Interdialect links between the tale that killed Emilia Knorr by Milorad Pavić and the poem Međimurska by Nikola Pavić

Abstract

In his book Comparative History of Slavic Literatures, Dmytro Chyzhevsky saw macaronic poetry and also dialectal poetry, language of the Roma, children and different jargons as specific aspects of Baroque defamiliarization. Milorad Pavić, a known researcher of the Serbian Baroque, knew Baroque in its broadest sense, hence this aspect was not foreign to him. References to the book of Chyzhevsky made in the book History of Serbian Literature of the Baroque Era, testify to this. The manner in which Pavić as the writer used the potential of the dialectical poetry, reflects in the story titled The Tale That Killed Emilia Knorr. It ends with verses in kajkavski dialect, from the song Međimurska written by poet Nikola Pavić from Zagreb. This paper has been designed as an attempt to identify the functions of the verses in the context of Pavić's story. In other words, the paper is an attempt to answer the question about what meaningful horizons the verses have opened in the context of history, history of language, history of literature and culture. In The Tale That Killed Emilia Knorr, the quoted verses from the Međimurska song, which also conveys some spirit of our civic poetry or the spirit of Pannonia, suggest a love triangle - between two guys in kolo and Cecilia. Except the love triangle, Cecilia and her two suitors may also represent the literary mirroring of Nikola and Milorad Pavić, as well as the solidification (Cecilia) of their mirroring subject, or conflict subject if we accept the interpretation of the conflict (named as Emilia). The process of quoting verses in the body of a novel or a tale, have opened the interpretation of Pavić's deadly landscape as a double scenery (real and metaphysical). This has set the overtone of the ballad atmosphere to The Tale That Killed Emilia Knorr.