SPONDE - A Journal of Languages, Literatures and Cultures between the two Adriatic coasts The journal SPONDE, founded by the faculty members of the University of Zadar’s Department of Italian Studies, aims to publish research and professional papers covering a wide range of topics in the fields of linguistics, history and theory of literature, history and culture in the broader sense, and viewing the Adriatic region and its hinterlands through the lens of comparison, contact, relationship, hybridization – a perspective which has been an identifying mark of the Department for decades. We welcome submissions relating to the languages, literatures, and cultures of the regions in the Adriatic basin and following the logic of “comparing”, in the manner of comparative literature, contact linguistics, translation studies, and cultural studies. As regards methodology, the journal, as its name SPONDE suggests, also looks forward to encouraging the contact between different approaches and disciplines. We accept submissions in Italian, Croatian, and English, accompanied by abstracts in both English and Italian. We might exceptionally consider papers in other languages. Prior to publication, the papers are subject to double-blind peer review process. Submissions can fall in one of the following categories: original research paper, preliminary communication, review paper, and professional paper. Book reviews do not undergo the peer review process; instead, the decision on publication rests with the journal’s editorial board. Sponde is an open access journal, published on a semiannual basis. Submissions are open year-round. The journal was classified as A2 journal in the field of humanities by the National Council for Science, Higher Education, and Technological Development (NN 42/2026).
Gjurčinova, Anastasija. 2025. Dialoghi interletterari. Saggi italo-macedoni. Nardò: Besa Muci Editore
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Audiovisual translation as a gateway to intercultural and sociolinguistic mastery of Italian: A Teaching Proposal
This article explores the crucial role of subtitling TV series as an acquisition tool for implementing idiomatic, intercultural, and sociolinguistic skills among university students of the Italian language. Through these exercises, students improve not only their lexical and grammatical comprehension but, by being exposed to diverse social norms, values, and communicative patterns, also manage to develop a deeper intercultural sensitivity (Gagliardi 2021). The following article examines the translations carried out by a group of third-year students (2024/2025), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb. These translations involve scenes taken from two Croatian TV series, Dnevnik velikog Perice (2024) and Bitange i princeze (2005), which feature various sociolinguistic variations (differences in register, colloquialisms, and slang). These variations facilitated a discussion on how such elements can be rendered in the target language. It can therefore be confirmed that the use of TV series in a practical educational context can bridge the gap between formal linguistic knowledge and the pragmatic, culturally appropriate use of the language. This provides a bridge toward more effective communication and a more multifaceted understanding of the sociocultural context of the Italian language (Sobrero e Miglietta 2011).
Infographic as a Visual Tool for Language Production in Foreign Language Teaching
The aim of this paper is to present infographics as an innovative tool in foreign language teaching. The rapid development of technologies, the predominance of image-based communication, and the vast and continuously increasing volume of information necessitate the adaptation of the educational process and the transformation of teaching methods in response to these challenges. The task of acquiring visual literacy, alongside traditional reading and writing skills, is thereby brought to the forefront. The paper analyzes the concept of visual literacy and provides an overview of research on its various aspects. Based on the theory of dual coding proposed by Allan Paivio, the advantages of using visual aids in teaching are interpreted. Particular emphasis is placed on the effective application of visual tools when working with Generation Z students, whose cognitive abilities have undergone certain changes. One of the emerging methods that has demonstrated effectiveness in teaching foreign (Russian) language at the higher education level is the creation of infographics by students. The paper explores the didactic and functional potential of infographic design in developing both written and oral language production in a foreign language. As a specific contribution, an algorithm for working with infographics is proposed, along with guidelines for teachers for each stage of the process. Infographics, as a visual teaching resource, enhance students’ motivation for active foreign language learning.
