Brnjica za vještice

by Dubravka Ugrešić

Brnjica za vještice Dubravke Ugrešić žanrovski je neuhvatljiva knjiga. Njezin prvi dio svojevrsna je proširena rođendanska čestitka upućena vlastitoj junakinji Štefici Cvek. Čestitka je istovremeno i osvrt na četrdeset godina zajedničkog života i sudbine jednog književnog lika, jedne knjige i jedne autorice.
Drugi dio Brnjice za vještice čini dugi razgovor s teoretičarkom književnosti i feministkinjom Merimom Omeragić, gdje Ugrešić u polemičkom tonu govori o patologijama sadašnjeg trenutka (“regionalnog“, ali i globalnog) i kako je do njih došlo, bez obzira radi li se o umjetnosti, kulturi ili društvu.
Općoj, samoubilačkoj kulturi narcizma Ugrešić suprotstavlja kulturu otpora. U književnosti, makako “romantično“ ili „utopijski“ zvučalo, to podrazumijeva povratak u ilegalu.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Essays, Literature, Politics

138 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2021

About the author

Dubravka Ugrešić was a Yugoslav, Croatian and Dutch writer. She left Croatia in 1993 and was based in Amsterdam since 1996. She described herself as "post-Yugoslav, transnational, or, even more precisely, postnational writer".

Dubravka Ugrešić earned her degrees in Comparative Literature, Russian Language and Literature at the University of Zagreb, and worked for twenty years at the Institute for Theory of Literature at Zagreb University, successfully pursuing parallel careers as a writer and a literary scholar.

She started writing professionally with screenplays for children’s television programs, as an undergraduate. In 1971 she published her first book for children Mali plamen, which was awarded a prestigious Croatian literary prize for children’s literature. Ugresic published two more books (Filip i Srecica, 1976; Kucni duhovi, 1988), and then gave up writing for children.

As a literary scholar Dubravka Ugrešić was particularly interested in Russian avant-garde culture. She was a co-editor of the international scholarly project Pojmovnik ruske avangarde, (A Glossary of the Russian Avangarde) for many years. She rediscovered forgotten Russian writers such as Konstantin Vaginov and Leonid Dobychin, and published a book on Russian contemporary fiction (Nova ruska proza, 1980). She translated fiction into Croatian from Russian (Boris Pilnyak, Gola godina; Daniil Kharms, Nule i nistice), and edited anthologies of both Russian contemporary and avant-garde writing (Pljuska u ruci, 1989).

Dubravka Ugrešić was best known in the former Yugoslavia for her fiction, novels and short stories: Poza za prozu, 1978; Stefica Cvek u raljama zivota, 1981; Zivot je bajka, 1983; Forsiranje romana reke, 1988.

Her novel Forsiranje romana reke was given the coveted NIN-award for the best novel of the year: Ugrešić was the first woman to receive this honor.
Croatian film director Rajko Grlic made a film U raljama zivota (1984) based on Ugrešić’s short novel Stefica Cvek u raljama zivota. Ugrešić co-authored the screenplay, as she did with screenplays for two other movies and a TV drama.

In 1991, when the war broke out in the former Yugoslavia, Ugrešić took a firm anti-nationalistic stand and consequently an anti-war stand. She started to write critically about nationalism (both Croatian and Serbian), the stupidity and criminality of war, and soon became a target of the nationalistically charged media, officials, politicians, fellow writers and anonymous citizens. She was proclaimed a “traitor”, a “public enemy” and a “witch” in Croatia, ostracized and exposed to harsh and persistent media harassment. She left her country of origin in 1993.

Dubravka Ugrešić continued writing since she began living abroad. She published novels (Muzej bezuvjetne predaje, Ministarstvo boli) and books of essays (Americki fikcionar, Kultura lazi, Zabranjeno citanje, Nikog nema doma).

Her books have been translated into more then twenty languages. Dubravka Ugrešić has received several major European literary awards. In 2016, Ugrešić won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

On March 17th of 2023, one of Europe's most distinctive essayists, Dubravka Ugrešić, died in Amsterdam at the age of 73.

Reviews

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Languages change, disappear, reappear, and live on thanks to the principle of inclusivity, and die thanks to the principle of exclusivity. The language of literature tomorrow may be general and visual, new hieroglyphs, a more sophisticated or even simpler language of emoticons, a surprising combination of images and text. I continue to write in Croatian, not because I feel that my native language is the only valid language for literature. I found myself living abroad at an age when my cohort was making plans for retirement, and it was too late for me to start writing in another language. In short, I feel not “lost” but “liberated” in translation.'

