{"title":"Book Reviews: János Péntek–Attila Benő: A magyar nyelv Romániában (Erdélyben)","authors":"Enikő Biró, Petteri Laihonen","doi":"10.2478/ausp-2021-0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2021-0022","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37574,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica","volume":"24 1","pages":"205 - 208"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78134323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The aim of the paper is to identify similarities and differences in terms of the metaphors used to present the COVID-19 crisis in Romanian and US articles. The paper is structured in two parts – a theoretical and a practical one. The theoretical framework presents metaphors from the cognitive linguistic perspective as a way to understand and explain reality, metaphors playing a major part in human thinking. They are approached in the paper as a subjective way of presenting reality, being indicative of cultural differences. The practical part analyses thirteen Romanian and US articles taken from broadsheet newspapers, focusing on three areas – the presentation of the virus, people’s reaction to it, and the vaccine – in order to see the types of metaphors and the source domains used.
{"title":"Metaphors in Crisis (On COVID-19 in Romanian and US Articles)","authors":"Gabriela Chefneux","doi":"10.2478/ausp-2021-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2021-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The aim of the paper is to identify similarities and differences in terms of the metaphors used to present the COVID-19 crisis in Romanian and US articles. The paper is structured in two parts – a theoretical and a practical one. The theoretical framework presents metaphors from the cognitive linguistic perspective as a way to understand and explain reality, metaphors playing a major part in human thinking. They are approached in the paper as a subjective way of presenting reality, being indicative of cultural differences. The practical part analyses thirteen Romanian and US articles taken from broadsheet newspapers, focusing on three areas – the presentation of the virus, people’s reaction to it, and the vaccine – in order to see the types of metaphors and the source domains used.","PeriodicalId":37574,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica","volume":"47 1","pages":"112 - 129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87112503","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract One of the most controversial issues during the 2015 migrant crisis and the subsequent process of reformulating immigration policies by the European Union was that of the mandatory resettlement quota. Hungary and Romania formulated very different positions related to migration, but both were critical regarding the mandatory quota. This study analyses parts of declarations and speeches of two heads of state, Viktor Orbán for Hungary and Klaus Iohannis for Romania, concerning the quota issue, by employing the framework of evaluative language, which focuses on the dialogic, interpersonal aspects of utterances. Beyond the fact of rejecting the quota, Martin and White’s (2005) taxonomy brings to the forefront the linguistic means through which the two speakers evaluate the subject (a problem of logistics that needs a pragmatic approach or a matter of cultural and national identity) and establish (dis)alignment as representatives of their countries (“official voices” of Hungary and Romania) with regard to the EU position.
{"title":"Saying ‘No’ to Immigration Quota: An Analysis of Evaluative Language in Hungarian and Romanian Political Discourse","authors":"K. Kolumbán","doi":"10.2478/ausp-2021-0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2021-0019","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract One of the most controversial issues during the 2015 migrant crisis and the subsequent process of reformulating immigration policies by the European Union was that of the mandatory resettlement quota. Hungary and Romania formulated very different positions related to migration, but both were critical regarding the mandatory quota. This study analyses parts of declarations and speeches of two heads of state, Viktor Orbán for Hungary and Klaus Iohannis for Romania, concerning the quota issue, by employing the framework of evaluative language, which focuses on the dialogic, interpersonal aspects of utterances. Beyond the fact of rejecting the quota, Martin and White’s (2005) taxonomy brings to the forefront the linguistic means through which the two speakers evaluate the subject (a problem of logistics that needs a pragmatic approach or a matter of cultural and national identity) and establish (dis)alignment as representatives of their countries (“official voices” of Hungary and Romania) with regard to the EU position.","PeriodicalId":37574,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica","volume":"36 1","pages":"161 - 176"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74068712","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract My essay bears a deliberately oxymoronic title as it offers, on the one hand, a reminiscence of 1984, as a most depressing year in the actual history of Romania and likewise in my own earliest career memories. On the other hand, it proposes a contemplation of George Orwell’s British postmodern dystopia Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Last but not least, it presents certain 1984 aspects as rendered by the following exceptional book, a great challenge for any scholar of my homeland and my generation: My Life as a Spy: Investigations in a Secret Police File (2018). Distinguished Professor Katherine Verdery, its author, a contemporary American scholar, belongs now also to our Romanian academic elite. Yet this book testifies to her darkest experience in our country, just before the Iron Curtain fell down. Although the parallel between these two books may seem risky at first sight, they share much more than meets the eye; and my claim endeavors to go beyond this visible pretext of the new COVID-19 pandemic, another crisis which has intruded upon all our lives – just like a spy.