The Black Corsair on the other shore of the Adriatic. Emilio Salgari’s presence in the Croatian publishing context
This article aims to compare the adventure novels of the Italian writer Emilio Salgari (1862–1911) with the translations published by various Croatian publishing houses from the first half of the 20th century to the present. Salgari’s stories, focusing on exotic locations and eccentric heroes, succeeded in satisfying the Italian bourgeois public’s desire for escapism, while the country was completing its process of national unification and starting its gradual colonial expansion. By analyzing the first translations of Salgari’s works into Croatian–in particular that of the 1898 novel The Black Corsair by Ivo Hergešić (1862– 1911), which was published in 1932 in the popular book series Zabavna biblioteka (i. e., “The Entertaining Library”) – this text aims to examine how the different historical and social circumstances may have influenced both the strategies of translators and the policies of publishing houses in presenting Salgari’s work to the Croatian readers. The article will also take into consideration the interest expressed in contemporary Croatia for Salgari’s lesser-known works, such as the science fiction novel The Wonders of the 21st Century (1907), which was translated by Franko Maglica for the Pula-based publisher Nebula in 2023.
“We are the women, the heart of our home”: the construction of female identity in the novel Pero i Pava (1940) by Paula von Preradović
The development of feminist literary criticism over the past decades has enabled more systematic research into women’s prose authorship and the problematization of its marginalization in literary historiography and the literary canon. Despite these advances, numerous women writers and their works continue to be insufficiently examined within the framework of literary-historical research. In this context, the paper focuses on the novel Pero i Pava (Pave und Pero, 1940) written by the Austrian-Croatian writer Paula von Preradović, granddaughter of the poet Petar Preradović. The novel is based on the correspondence between Petar Preradović (Pero) and his first wife, Paolina de Ponte (Pave), and it portrays the emotional and private life of Pero and Pava, female identity, female social position, existing social differences, and so on. A key part of the paper will examine the analysis and construction of female identity in the novel (the portrayal of the woman’s inner world, marriage, motherhood, and love), with an emphasis on the position of women in both private and public spheres within the context of social and cultural norms.
An Overview of the Italian Translations of Srečko Kosovel’s Works and an Analysis of the Figurative Images Identified by Darja Pavlič
The Slovenian government has proclaimed 2026 as the Year of Srečko Kosovel on the occasion of the centenary of his death. In this paper, we provide an overview of the Italian translations of Srečko Kosovel’s works and their translators. Furthermore, we focus on three types of representations identified by Pavlič (2005) – flowers, trees, and animals – analyzing them in three poems written in Slovenian and translated into Italian. The images reflect a poet deeply connected to nature, in which he mirrors his own feelings: sadness, melancholy, restlessness, an awareness of death, intense moods, but also elements tied to cultural identity and war. For the analysis of the representations and translations of the Karst poet, we use the collection Ostri ritmi, Aspri ritmi (2011), translated by Jolka Milič. The analysis shows how the three selected poems represent an interplay between nature, emotions, and states of mind. Depictions of pines, fieldfares, and cyclamens constitute a symbolic code through which the poet reflects both the external world and his inner life, creating a dialogue between the concrete and the abstract. On one hand the translations reflect a deep respect for the overall meaning of the original texts and on the other the tendency to emphasize and preserve the poetic equivalents.
The Sea of Memory: Exile and Identity in the Writing of Raffaele Cecconi
This paper analyses the role of the sea in the literary work of Raffaele Cecconi, an Italian writer of Zadar origin, showing how it represents one of the central symbolic nuclei of his writing. Through the analysis of the novel La Corsara and the poetry collections Da un mare all’altro, Una vita ladra, Ora che invecchio, D… come Dalmata and Filastrocche per adulti, the paper demonstrates that the sea is deeply connected with exile, memory and identity construction. In Cecconi’s texts, the sea is never merely a landscape element, but rather a liminal and dynamic space that both separates and connects the two Adriatic shores. The analysis also shows how, in Cecconi’s later works, the sea gradually becomes a universal figure of existential precariousness and of the crisis of contemporary identity.