'I experience the English versions of my essays as the most mine. What sent a colleague of mine back to the homeland was the moment when he realized he was relying on the English translation of his text more than on the text as he had written it in his native language. And this is the same thing that keeps me in exile and doesn’t allow me to return to my so-called homeland. Exile has meanwhile become my domicile. My language and I—we haven’t changed. And it’s not that I fled into exile but that my former cultural community returned from its “coerced” political exile, from the “dungeon of peoples,” from the “language dungeon,” to its “primordial” homeland of Croatia. My former cultural community and I became irreversibly incompatible at many levels. All my nostalgia is gone, all my feeling for it is gone, there is barely anything left. Memory has been reduced to phantom pain, to wounds that are deeper at home. The inner pressure to remain on one’s home turf, as well as the very idea of Croatian patriotism, are definitely, for me, socially pathological phenomena. Many will say I am criminalizing the idea of patriotism. Patriotism is, in practice, most often a criminal enterprise. Anyone who can convince me otherwise is welcome to try.'

'While we’re on the subject of language, does it seem as if we in the former Yugo-countries perceive language as an ideological tool and vital national substance?

This is definitely the most comic and tragic part of the whole suicidal story. To carve up a language into four because there were suddenly four separate states is an incredible instance of political and cultural violence. (And the official languages of North Macedonia and Slovenia are, respectively, Macedonian and Slovenian, while Albanian is the official language of Kosovo.) This violence was effectuated by cordons of ethnic police, institutions, schools, university departments, ministries of culture. Most of the writers have adapted to this ethnic concept of culture, and these who oppose the anti-intellectual praxis have been branded enemies of the people.'

'We are all of us affected by a hysterical drive to leave traces of our personal existence on the planet Earth. This narcissistic hysteria is evaluated as a positive, as success, and, in the realm of literature, as artistic success. However, the Booker Prize has not appeased the anxiety of the successee, because in success the Booker has been far outstripped by the producer of little bottles filled with one’s individual farts. Everyone has the right to leave their trace. Everyone is able to leave their trace. Traces draw attention to the fact that we exist, that we will not be erased. Therefore all evaluation is pointless, because the producer of fart jars and the author of a novel that has been awarded the Booker Prize end up equally forgotten. They will be pushed aside by a flood of new creative people, influencers, visual artists, writers, actresses selling candles perfumed with the scent of their own vaginas. They are all seeking, in a frenzy, the best possible way to leave a trace of their existence. Whence this fear of erasure, the possible disappearance of civilization? As far as literature is concerned, this fear has found its home in the genre that will be their salvation.'

'This may sound psychedelic, but it is the way you perceive things at first in exile, regardless of whether you have or haven’t traveled before. Exile is a sort of contemplative snare, where your old convictions melt away, the stereotypes you grew up with and absorbed are deconstructed. Suddenly you measure, weigh, calibrate, what was before, what is now, and whether this “now” of yours has been your free choice or was coerced. The meaning of the concepts we have grown up with gradually shifts—home, country, family, friendship, love, language, morals, education, history, identity, myself … Concepts peel off of us like scabs from healing wounds. And the “magical” thing, the dictionary, continues to unsettle us. Exile is a process, and until the moment comes when we realize there can be no return, our exile continues to feel like a choice. The country where we were born was not our choice; we could have been born somewhere else. The process of growing up culminates with the realization that we are responsible for the choices we make.

At one moment we realize that our position is not unique, as we’d first thought. We are an individual functioning within a vast cultural text, which begins (depending, of course, on what you treat as the beginning) with the banishing of Adam and Eve from paradise. All that follows depends on interpretation. Was this paradise truly a paradise? Are Adam and Eve asylum seekers or exiles? Is there any difference? If they are banished from paradise because of the apple from the tree of wisdom does this mean that the place they found themselves in afterward is hell? Or vice versa? In the cultural text of exile we gradually discover the way complicated schemes work.'

'Witches were burned at the stake from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries in Europe. The Church has never felt moved to apologize for the systematic murder of women, for the massive carnage it has committed, for their femicide, unparalleled in world history. Of course femicide is not only a religious historical and symbolic specialty. Every year approximately 800,000 people are victims of one of the fastest growing businesses in the world ($32 billion dollars annually)—human trafficking. Eighty percent of the victims are women, of whom more than 50% are not yet adults. Have the state institutions (and the Church) found a way to stop this form of femicide? It still doesn’t occur to god-fearing Adam to blame his “father” for all these crimes. Adam continues to vent his frustrations on Eve. The supposed 7% of atheists the world over cannot disperse this intoxicating, self-satisfying, authoritarian fog of religion all by themselves. The institution of religion—which is certainly the most enduring autocratic system we know—has been going on for two millennia, but, surprisingly, very few seem to think of it as autocratic.'

