Authors

Natalija Stepanovic¹;  ¹ University College London, UK

Discussion

From the 1960s onwards, adolescents found their way into Southeast European literature en masse. In contrast to the proper Yugoslav youth, the bearers of state socialism portrayed in pro-regime fiction or photographed at summits, teen rebels mocked paroles, lazed around, and flirted with the girls. They were the protagonists of ‘jeans prose’, coming-of-age narratives featuring sub-proletarian male protagonists, urban settings, and youth slang. While 'jeans prose’ celebrates the subversiveness of the male characters (their rebellion is symbolised by the jeans, a garment that older Communist Party officials railed against), it pacifies female ones. Moreover, this poetic frequently rejects homosexuality. The only exception is Goran Bujić’s novel 'Hot Shot' which not only features an openly gay character, but also co-ed camaraderie, and gender experimentation. In addition to analysing the queer poetics of 'Hot Shot', this paper looks into the delayed maturation of the technically adult protagonists of socialist queer prose. Because they never quite obtain the conventional markers of adulthood – marriage, steady employment, and parenthood – the adolescence of these characters drags on.
The socialist articulation of coming-of-age narratives is juxtaposed with their post-socialist revival. These narratives, enduringly popular in ex-Yugoslav literatures, frequently disrupt the conventional structuring of ‘coming out’. Coming out, the public articulation of one’s sexuality, connotes transformation of a closet case into a part of the ‘loud and proud’ community. I analyse two novels that deviate the most from this well-worn plot – Vladimir Stojsavljević’s 'Pula' and Viktorija Božina’s 'Turbofolk'. Although featuring leitmotifs such as the protagonist's articulation of sexual difference and identity-forming acts and events (first romance, discovery of queer representations in official or popular culture, etc.), they question the meaning of being openly queer in post-socialist Croatia. In 'Pula', a novel titled after a nominally tolerant Croatian city, queerness ceases to be the dividing line between the protagonist (a gay kid we root for) and his hostile family as all the characters engage in illicit affairs. In 'Turbofolk', the class dimensions of growing up into a queer adult are challenged. Rather than through the high-brow cultural repertoire, the protagonist’s identity is formed through the titular music genre, which is associated with explicit lyrics, flashy style, and surgically altered bodies. While 'Pula' questions the queer/straight dichotomy, 'Turbofolk' shows that collecting queer signifiers is not only a path towards identity formation and mutual recognition, but also an exclusionary signal of social habitus.