Drawing, Singing, Translation: For a Rereading of Ibrahim Kodra’s Work Between Italy and Albania During the Years of the Resistance
The article reconstructs and interprets the group of drawings produced by Ibrahim Kodra between 1944 and 1945, which has so far remained at the margins of the artist’s critical reception, largely centered on his postwar post-Cubist production. Starting from a survey of the corpus, now only partially reconstructable through the sheets preserved at the Fondazione Kodra and in the Mario De Micheli collection at the Museo della Permanente in Milan, the essay adopts a methodology that combines historical-documentary reconstruction, comparative formal analysis, philological reading of the inscriptions, and attention to processes of critical transmission. What emerges is a trajectory in which Kodra’s arrival in Italy through the diplomatic channels of Fascism, his passage from the Roman milieu to his Milanese formation, the climate of Brera and Corrente, his participation in the Resistance, and his relation to the Albanian and Balkan area all sediment into a language that holds together figurative invention and documentary value. The drawings of the Resistance years stand out for the centrality of the vulnerable body, the fracture of form, the ethical use of black and white, and the renunciation of any heroic iconography, within a broader visual koiné shared with some artists of the Corrente generation. Of particular historiographical significance is the inscription, in the margin of the sheet Le nostre madri (1945), of a partisan song in Albanian, which makes it possible to read the work as a space of interference between image, orality, and translation. The essay also traces the subsequent trajectory of this fragment: from a song broadcast by Radio Belgrade to a text translated and reinterpreted by Mario De Micheli, then refunctionalized as the Song of April 25, and finally incorporated into the repertoire of Dischi del Sole. From this perspective, Kodra’s case makes it possible to rethink the Adriatic as a space of cultural and political translations unfolding through successive and non-linear passages, according to a logic of continuous rewriting.
Čale Feldman, Lada. 2025. Molière ponovljen. Zagreb: Disput.
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Leto, Maria Rita, Etami Borjan, Tatjana Peruško e Katja Radoš-Perković (a c. di). 2025. Tra le due sponde dell’Adriatico: culture, storie e contatti. Studi in onore di Sanja Roić. Lanciano: Casa Editrice Carabba srl
Bukvić, Ana, Andrijana Jusup Magazin e Sanja Paša Maračić (a c. di). 2025. PREKO MORA. Studije u čast profesora Živka Nižića / OLTRE IL MARE. Studi in onore del professor Živko Nižić. Zadar: Sveučilište u Zadru
Linguistic, literary and civic education
The paper explores the intersections of linguistic education, literary education and civic education. The first part of the paper is therefore aimed at clarifying areas of interest of these disciplines and their interconnections. Citizenship education is examined at European level, and then in its implementation within Italian schools. In Italy, Law n. 92/2019 has defined specific norms as far as civic education is concerned, underlining that civic education is a cross-curricular subject. The Guidelines published in 2024 provide operational and methodological indications, highlighting the preference and the importance of collaborative methodologies. In this regard, the paper focuses on the main features of cooperative learning. Finally, an operational proposal is offered, based on La Nuvola di Smog, by Italo Calvino. The story was chosen because it enables students to work closely on the narrative while reflecting both on environmental issues and on relational issues.
Beyond the Adriatic Mirror. Schiavoni’s Quaderno croato
This contribution offers an analysis of Vanni Schiavoni’s anthology Quaderno croato, a poetry collection by the young writer, highlighting its thematic complexity and stylistic maturity and published in 2020. The book, consisting of twelve poems dedicated to twelve places on the Croatian coast, uses the poetics of travel to transform the journey from a simple geographical displacement into an existential crossing and ethical-political meditation, where sensory perception, historical memory, and ethical reflection intertwine. Schiavoni transforms Croatia into a dynamic system of energies and correspondences, evoking with rare poetic intensity its islands, cities, and human figures - from the “Kornati, like small errors of the waves”, to Dubrovnik, with its “hundred names in the long sunset”, and Šibenik, a “Venice in filigree”. Schiavoni, a member of the post-industrial Salento generation, addresses in the collection the painful memory of the Yugoslav war and the complex dialogue between personal and collective identity, mediated by reflection on history and landscape. The structure of the poems in bilingual pairs (Italian-Croatian) emphasises the tension between roots and otherness. The human figures encountered fishermen, street vendors, border guards, become epiphanies of otherness and nuclei of meaning, revealing travel as an experience of encounter and self-knowledge. The poet favours a meditative and lyrical language, avoiding ideological and declamatory drifts, and restoring to the poetic text a function of resistance to oblivion and emotional reconstruction. Quaderno croato thus marks the apex of Schiavoni’s projected “Trilogy of the Roots”, representing the point of balance between his personal linguistic experimentation and a broader poetic tradition that weaves together lyrical introspection, moral tension and responsibility. The work can therefore be inscribed in the tradition of civil and testimonial poetry, which combines the aesthetic dimension with a profound sense of historical and moral responsibility.