[Aleksandra Fatic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Koliko su svijet i književnost izgubili nakon Dubravkine smrti, tek će da se vidi, o feministkinjama i ženama uopšte da i ne pričam! Izvini Dubravka za sve žene koje su same sebi stavile brnjicu, a i tebi pokušale! Nadam se da sada na svojom metli letiš nekim boljim predjelima draga naša vještice! 5⭐️, naravno, apsolutno, zauvijek!

[Carolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gulped this down in a few hours. It’s so very sad to know that this is the last time one gets to sit down and listen to Ugrešić’s views, as if listening to a much wiser female mentor, who knows things and is generous and daring enough to share them with you — much like a witch.

This final piece takes the form of an interview. Ugrešić returns to all the themes that have, for decades, been the tenets of her career: her self-exile from Croatia after the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia; her fierce criticism of nationalism and patriarchy among her fellow countrymen (and women); her critique of literary institutions; the bastardisation of culture and intellectual thought in favour of kitsch; and the literary and cultural value of folklore and fairy tales.

I wouldn’t recommend this as an entry point to Ugrešić’s work. It reads exactly as what it is: a farewell and a summation of all the key points that dear Ugrešić, for so many years, has been telling us. But please, do read her. Hers is a unique voice. I’d recommend starting with The Ministry of Pain or Baba Yaga Laid an Egg.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dubravka Ugrešić was one of the greatest writers and thinkers of our time, and I'm sad that this is her last book. But what a book it is - brilliant, funny, mischievous, and thought-provoking. I'm glad that I still have several of her previous books on my shelves to be read. I'm also very grateful to Open Letter for their long-term commitment to her work.

[tea · Rating 4 out of 5]

tužna sam, i opet gutam knjige.

o književnosti, ilegali i egzilu (u književnosti i van nje), posebno o kategoriji "ženske" književnosti.

hobotnice imaju tri srca, a mi gle samo jedno (ili ni to celo)

[Gautam Bhatia · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a series of conversations with the critic Merima Omeragić, Ugresic addresses three interrelated themes that have informed her own life and professional career: nationalism, the dream of an egalitarian language, and the place of women within the literary “canon.” For Ugresic, who was exiled from her native Croatia after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the Balkan Wars, because of her firm anti-war and anti-nationalist stance, “… the lies began to mount as the countries were established.” These lies are, in turn, encoded in language that acquires a “national” character, and in the construction of “national” literatures. And, like Ismail Kadare before her, these are lies that Ugresic is determined to resist.

For the full review, see: https://anenduringromantic.wordpress....

[Gregory Duke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this in bits and bobs (I recognize this as idiomatic misuse), but, without sounding crass, what now? Thoughtful dialogue on post-national identity and the continued muzzling of witches in the arts and beyond, primarily in post-Yugoslavian Croatian culture, an adjective-noun pairing that would frustrate Ugrešić. Relevant as fascism burgeons forth, onward and upward.

[Antonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Älskar att läsa Dubravka. Det är som att hitta hem, hitta sig själv.
Dubravka Ugrešić är en av de kvinnliga författare och journalister som efter kriget argumenterade för ett annat perspektiv. När Jugoslavien upplöstes blev många av dessa länder nationalistiska. En önskan efter "ursprung", bortom Jugoslavien. Det egna landet. De som argumenterade emot blev stämplade som fiender och just dessa kvinnor blev benämnda som häxor.

Dubravka skriver: "I invested my own money in my broom. I fly alone".

Essäer, tankar om litteratur, flykt, nationalism, den moderna kulturscenen, hur det är att verka som kvinnlig författare i denna tid. Dubravka dig 2023, denna är utgiven postumt. Ändå är den, hon, oumbärlig läsning.

[Marina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this right after reading Rode Orm (The Long Ships), and have read this in one sitting. I wanted to read this in one sitting, cause from the moment I read few lines and pages of this book, I realized how true reality of Croatian postmodernism is so depressing, but that we still have some voices that should be read. I feel like discourse of interview of the book is appropriate form for criticism and enlightenment of general reader. I admire Dubravka Ugrešić and feel the same frustration as her.
Interview becomes better once she branches to world examples, but I also feel frustration author have can be frustrations of many readers across the globe. Despite it's profound criticism of misogyny of Croatian Neo-Nazi literary and cultural scene, I found it easy read and felt great catharsis.