{"title":"In Dystopian Retrospect of a Crisis Mood: My Life as a Spy by Katherine Verdery","authors":"Anca Peiu","doi":"10.2478/ausp-2021-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2021-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract My essay bears a deliberately oxymoronic title as it offers, on the one hand, a reminiscence of 1984, as a most depressing year in the actual history of Romania and likewise in my own earliest career memories. On the other hand, it proposes a contemplation of George Orwell’s British postmodern dystopia Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Last but not least, it presents certain 1984 aspects as rendered by the following exceptional book, a great challenge for any scholar of my homeland and my generation: My Life as a Spy: Investigations in a Secret Police File (2018). Distinguished Professor Katherine Verdery, its author, a contemporary American scholar, belongs now also to our Romanian academic elite. Yet this book testifies to her darkest experience in our country, just before the Iron Curtain fell down. Although the parallel between these two books may seem risky at first sight, they share much more than meets the eye; and my claim endeavors to go beyond this visible pretext of the new COVID-19 pandemic, another crisis which has intruded upon all our lives – just like a spy.","PeriodicalId":37574,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica","volume":"78 1","pages":"116 - 131"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79070531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Not only do myths stand at the beginning or represent the birth of literature, but they have been present all along ever since. In times of havoc caused by natural catastrophes, wars or pandemics, people look for answers to the uncertainties that surround them. While often presenting such chaotic states themselves, myths can give an answer or offer a solution to these problems. The aim of the present paper is to compare and analyse short texts mainly by Kafka and Camus that deal with ancient myths (e.g. that of Prometheus, Odysseus, or Sisyphus) focusing on the type of answer they bring to the questions raised amidst and after the two world wars. The paper mainly focuses on the connection between hope and hopelessness.
{"title":"Hope and Hopelessness through the Lens of Myths. A Comparison Based on Short Texts by Kafka and Camus","authors":"Vilma-Irén Mihály","doi":"10.2478/ausp-2021-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2021-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Not only do myths stand at the beginning or represent the birth of literature, but they have been present all along ever since. In times of havoc caused by natural catastrophes, wars or pandemics, people look for answers to the uncertainties that surround them. While often presenting such chaotic states themselves, myths can give an answer or offer a solution to these problems. The aim of the present paper is to compare and analyse short texts mainly by Kafka and Camus that deal with ancient myths (e.g. that of Prometheus, Odysseus, or Sisyphus) focusing on the type of answer they bring to the questions raised amidst and after the two world wars. The paper mainly focuses on the connection between hope and hopelessness.","PeriodicalId":37574,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica","volume":"1 1","pages":"37 - 44"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89292512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract For Hungarians who remained stuck beyond the borders after WWI, finding themselves in a foreign country from one day to the next, the historical trauma of the Trianon Treaty occasioned intercultural tribulations never experienced before. What the resulting Transylvanian literature discussed here is concerned with, however, is not what Jeffrey C. Alexander’s cultural trauma theory calls “the trauma process”, “the