The figure of Enrico Morovich (Pecine, 1906 – Lavagna, 1994) occupies an isolated place in Italian literature of the late twentieth century, moving between memorial realism and a dreamlike writing style rooted in surrealism. Born in a border city and marked by the experience of the Julian-Dalmatian exodus, in two emblematic works – Racconti di Fiume e altre cose (1985) and Un italiano a Fiume (1993) – Morovich develops a reflection on the complexity of a multi-layered identity through an interplay of fable, dream, and autobiography. In the first volume, memory is translated into a symbolic and dreamlike psychic landscape, constructed through a language of metamorphosis and visions that anticipate the later autobiographical internalization. In Un italiano a Fiume, on the other hand, the autobiographical component intensifies, and recollection becomes a practice of self-analysis: Fiume is not only a lost place, but a sentimental interlocutor, an inner projection in which the subject seeks to heal the fracture of exile. Read in dialogue, the two volumes trace a unified path of reflection on the relationship between memory, identity, and writing. Morovich works through the wound of his diasporic condition by transforming it into a creative act, constructing a “geography of the soul” in which the real and the imaginary overlap. From this perspective, Morovich’s narrative asserts itself as both testimony and an exercise in poetic resistance against oblivion: an act of regeneration of memory through language.
From August to November by Camillo Boito. On the Latent Library of Storielle vane
This article examines the novella Dall’agosto al novembre by Camillo Boito, which contains the author’s most significant reflection on the theme of vanitas developed within his creative work (Storielle vane, 1876, and Senso. Nuove storielle vane, 1883). The analysis focuses on the landscape descriptions, on the dense network of intertextual relations and the rich latent library connected to them, and, finally, on the use of the notebook device, which invites the reader to question the reliability of the first-person narration. The initial description of Lake Maggiore makes it possible to situate the choice of the novella’s setting – unique within Boito’s narrative production – within a broad nineteenth-century pictorial and literary horizon. At the same time, the use of the personal notebook allows for an assessment of the problematic construction of the narrative self and of its strategies of self-representation. Lastly, the article considers the protagonist’s pseudo-philosophical dialogues and, in particular, the references to the Goethe-Schiller correspondence and to Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, including the textual variants that marked the transition from the periodical version of the novella to the volume edition. What emerges is a library of major classics and of authors close to the Romantic milieu, which the protagonist ostentatiously displays and appropriates in a reductive and partial manner. The reader is thus invited to reflect on the use of these sources and on their actual function within the Storielle vane, both in relation to Boito’s poetics and to the theme of vanity. Dall’agosto al novembre thus stands as a crucial hinge within the entire collection of novellas and as a particularly representative example of the modus scribendi that unites them.
Retrospective reflections on Manzoni’s early linguistic ideas addressed to the purist Antonio Cesari
This presentation will analyze Manzoni’s dialogue with the “recognized leader of Italian purists, Antonio Cesari from Verona” (Vitale 2013: 120) in Due Minute of a Letter Never Sent (12 June 1827), with the aim of highlighting the novelty and uniqueness of Manzoni’s linguistic theory in the 19th-century context. Today, it is natural for us to understand that in a bilingual (multilingual) context, written and spoken language and dialects compete in linguistic codification and learning, influencing each other (De Marco 2002, Diadori-Palermo-Troncarelli 2016); just as we are aware that Italian is the result of a compromise between regional idioms and a literary variant that is mutilated in many of its parts (Bruni 1984, Cortelazzo 1986, D’Achille 1990, De Mauro 1994, Berruto 2010). However, it is not sufficiently well known that these conclusions were first described by Manzoni in his early comments on Cesari, and we still do not consider him one of the most important figures in the history of Italian linguistics. Tradition held that there was a common Italian language preserved in the canonical writings of the fourteenth (and/or sixteenth) century, that its acquisition depended on the passive study of these texts, and little attention was paid to current, oral and popular usage. Alessandro Manzoni, the first to give true value to usage (orality), could not believe that reading past writings was the most reasonable solution, both because this would have meant providing a model of dead rather than a living language, and because it would not have taken into account the concrete way in which Italians were trying to conquer their language and achieve the ideal of a single language. In fact, he began to discuss the traditional dichotomy between written and spoken language (Lingua - dialetto), recognizing and promoting the true essence of language: socially based oral tradition. In truth, thanks to an attitude that was not purist-censorial but descriptive-explanatory (Sgroi 1995: XVII), he presented ahead of his time the binding position of dialect(s) in the formation and history of Italian, explaining how the two characteristics should never be separated and, evaluating the natural results of this relationship, he tried to convince others to exploit them in favour of a truly common language.