[Eni Gajanova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ovu knjigu sam počela spontano da čitam nakon Štefice jer je sadržala jedan tekst o autorkinom viđenju Štefice nakon četrdeset godina njenog obitavanja u književnosti. Nisam se zaustavila na tom tekstu već sam produžila dok nisam stigla do kraja knjige. Nekakav logičan zaključak bi bio da mi se knjiga baš dopala😀 I to je tačno.

Možemo početi od samog naslova i naslovne strane, odnosno sredstva za mučenje ,,brnjica za brbljivice”, koja se koristila u 16. i 17. veku, u Engleskoj, Škotskoj i njihovim kolonijama za žene od strane muških članova porodice kao metafore za položaj književnica/spisateljica u predratnoj, ratnoj Jugoslaviji i njenim raspadom u regionu.

Knjiga predstavlja razgovor, neku vrstu ”produženog” intervjua koji vodi Merima Omeragić, teoretičarka književnosti i kulture sa Dubravkom Ugrešić.

Ugrešić se u ovoj knjizi dotiče svog romana ,,Štefica Cvek u raljama života” i ,,Lisica” ; svog osećaja ,,Drugosti”; dečje književnosti kao skloništa za žene sa književnim ambicijama; položaju žena kao spisateljica; o populizmu; egzilu; savremenoj književnosti i njenim kritčarima i kako pisati i kreirati kao žena u kulturi.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

2024
Saznala sam puno stvari koje naša država cenzurira kroz medije. Jako mi je drago da sam ovo pročitala. Uz to, ne osjećam se više samo u Hrvatskoj. Ima nas još koje se bore za prava žena, prava ljudi i koje živcira ovaj sustav. Da sam barem upoznala Ugrešić <3

2025
Knjiga je trebala biti lektorirana još jednom, jer su pitanja osobe koja je intervjuirala pola na hrvatskom i pola na srpskom. Trebali su staviti ili jedan ili drugi, bilo koji jezik, ali da se ne mijenja.
Isto tako, vezano uz pitanja, vidjela sam iza fusnotu da su pitanja dosta skraćena kako bi imalo mjesta za Ugrešićine duge odgovore. Ali, mnogo su puta pitanja postavljena na jedan način, a odgovor govori o potpuno drugoj temi. Još uvijek je odlična knjiga, ali kada sam je drugi put pročitala (i malo detaljnije zbog diplomskog), vidjela sam tih par stvari koje su me malo zaškakljale.

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature

As with the rest of her literary career, Dubravka Ugresić's final work, A Muzzle for Witches, is uncategorizable. On its surface, the book is an conversation with the literary critic Merima Omeragić, covering topics such as "Women and the Male Perspective," "The Culture of (Self)Harm," and "The Melancholy of Vanishing."

But the book is more than a simple interview: It's a roadmap of the literary world, exploring the past century and all of its violence and turmoil—especially in Yugoslavia, Ugresić's birth country—and providing a direction for the future of feminist writing.

One of the greatest thinkers of the past hundred years, Ugresić was one-of-a-kind, whose novels and literary essays pushed the bounds of form and content, and A Muzzle for Witches offers the chance to see her at her most raw, and most playful.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: "Raw and playful" are not frequently paired in a publisher's synopsis. In this outraged, affronted growl, they're two of the best words for Ugresić's œuvre as a whole, and this distilled, refined-to-purity last work in particular. Her métier was the essay, I've even said before the screed, and this one-sitting book is a great way to get one's eye in to the tenor of her work.

It's quite an achievement to call out, I'd venture to say even to take down, the sexist, fascist Establishment that's controlled...notionally, in her case...the course of both life and career, while being amusing. Mordantly so, but amusing nonetheless. Author Dubravka does this trick regularly. I'm very impressed by this because it means her focus is not on her topic of outrage. The outrage is there, but unlike the literature of grievance that grows so stale so very quickly. Jeremiads are so deeply tedious as anything except a light seasoning on top of one's regular reading.

The title of these collected interviews with a literary critic from Croatia, Merima Omeragić, is a call-out to the (male-dominated) Croatian establishment's characterization of her as a "witch" when her anti-war attitudes got her hounded into exile in 1993. "Muzzle me, you dickheads?" one can hear her thinking in this title. I do not know if she chose it, but it certainly captures her acerbic, flensing-knife wit.

What we, as a literary society, lost on her 2023 death, was an acute observer...better to say "witness" of the Ship of Fools we're riding on. Dubravka Ugrešić saw it from her berth in Second Class, where she was assigned, but never, ever stayed. Her head was the Imperial Suite's sole occupant. She saw right through the oppressive systems designed to reduce her to a compliant drone, a life support system for a uterus.