spiral of signification” (Alexander 2004, 11). Rather, it is concerned with “the indelible marks” “the horrendous event” left “upon group consciousness […] changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways” (Alexander 2004, 1). This literature displays a rich array of the management strategies of minority identity. Earlier I devoted a book to the identity types that ensued from those strategies (Dani 2016a). The present work is based on that monograph and moves on. This time I wish to focus on the key figures of two Rózsa Ignácz novels (Anyanyelve magyar and Született Moldovában) to demonstrate the complex identity patterns that an erosion of minority native language and culture, so destructive to identity, yields. The road that the Hungarian minority travels leads through a succession of active and reactive changes, crises, and modifications of perspective in the maze of minority versus hegemonic intercultural relations.1
{"title":"Change, Crisis, Perspective, and Identity in Two Novels by Rózsa Ignácz","authors":"Erzsébet Dani","doi":"10.2478/ausp-2021-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2021-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract For Hungarians who remained stuck beyond the borders after WWI, finding themselves in a foreign country from one day to the next, the historical trauma of the Trianon Treaty occasioned intercultural tribulations never experienced before. What the resulting Transylvanian literature discussed here is concerned with, however, is not what Jeffrey C. Alexander’s cultural trauma theory calls “the trauma process”, “the spiral of signification” (Alexander 2004, 11). Rather, it is concerned with “the indelible marks” “the horrendous event” left “upon group consciousness […] changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways” (Alexander 2004, 1). This literature displays a rich array of the management strategies of minority identity. Earlier I devoted a book to the identity types that ensued from those strategies (Dani 2016a). The present work is based on that monograph and moves on. This time I wish to focus on the key figures of two Rózsa Ignácz novels (Anyanyelve magyar and Született Moldovában) to demonstrate the complex identity patterns that an erosion of minority native language and culture, so destructive to identity, yields. The road that the Hungarian minority travels leads through a succession of active and reactive changes, crises, and modifications of perspective in the maze of minority versus hegemonic intercultural relations.1","PeriodicalId":37574,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica","volume":"44 1","pages":"89 - 104"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86707470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Ali Smith’s Autumn (2016), coined “the first Brexit novel”, relied on a very “time-sensitive” publication schedule: weeks after the manuscript had been submitted, the book was already published, documenting almost in real-time the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. The remaining three volumes of the Seasonal Quartet (Winter, 2017; Spring, 2019; Summer, 2020) also followed a similarly tight schedule; hence the last piece of the collection, published in the summer of 2020, could already reflect on yet another crisis: that of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first lockdown in Britain. The Quartet offers art as a vital coping mechanism for such critical times, but the present paper argues that the function of art in the Quartet is even more pervasive than that. The sequence’s entire poetics of transformation is founded on art as a mediatized means of experiencing the world, which is then turned into a rhetoric of transformation. The paper traces the three main motifs of the Quartet: that of the tree, the stone, and the cloud/sky to look at how their art-based transformations create a sense of connectedness in the four novels.
