Published research papers:
Kornelija Kuvač (2026), Simbolika apokalipse kao figuracija traume i dio antiratnog angažmana na primjerima hrvatskog romana XXI. stoljeća. U: Umjetnost riječi 70( 1): 1-26. Doi: 10.22210/ur.2025.070.1/01 (Link)
Drawing on contemporary interdisciplinary insights into the cultural coding of affectivity and trauma studies that examine its impact and meaning for the individual and the collective in literature (and art in general), this paper explores the procedures and strategies through which two twenty-first-century Croatian novelists connect narrative and metaphorical constructs of emotions with the formation of anti-war engagement in representations of war trauma in Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croatian literature has a rich tradition of anti-war literature, making it a recognizable novel genre. Although genre hybridization is characteristic of the twenty-first-century Croatian novel, it is still possible to examine the expression of traumatic emotions and the role of emotional constructs in anti-war engagement. The paper analyses two novels: The Living and the Dead (2002) by Josip Mlakić and Yom Kippur (2014) by Ivana Šojat Kuči, with regard to the role of apocalyptic discourse and the symbolism of the apocalypse in the representation of trauma and the formation of anti-war engagement. J. Berger’s, apocalyptic symbolism as a “post-traumatic figuration of the unbearableness of trauma that escapes the matrix of repression” (1999), together with Philip Smith’s study on the “apocalyptic narrative” (2005) constructed in public discourse on the eve of wars and sub- sequently mediated through culture to provide a narrative and cultural foundation (and thus an emotional justification) for the sacrifice of human lives, constitutes the second theoretical framework of this research. In addition to investigating the constructs of emotions that the authors associate with the traumatic experience of war, this paper examines the function of apocalyptic symbolism in the representation of trauma as a cultural trope. It also discusses whether the authors’ empathy and symbolism of war trauma are genuinely committed to specific sociopolitical goals, and on which levels such representations are connected to the aims of anti-war engagement. In both novels, trauma is represented as an individual and a transgenerational experience, closely tied to the cultural coding of geographical and historical space. It will be argued that both novels can be read as trauma novels according to M. Balaev’s theory. By employing apocalyptic symbolism and elements of horror, both texts deconstruct the apocalyptic narrative of public discourse by subverting its social presuppositions and the cultural legitimization of war within the framework of “great war narratives”.
Keywords: apocalypse, horror, anti-war Croatian novel, Josip Mlakić, Ivana Šojat Kuči, trauma novel, engagement
Kornelija Kuvač (2026), Intermedijalnost i naracija traume u romanima Daše Drndić Belladonna i April u Berlinu. U: SLAVIA časopis pro slovanskou filologii 95(1): 31-48. (Link)
Daša Drndić’s novels are emphatically intertextual, intermedial and interdiscursive, marked by documentary elements and preoccupied with the content of individual and collective trauma (the Holocaust, totalitarian systems). Part of this content belongs to the representation of emotions that arise from the confrontation of contemporary protagonists with the consequences of traumatic events from the collective European past. In selected novels (Belladonna, April u Berlinu [April in Berlin]), the textualization of emotions that accompany trauma is explored. The effects of intermedial interventions on the level of trauma narration are recognized and described, focusing on the interaction of photography and verbal expression in the literary medium, thereby examining the semiosis between the visual and the verbal in overcoming the ineffability of trauma. Using several examples from the novel, the types of storytelling with photographs are analyzed according to Ch. Schwanecke’s typology: narrative thematization of photographic elements in the story; iconic imitation of photography at the discursive level of the narrative; media combination defined as the inclusion of photographs in the text and punctual visual storytelling according to M. Šuvaković’s definition, as well as the role of discontinuity (spatial and temporal) in storytelling with photographs. The article reveals that the narrative of trauma is supported by photography, which can be viewed as a text and an intense sensory phenomenon and that such an intermedial intervention provides the writer with an appropriate stylistic foothold in the literary symbolization of social suffering and the reader’s confrontation with the historical trauma of the Holocaust, in overcoming the ineffability of trauma and in the artistic shaping of the author’s engagement and narrative empathy.
Keywords: Croatian literature, representation of trauma, intermedia narratology, affective narratology, Daša Drndić, photography, literary engagement, emotions, trauma novel, the Holocaust
Nebojša Lujanović (2026), After the War, War: Post-Conflict Society and Trauma in Josip Mlakić’s Izgaranje. U: SLAVIA časopis pro slovanskou filologii 95(3): 297-310.
The paper examines how war and the post-war period shape identity through the destruction of symbolic structures and the lasting disruption of individual security and community cohesion. In Josip Mlakić’s short story collection Izgaranje [Immolation], the characters remain tethered to traumatic experiences that hinder the reconstruction of identity, while repetitive rituals and senseless actions, arising from the fragmentation and disorientation following the conflict, lead to a state of persistent crisis without the possibility of forming new identity patterns. The theoretical framework is grounded in a constructivist understanding of identity, demonstrating how war produces homogenized patterns of exclusion, yet Mlakić’s stories simultaneously reveal their fragility through the transgression of boundaries and the destabilization of wartime narratives. In the post-conflict context, identity remains marked by trauma, the collapse of ideological frameworks, and a sense of emptiness, with characters failing to establish a stable foundation and drifting toward self-destruction or a complete inability to return to “normal” life. Consequently, trauma becomes the sole remaining content of what would constitute their post-conflict identity.