About the Baruffe chiozzotte relocated to Dubrovnik
La traduzione localizzata delle Baruffe chiozzotte goldoniane nella parlata di Dubrovnik, realizzata da Morana Čale appositamente per la rappresentazione sotto la regia di Krešimir Dolenčić nell’ambito della stagione teatrale del Festival di Dubrovnik del 2025, occupa la parte centrale del contributo ed è corredata da una presentazione introduttiva e da una spiegazione di carattere tecnico-grammaticale inserita in coda, queste ultime sempre firmate dalla traduttrice/ adattatrice. Il testo prefatorio si propone di situare la traduzione-adattamento – designata col neologismo tradattamento – nel contesto della secolare tradizione teatrale di Dubrovnik. La sezione conclusiva dà notizie sull’ambientazione ragusea, riguardanti gli antroponimi, i toponimi, gli elementi folklorici e culturali, il lessico e l’idiomatica. Viene messo in rilievo il riutilizzo di elementi citazionali tratti dalle opere drammatiche della tradizione ragusea, in modo particolare dalle commedie di Marin Držić. Infine, vengono segnalate le principali differenze fra il testo del tradattamento e le modifiche apportate dall’ensemble di Dolenčić.
translation into the dialect of Dubrovnik
The essay examines Dalmatien und seine Inselwelt (1870) by Heinrich Noé, considering it a paradigmatic example of late-nineteenth-century travel writing, in which aesthetic representation, imperial ideology, and the construction of otherness are tightly interwoven. The metaphor of the Stereoskop shapes the structure of the work: a sequence of isolated visual tableaux in which Dalmatia is not described to be understood, but rather to be observed and classified. Landscape and human figures take on the form of ornamental images, and the experience of travel turns into an exercise in controlled vision. The rhetorical strategies employed – fragmentation, the exclusion of the other’s voice, and the reduction of local culture to visual folklore – respond to the expectations of a bourgeois Central European readership that, through the act of narration, seeks confirmation of its own symbolic centrality. The analysis highlights how Noé’s writing contributes to the construction of an “internal Orient”, projecting cultural difference into a closed textual space that serves the affirmation of perceptual hegemony. Comparison with authors such as Johann Georg Kohl and Karl Emil Franzos underscores the distinctive character of Noé’s vision, situated at the intersection of visual art, Orientalism, and the rhetoric of the exotic. The Dalmatia that emerges is not a territory to be explored but a repertoire of images already arranged for the gaze, turning representation itself into an act of symbolic appropriation.
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Rat pamćenjem u književnosti i historiografiji sjevernog Jadrana („La guerra della memoria nella letteratura e storiografia dell’Adriatico settentrionale“)
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Vaglio, Luca. 2020. Le stagioni del romanzo di Vladan Desnica. Genesi, forme, poetica. Roma: Il Calamo.