{"title":"Covidian Metamorphoses: Art and the Poetics of Transformation in Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet","authors":"Zsófia Orosz-Réti","doi":"10.2478/ausp-2021-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2021-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Ali Smith’s Autumn (2016), coined “the first Brexit novel”, relied on a very “time-sensitive” publication schedule: weeks after the manuscript had been submitted, the book was already published, documenting almost in real-time the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. The remaining three volumes of the Seasonal Quartet (Winter, 2017; Spring, 2019; Summer, 2020) also followed a similarly tight schedule; hence the last piece of the collection, published in the summer of 2020, could already reflect on yet another crisis: that of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first lockdown in Britain. The Quartet offers art as a vital coping mechanism for such critical times, but the present paper argues that the function of art in the Quartet is even more pervasive than that. The sequence’s entire poetics of transformation is founded on art as a mediatized means of experiencing the world, which is then turned into a rhetoric of transformation. The paper traces the three main motifs of the Quartet: that of the tree, the stone, and the cloud/sky to look at how their art-based transformations create a sense of connectedness in the four novels.","PeriodicalId":37574,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica","volume":"1 1","pages":"60 - 72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87948560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract As the world is struggling with the Covid crisis and its numerous aftereffects, it is easy to forget that the present pandemic is only the latest of a whole series of paradigm-changing 21st-century crises. Indeed, the word “crisis” has become one of the key concepts for the understanding of the early 21st century. Thus, crisis seems very much to be the default position of the 21st century, the new norm. In this paper, I argue that the 21st century has a recognizably different cultural logic from what the previous one had: most of our social, ideological, political, financial, and ecological paradigms are either changing or will (or must) change soon. As most of our critical concepts, intellectual tools, and ideological frameworks were made during the boom years of the late 20th century, they are clearly outdated and inadequate today. Thus, in this paper, through taking account of these shifting intellectual and artistic paradigms, I attempt to indicate how the present crisis of knowledge and sense-making may be turned into a process of knowing and making sense of crisis, and thus help us meet the challenges of the new century. It is often through these fault-lines, breakdowns, and inconsistencies of our narratives that one may recognize those pre-crisis assumptions that we have to critically re-evaluate and update in order to understand the new century.1
{"title":"Post-Crisis Reckoning: Making Sense of Early 21st-Century Civilizational Ruptures","authors":"György Kalmár","doi":"10.2478/ausp-2021-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2021-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract As the world is struggling with the Covid crisis and its numerous aftereffects, it is easy to forget that the present pandemic is only the latest of a whole series of paradigm-changing 21st-century crises. Indeed, the word “crisis” has become one of the key concepts for the understanding of the early 21st century. Thus, crisis seems very much to be the default position of the 21st century, the new norm. In this paper, I argue that the 21st century has a recognizably different cultural logic from what the previous one had: most of our social, ideological, political, financial, and ecological paradigms are either changing or will (or must) change soon. As most of our critical concepts, intellectual tools, and ideological frameworks were made during the boom years of the late 20th century, they are clearly outdated and inadequate today. Thus, in this paper, through taking account of these shifting intellectual and artistic paradigms, I attempt to indicate how the present crisis of knowledge and sense-making may be turned into a process of knowing and making sense of crisis, and thus help us meet the challenges of the new century. It is often through these fault-lines, breakdowns, and inconsistencies of our narratives that one may recognize those pre-crisis assumptions that we have to critically re-evaluate and update in order to understand the new century.1","PeriodicalId":37574,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica","volume":"16 1","pages":"1 - 17"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79231488","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Hanna Jameson’s post-apocalyptic detective novel, The Last (2019), addresses contemporary issues that affect us on both a collective and an individual level. The author diagnoses the denial of nuclearism and calls for an awareness of the nuclear age combined with the looming threat of climate change. The novel negotiates alternative strategies for the treatment of crisis brought about by the nuclear attack and borrows many of the thematic and structural elements from twentieth-century nuclear fictions in which the apocalypse is not necessarily regarded in negative terms but as a chance for regeneration. The events of the post-nuclear months in a Swiss hotel are narrated by an American historian whose written account serves several goals. It gives the illusion of delaying crisis, but it also reveals his fears and traumas conjured up by radioactive spectres. There are two different types of narratives at work, the narrative of the crisis and that of the investigation. The narrator-protagonist becomes obsessed with finding the solution to a murder mystery, which in a metaphorical sense is to give a soothing answer to the death of millions. However, this attempt keeps failing, and thus the narrative of the crisis devours all kinds of rational initiatives to resolve chaos. In order to elaborate on the psychological impact of the post-nuclear crisis in subject construction, I do not only examine the character of the amateur detective of the whodunit whose intervention aims to restore order, but I also apply Gabriele Schwab’s concepts of post-nuclear subjectivity and nuclear hauntology.
