Anticipatory Poetics of a Secret Writing: of Literary Value and New-age Ethics of Bašeskija’s Necrology

Abstract

In some of the canonical prose texts in Bosniak literature, such as “Tvrđava” by Meša Selimović, ”HodžaStrah” by Derviš Sušić, “Sarajevski nekrologij” by Alija Nametak and “Šehid” ba Zilhad Ključanin,addressing new historical enthusiasm, the form of necrology appears as an appropriate expressive formof legitimising identity continuities (which have been strongly disputed). In criticism, this form hasrightfully marked as a cultural memory act (genre quotation) of metatextual actualisation of MulaMustafa Bašeskija’s “Ljetopis”. His chronicles represent a classic secret writing, even for the authorhimself a highly compromettant and exclusively targeting the generations to come. The witness-writerposition based on that, relieved Bašeskija from the obligatory outreach to general places and conventionalfigures which were legitimised by the then authors through their writing skills. The anticipatory characterand comfort of the free thought within a secret writing reached, as per certain elements, the intimacywith what is marked in European tradition as Bacon’s Revolution, which assumes resistance to hierarchyin which the life of the warrior or the ruler is focused on the ethics of honour or glory, was incomparablewith the lives of “lower class” people and the ethics of dignity.