Potonulo groblje by Goran Tribuson between horror fiction and film
This paper analyzes Potonulo groblje (“The Sunken Cemetery”, 1990), a horror novel by Croatian author Goran Tribuson, a key figure in the country’s escapist fiction tradition. The novel centers on Ivan Hum, a former prisoner who returns to his neglected, nameless hometown to uncover the truth about his past. As he navigates an eerie, decaying landscape marked by supernatural events and cryptic townspeople, Ivan becomes entangled in a web of personal trauma, local myth, and historical repression. The narrative weaves together psychological horror, crime mystery, and gothic atmosphere to explore deeper themes of memory, decay, and identity. At the core of the novel lies a metaphorical exploration of the collapse of socialism and the uncertain transition into a post-socialist society. The imagery of the sunken cemetery, derelict infrastructure, and a town lost in time serve as powerful symbols of social disintegration and historical amnesia. Through close reading and comparative analysis, the study investigates how Tribuson mobilizes elements of horror and thriller genres not just for suspense, but to comment on the disorientation and disillusionment that accompanied the end of Yugoslavia. A central contrast in the novel is between Ivan - a disillusioned intellectual shaped by rationalism, guilt, and exile - and Marilina, a strange, quasi-mystical librarian whose home is filled with Western pop-culture memorabilia. Their interaction encapsulates the tension between high and popular culture, as well as the ambivalence of post-socialist identity caught between the ruins of the past and the seductive promise of consumerism. The novel is also examined through its 2002 film adaptation, directed by Mladen Juran, co-written with Tribuson and Czech director Jiří Menzel. The film reinterprets many of the novel’s themes through visual storytelling, using cinematic techniques, symbolism, and Western horror tropes to enhance psychological and socio-political layers. While the novel’s horror is more existential and literary, the film foregrounds visual motifs such as marbles (representing trauma), decayed urban spaces, and Western pop references to depict the cultural Westernization and trauma of post-war Croatia. The adaptation reflects how the sociopolitical context of the early 2000s - particularly Croatia’s recovery from war and reorientation toward Europe - influenced the reinterpretation of the original narrative. The film emphasizes resolution and personal healing more explicitly than the novel, suggesting a more hopeful vision of the future. Ultimately, the study argues that despite its genre label, The Sunken Cemetery -both as a novel and as a film -offers a layered, critical engagement with the historical, psychological, and cultural anxieties of late 20th-century Croatia. It demonstrates that escapist or genre fiction can serve as a powerful lens for examining national trauma, collective memory, and ideological transition.
Gradation of distinctive features of the literature ofthe exodus in the novel La zaratina by Silvio Testa
The Italian literature of exile, pervaded by a bitter feeling of memories, has been enriched by another literary memory - Silvio Testa’s novel La zaratina, tragedy of Dalmatian exile. This consonant literature about the distinctive elements of Italianity - Romanity of Dalmatia - finds in Testa’s book a significant reinforcement of those elements and symbols, presented in almost all works of fiction and non-fiction dealing with the tragedy of the exile of Italians and other populations from the eastern coast of the Adriatic. The aim of this analysis is to detect and present the new contribution Silvio Testa offers to the memorial landscape of this traumatic historical experience - particularly through his depiction of the massacre and destruction of Zadar (Zara), caused by Anglo-American bombardments during World War II. Through the intimate and multi-generational portrait of the Italian family of the protagonist Bepi (Giuseppe), Testa elevates Zadar - nicknamed “the Adriatic Dresden” - into a literary monument: a testament to human survival, a symbol of the enduring vitality of its people, and of the solidarity that once existed between Italians and Croats, all immersed in the brutality of war. Testa’s novel is an exceptional contribution to the realist-naturalistic strand of Italian exile literature. The narrative moves beyond political or ideological accounts to construct a cubist mosaic of memory, trauma, and identity. At its core lies the deep pain of the disintegration of a multiethnic coexistence in Zadar - a city where Italians and Slavs once shared churches, schools, and family ties. Testa identifies nationalism, religion, and ideology as the three poisonous forces that shattered this balance. These motifs are not simply abstract ideas but are manifested through a wide range of emotionally charged and historically grounded episodes in the novel. The characters of Luigi, Daria, and Ivo offer insight into how personal identities and relationships were destroyed by political and ethnic divisions. Ivo, in particular, embodies the complex fluidity of Dalmatian identity: born an Austrian subject, raised with Italian culture, and of Croatian descent, his very being is rendered suspicious in a world divided into rigid national categories. When stopped by Yugoslav partisans and accused of fraternizing with Italians, Ivo understands that his deeply