{"title":"Detecting Post-Nuclear Crisis in Hanna Jameson’s The Last","authors":"Renáta Zsámba","doi":"10.2478/ausp-2021-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2021-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Hanna Jameson’s post-apocalyptic detective novel, The Last (2019), addresses contemporary issues that affect us on both a collective and an individual level. The author diagnoses the denial of nuclearism and calls for an awareness of the nuclear age combined with the looming threat of climate change. The novel negotiates alternative strategies for the treatment of crisis brought about by the nuclear attack and borrows many of the thematic and structural elements from twentieth-century nuclear fictions in which the apocalypse is not necessarily regarded in negative terms but as a chance for regeneration. The events of the post-nuclear months in a Swiss hotel are narrated by an American historian whose written account serves several goals. It gives the illusion of delaying crisis, but it also reveals his fears and traumas conjured up by radioactive spectres. There are two different types of narratives at work, the narrative of the crisis and that of the investigation. The narrator-protagonist becomes obsessed with finding the solution to a murder mystery, which in a metaphorical sense is to give a soothing answer to the death of millions. However, this attempt keeps failing, and thus the narrative of the crisis devours all kinds of rational initiatives to resolve chaos. In order to elaborate on the psychological impact of the post-nuclear crisis in subject construction, I do not only examine the character of the amateur detective of the whodunit whose intervention aims to restore order, but I also apply Gabriele Schwab’s concepts of post-nuclear subjectivity and nuclear hauntology.","PeriodicalId":37574,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica","volume":"9 1","pages":"45 - 59"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72956750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper1 aims to offer a picture of the darkest period in the history of the Korean women, namely that of the Japanese colonial rule (1910–1945). The only advantage Korean women enjoyed as a result of their country’s annexation to Japan was access to institutional education, even if this was done in Japanese and from Japanese course books. But this came with a price: many of the Korean teenaged females were turned into comfort women (sex-slaves) for the Japanese soldiers before and during the Pacific War. Not only did these girls lose their youth, but they also lost their national and personal identity, as they were forced to change their Korean names into Japanese ones and to speak Japanese. To build the image of the fate of the Korean women during this bleak period, the research method I have used is a simplified version of content analysis, “an analysis of the content of communication” (Baker 1994, 267). I have explored the content of fragments from a couple of novels authored by Korean or American-Korean authors, which cover the historical events in the peninsula leading to the end of WWII (Keller’s Comfort Woman (2019) and Bracht’s White Chrysanthemum (2018), to mention just a few) and which are focused on the topic of comfort women,2 i.e. young women that were sexually exploited by the Japanese military. The results of the analysis indicate that many of the surviving victims became “unpersons” and led a life of solitude and misery until their death.
{"title":"An Image of Korean Women during the Japanese Occupation of the Peninsula, as It Emerges from Literary Masterpieces","authors":"E. Buja","doi":"10.2478/ausp-2021-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2021-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper1 aims to offer a picture of the darkest period in the history of the Korean women, namely that of the Japanese colonial rule (1910–1945). The only advantage Korean women enjoyed as a result of their country’s annexation to Japan was access to institutional education, even if this was done in Japanese and from Japanese course books. But this came with a price: many of the Korean teenaged females were turned into comfort women (sex-slaves) for the Japanese soldiers before and during the Pacific War. Not only did these girls lose their youth, but they also lost their national and personal identity, as they were forced to change their Korean names into Japanese ones and to speak Japanese. To build the image of the fate of the Korean women during this bleak period, the research method I have used is a simplified version of content analysis, “an analysis of the content of communication” (Baker 1994, 267). I have explored the content of fragments from a couple of novels authored by Korean or American-Korean authors, which cover the historical events in the peninsula leading to the end of WWII (Keller’s Comfort Woman (2019) and Bracht’s White Chrysanthemum (2018), to mention just a few) and which are focused on the topic of comfort women,2 i.e. young women that were sexually exploited by the Japanese military. The results of the analysis indicate that many of the surviving victims became “unpersons” and led a life of solitude and misery until their death.","PeriodicalId":37574,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica","volume":"33 1","pages":"73 - 88"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79095002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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