We need this voice as a society. The women who vote in the 2024 US elections should read this, and other feminists of an earlier generation, because their privileges are not secure when their very rights to bodily autonomy are being rolled back at a great rate of speed.

[Maren · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Perhaps near the end of their life, this imagined woman-book or man-book will exhale my book into the mouth of someone else, and this person will, having lived their life, pass it on to yet another. Do I believe that in the very rhythm of inhaling and exhaling lies the meaning of literature? Is any other meaning necessary? Inhalation and exhalation - life itself. With the first breath it begins, with the last it ends."

In depth understanding of the violence of language, feminism, and the current state of the literary world. Perfectly pointed out the failure of contemporary, market-driven lit despite giving a platform to more women than ever before, but also how the trauma of violent language inflicted on women makes it difficult to exist in the market. Far more detail into other aspects of literature also - many references outside my knowledge, but still applicable to American literature, the failure of language, translation, erasure of culture, etc. etc.

[Ivana]

Ova se knjiga iz nekog razloga veoma teško nalazi. Tek sam pročitala 'zeleni' deo, o Štefici Cvek i već me je žacnulo kako su izneti stavovi o mladim autorkama u petom poglavlju. Ok, idemo dalje, da čitajući intervju plače i ko neće. Takođe, evo me gde opet čitam nefikciju.

Edit nakon čitanja: očekivala sam da će da me odradi na tugu zbog smrti Dubravke Ugrešić, ali sam ostala zaglavljena u tome što su mi se pitanja činila kao non sequituri i što će neki odgovori ostati veoma uopšteni i očekivani (ok, to možda jeste ta tuga u nekom obimu). Ovo je možda i zato što je moje poznavanje DU kao književnice i aktivistkinje relativno ograničeno - čitala sam samo Šteficu Cvek i Roman reku, a od intervjua samo ovo, tako da ne, ja nisam dobila ono što sam želela, ali mi možda treba više predznanja.

[Lu Louche · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too granular.
Too anchored in Croatia, in Yugoslavia.

The book focuses heavily on specific events and details from Croatia and former Yugoslavia, but it just never connects them to a broader context. While the injustices Dubravak describes are real and the title’s theme is clear, the narrative rarely builds towards a larger point or engages with wider theories in the topic.
Because of this it somehow just stands there in empty space, feeling like a collection of observations that stop before they become interesting.
This might appeal to dedicated Ugrešić readers or scholars, but for all others, there are more rewarding books to pick up.

[Kaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting book that i enjoyed! I am missing some background context for the topic of the book but I still found it interesting and informative! this is the first thing I've read by Dubravaka and I'm definitely going to check out some of her books. She has strong opinions which i enjoy. Looking forward to reading some of her work :)

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grabbed this on a whim. I feel like I need to know more to read it. I'm guzzle in post Yugoslavian history in the region. That being said, it's insightful and I read it consulting wiki frequently and I learned a lot. Would recommend

[Tatjana Bordukalo Nikšić · Rating 4 out of 5]

Svaka knjiga Dubravke Ugrešić otvori mi neka nova razmišljanja i zapažanja. Teško mogu prihvatiti da je više nema.

[neon ghouls · Rating 5 out of 5]

objasnila.

[Lausbiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone has the right to leave their trace. Traces draw attention to the fact that we exist, that we will not be erased.

increíble lectura

[Bronwen Griffiths · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ugresic can do no wrong for me. I love her work, especially her non-fiction. Brave & fearless her death is a loss to us all. She writes on feminism, populism and many other topics with incisive wit

[Mina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely should read her other stuff now. Great commentary on both Yugoslavian history and culture and the state of literature in our time as a whole

[Anusha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not literature student enough to care.

[isra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frank in a way that serves a greater good without needless appeasement, Dubravka Ugresic’s words lacerate and cut you to the bone. What a bloody and magnificent work.

[Karen Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chosen for the "Read Around the World" challenge: CROATIA. "This combination of eloquence, intelligence, and breadth confuses me," the author wrote about TED talkers - and her book had the same effect on me.

[Norah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dubravka Ugrešić är en sådan fantastisk författare, och jag blir melankolisk på tanken att detta kommer förbli hennes sista publicerade verk. Det finns så extremt mycket visdom att ta med sig ifrån boken, och den har gjort mig både frustrerad, ledsen och fått mig att tänka till några extra varv. Ugrešić delar med sig av perspektiv kring samhällets utmaningar och struktur som kommer stanna vid mig för alltid. Hon kommer alltid ha en kär plats i mitt hjärta <3

[Syd ⭐️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book about books and writing. A love letter to language.