rooted ties to Zadar’s Italian community are no longer understandable to outsiders. His inner turmoil becomes emblematic of the cultural loss experienced by many Dalmatians. The novel also pays close attention to emotional and symbolic landscapes. Even in rare moments of physical pleasure, such as an erotic scene between Luigi and Daria, the mood is eclipsed by a looming sense of separation and despair. This episode illustrates Testa’s ability to merge intimacy and tragedy, making the body itself a battlefield of exile. An essential narrative device in the novel is the meticulous naming of real people and historically verifiable events. The autor of the article, himself born in Zadar during the bombings, confirms personal knowledge of many figures in the novel - such as Ivo and Sergio Nežić, or the partisan Obrad Egić - thereby blurring the boundary between literature and testimony. These elements add documentary weight to the story and deepen the realism that defines the novel’s contribution to the memorialization of the exodus. One of the most memorable figures in the novel is Ivaniza, a young maid from the island of Ugljan. Far from being a secondary character, she emerges as a moral compass and savior figure - risking her life to help Luigi and others. Ivaniza becomes a secular symbol of providence, akin to characters from Manzoni’s The Betrothed, silently ensuring the family’s survival amidst collapse. Her inclusion as a central character also reflects Testa’s egalitarian vision of heroism and dignity during wartime. In one of the darkest scenes of the novel, Daria is shown a bag containing human eyeballs by a group of partisans - a horrifying moment that unmistakably recalls Curzio Malaparte’s Kaputt, particularly the scene where Ante Pavelić is presented with a basket of Serbian eyes by his Ustaše followers. This intertextual echo links Testa’s work to a broader tradition of European literature that denounces wartime atrocities, while grounding the horror in the specific context of Zadar. The ultimate emotional and symbolic weight of the novel rests with Daria and her relationship to music, particularly the piano. In pre-exile Zadar, her piano was a source of self-expression and identity. After the family’s displacement, Daria clings to this artistic anchor - at one point drawing a keyboard on wood just to “play.” But by the end, the piano becomes a metaphor of emotional death. In a climactic scene in Venice, Daria breaks down at the instrument, crying silently as her fingers produce a dissonant, painful sound. She closes the lid as if closing the chapter of her life connected to Zadar. Her final gesture of turning her back on the piano reflects a complete internal collapse, the psychological endpoint of exile. Through Daria’s grief, Testa communicates a collective pain. She becomes a pars pro toto, representing all exiles - people from Zadar, Dalmatia, and beyond - whose spiritual devastation parallels the destruction of their cities. The novel’s closing pages form a threnody for Zadar, a dirge for a world that no longer exists, leaving only scars and muted songs. In conclusion, La zaratina stands as a masterful literary and historical contribution to the memory of the Italian exodus. With emotional precision, historical veracity, and a powerful sense of place and identity, Silvio Testa offers a unique reinforcement of the symbolic, cultural, and human elements that have shaped the literature of Dalmatian and Julian exile. His novel joins the canon of this literature not as an imitation, but as a deeply personal, stylistically rich, and morally profound work - one that reminds us how loss of homeland is not just a historical fact but a wound that sings, cries, and remembers.
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Miloš Crnjanski and the experience of the Mediterranean
This study explores the poetic and intellectual development of Miloš Crnjanski, focusing on his engagement with Mediterranean cultural spaces and the legacy of classical antiquity. Crnjanski’s early experiences in the multicultural Adriatic city of Rijeka, combined with personal loss and his polyglot education, shaped a literary voice that challenged the nationalistic narratives of early 20th-century literature. His seminal poetry collection Lirika Itake (The Lyrics of Ithaca) reimagines the Odyssean return not as heroic triumph but as a traumatic reckoning with modernity, exile, and the collapse of traditional values. Deeply influenced by classical literature, European modernism, and Mediterranean history, Crnjanski developed Sumatraism, a poetic-philosophical vision grounded in cosmopolitanism and the transformation of suffering into aesthetic transcendence. Through works such as Dnevnik o Čarnojeviću (The Diary about Čarnojević), Crnjanski destabilizes fixed identities, employing fragmented narrative structures and psychological complexity. His engagement with cultural plurality - linking Pannonia, the Adriatic, and the broader Mediterranean - positioned him as a cultural mediator between East and West, North and South. Crnjanski’s poetic geography, spanning from Galicia to Sumatra, blends memory, trauma, and myth to articulate the modern subject’s dislocation. His late reflections, including a 1967 speech in Italian, affirm his belief in poetic internationalism and the indestructibility of the cultural past. Misunderstood by many contemporaries, Crnjanski’s opus anticipates postmodern concerns with hybridity, exile, and the crisis of meaning.