Keywords: post-conflict society, war, identity, ideology, trauma, memory, crisis, Bosnian literature of the 21st century
Bachelor's and Master's theses:
Lucija Krnić (2026), Trauma u reprezentaciji odnosa majki i kćeri u romanima hrvatske književnosti 19. stoljeća ('Trauma in the representation of mother-daughter relationship in 19th century Croatian novels'). Bachelor's thesis. Zadar: University of Zadar. Defense date: September 23, 2026. Supervised by prof. dr. sc. Kornelija Kuvač.
This bachelor's thesis is conceived as a comparative analysis of two 19th-century Croatian novels: Olga and Lina (1881.) by Eugen Kumičić and Posljednji Stipančići (1899.) by Vjenceslav Novak. The main goal is to present the specific forms of trauma that manifest within mother-daughter relationships in these selected novels. The thesis outline is the study of narrative and stylistic techniques through which the authors represent trauma. The analysis relies on expert theoretical definitions and typologies of various forms of trauma, including complex, gendered, social, and transgenerational trauma, rape trauma, induced abortion trauma, betrayal trauma, and forms of abuse. Starting from the type of the fatal woman mother as a sadistic abuser to the passive mother as a domestic angel, it explores how mothers mediate the development, transmission, or internalization of their daughters’ traumatic experiences. It establishes how the individual trauma of female characters functions as a reflection of broader social trauma. Finally, it explains how the authors use the context of family pathology to critique the society of their time.
Key words: trauma in literatute, mother-daughter relationship, realism, Eugen Kumičić, Olga i Lina, Vjenceslav Novak, Posljednji Stipančići
Helena Pirjak (2026), Trauma u konstrukciji lika fatalne žene u hrvatskom romanu 19. stoljeća ('Trauma in the construction of the femme fatale character in the 19th-century Croatian novel'). Bachelor's thesis. Zadar: University of Zadar. Defense date: September 23, 2026. Supervised by prof. dr. sc. Kornelija Kuvač.
This bachelor's thesis is conceived as an analysis of the construction of the femme fatale character from the perspective of literary trauma theory, focusing on the character of Laura from Ante Kovačić's novel U registraturi (1888). The aim of the paper is to investigate the ways in which lived traumatic experiences shape and redefine the identity of the archetypal femme fatale, as well as to deconstruct traditional perceptions of her archetype in the 19th-century Croatian literature. The analysis relies on the theoretical framework of the trauma novel by Michelle Balaev (2008), the psychological principles of Cathy Caruth (1996), and archetypal psychology. The core of the paper consists of exploring the genesis of Laura's trauma and the ways in which the experienced violence manifests in her adulthood. Furthermore, the paper analyzes the role of physical and sociocultural space (city, village, forest) as an active trigger and shaper oft he traumatic experience. Finally, the connection between trauma and archetypal defence mechanisms is interpreted to achieve a deeper understanding of the femme fatale's bahavioral patterns, offering a new interpretive perspective that presents Laura as a tragic product of familial and social violence.
Key words: femme fatale archetype, literary trauma theory, trauma novel, Ante Kovačić, U registraturi, Laura, reorganization of identity, space of the trauma
Laura Ivić (2026), Efekt gađenja i trauma seksualnosti u romanima Marine Šur Puhlovski ('The Affect of Disgust and the Trauma of Sexuality in the Novels of Marina Šur Puhlovski'). Master's thesis. Zadar: University of Zadar. Defense date: June 1, 2026. Supervised by prof. dr. sc. Kornelija Kuvač.
This Master’s thesis explores the relationship between the affect of disgust, the trauma of sexuality, and sexual trauma within the novelistic oeuvre of Marina Šur Puhlovski. The research corpus comprises three novels: Insomnia (2007), Love (2010), and Goodbye, Little Girls (2020). At the core of the analysis is the background framework of the trauma of sexuality experienced by the protagonist, Sofija Kralj. This trauma is shaped by the intergenerational transmission of her mother’s trauma of rape, as well as by gendered patterns in which masculinity is negatively connoted and constructed as threatening. Within this context, sexuality is viewed through the prism of the affect of disgust and is perceived as contaminating, violent, and dangerous. The thesis analyzes the ways in which such a negative perception of sexuality and the sexual act is transmitted as a consequence of traumatic experience. Particular attention is dedicated to bodily reactions as pivotal manifestations of trauma. The theoretical foundation of the study is grounded in the psychoanalytic approaches of Sigmund Freud and the theoretical framework of Cathy Caruth, according to which trauma recurs through affective and physical patterns until it is ultimately brought to conscious awareness. Finally, the thesis demonstrates how the trauma of sexuality, mediated by the affect of disgust, shapes the protagonist's sexual identity.
Keywords: trauma, trauma of sexuality, sexual trauma, intergenerational trauma, representation of trauma, affect, disgust, sexuality, Marina Šur Puhlovski, Insomnia, Love, Goodbye, Little Girls