their mythopoetical elements and features. In the analysis of the dramatic pieces, special emphasis is given to the mythopoetic recognition of: the pathos, the double and the shadow, the animalism and the grotesque, the mirror principle, the Hamletian acting, the poetics of dream, the metaphors of birth /death and the symbolism of birds.

The third part consists of insights through which Plevneš’s dramatics, as a continuation of the European postmodernism, enables dialectical modelling of a new, our mythopoetic sphere.

Considering the timeless significance of the dramatic pieces of Jordan Plevneš with open opportunities for staged performances, we hope that this thesis is an appropriate contribution to the study of phenomenology of the new Macedonian dramatic literature.

The aim of this paper can be summarized as a symbolic analysis/re-reading of the “Myth Tamara”. That Mircae Eliade reads the myths through the symbols such as water, islands, mountains and trees, and shows how people transform/reshape their milieu through a symbolic signification will be the model for this paper. The myths are not only based on the childish imaginations of societies but also representation ways of their relations among themselves and with the world. The “Myth Tamara” has been told as the origin of the Island Aktamar which is the biggest island in the Lake Van in Gevaş, a township of Van province.  Despite the fact that the Myth is not a historical fact –at least it is impossible to prove-, it keeps its strength. The spaces do not only indicate physical environments but also lives charged with historical meanings. These lives, whether they are lived historically or based on social imaginations, detach those spaces from physical environment, and turn them into symbolic ones, into a world. This paper will interpret the “Myth Tamara” within this specific purpose, aiming to point out that with which symbolic significations the Myth can be put into relations, out of its features like island, lake or water. How can we explain the power of the Myth that seems on the surface as a tragic love story ending with the dead of the actors of this impossible love but gives the island its name? In this paper, the answer will be found out by looking closer to the meaning in depth. The structure of the Myth, which is wrapped with symbols, will be analyzed within this context.

Is the 1989-1991 frame of understanding still relevant? Did history already throw away the empty bottles of the 1991 celebrations? Et que reste-t-il de nos amours? With this series of articles and a comment, we set out to explore the ways in which European societies, and Europe itself, differ from what had been hoped and designed in the years 1989-1991. The contributions included put the emphasis on the different horizons of expectation and realms of experience that have their roots in 1989-1991, exploring whether this period continues to define individuals, societies and historical representations of Eastern Europe and beyond. We thus reflect on the relevance of the study of past expectations in order to understand what has happened during the last decades around us, promising new directions of research regarding social transformation, political rhetoric, collective memory and how historical and personal narratives match or contradict.