This text offers a philosophical exploration of translation, presenting it not as a merely practical or linguistic task, but as a deeply existential, political, and metaphysical experience. The reflection begins by acknowledging that, historically, translation was often seen as a technical issue, with little philosophical weight. It was only through the contributions of thinkers like Schleiermacher, Humboldt, Heidegger, Rosenzweig, Benjamin, and Derrida that translation emerges as a central philosophical question. At the heart of the analysis is the dialectic between the “own” and the “foreign.” Translation is framed as an experience of the foreign, which in turn reveals the limits of what is considered one’s own language or culture. This encounter with otherness can take two fundamental directions: either an attempt to domesticate the foreign by assimilating it, or a more radical and ethical path - embracing estrangement, allowing the foreign to transform one’s own language. The text traces this tension through historical and theoretical developments. The Romantics, such as Schleiermacher and Humboldt, advocate for a form of translation that preserves the foreignness of the original, as a way to elevate and refine the native language. Heidegger, on the other hand, emphasizes the return to the “own” through the foreign, seeing translation as a way of “finding a home” (Heimischwerden). For him, language is tied to the homeland, and translation is a spiritual journey that reclaims linguistic identity through confrontation with the Other. However, the analysis becomes more complex and politically charged in the 20th century, particularly with Jewish thinkers like Franz Rosenzweig and Walter Benjamin. Rosenzweig, responding to the erasure of Hebrew through centuries of Christian translations (especially Luther’s German Bible), calls for a form of translation that does not substitute or overwrite, but instead respects the radical otherness of the original. He proposes a method that highlights the strangeness of the source text in the target language, thus resisting assimilation. This concept deeply influences Benjamin, who sees translation as a theological and messianic act: it is not about fidelity to a fixed original, but about revealing the potential of a text to live on and grow in another language. Benjamin’s famous idea of the “pure language” (reine Sprache) is central to this view. For him, translation is the site where languages come into contact not just to communicate, but to conspire together in expressing what no single language can say alone. Each language bears fragments of a greater linguistic totality, and translation allows these fragments to resonate with one another. This messianic vision looks forward not to a return to an original unity (as in the myth of Babel), but to a future convergence of languages in mutual transformation. Derrida, extending these insights, argues that language is never truly “owned.” It is always already the language of the other. Thus, any act of speaking or writing is also an act of translation - both interlinguistic and intralinguistic. The self is formed in and through this translation, which means that every speaker is, in a sense, in exile within their own language. This radical expropriation challenges nationalist or monolingual ideologies, revealing the inappropriability of language. In the final sections, the author brings these reflections to bear on the contemporary globalized world. The rise of “globish” or “globanglish”- a simplified, technocratic version of English - threatens to flatten linguistic diversity in favor of efficiency and uniformity. This monolingual trend is seen as a symptom of a deeper crisis: the reduction of language to a tool for exchange, the disappearance of dialogical and poetic uses of language, and ultimately the loss of meaningful difference. Against this backdrop, the act of translation regains its subversive power. It becomes a political and ethical gesture - one that resists the homogenization of global discourse and reclaims the richness of linguistic plurality. Translation is not just about converting words; it is about preserving worlds, opening borders, and keeping alive the potential for alternative futures. It serves as a form of repair and redemption, echoing Jewish theological notions of restoring what has been broken. In this vision, the translator is not a neutral intermediary but a transformative agent. Translation is understood as a form of liberation - a way to challenge imposed meanings, reclaim suppressed voices, and anticipate a multilingual and more just humanity. Ultimately, translation is not only a philosophical concern but a critical practice for resisting linguistic imperialism and fostering global solidarity through the dialogue of languages.
Identity Oscillation in the Process of Repatriation
Migratory flows have become a common practice in our modern society. They include a series of linguistic, social and cultural phenomena that transcend national borders due to various technological and geopolitical advancements (Garcia e Wei 2014; Canagarajah, 2017). Identity is a dynamic phenomenon whose formation and subsequent (re)shaping depends on a variety of societal conditions. It is therefore flexible since the processes of the individual’s self-identification as well as the identification with other members of the society never seem to stop (Jenkins, 2008). When immerged into migratory experiences, identities are subject to profound alterations which consequently lead to the emergence of hybrid identities (Pavlenko e Blackledge 2004). In attempting to grasp the complexity of migratory experience, Faist (2000) and Castles and Miller (2003) proposed the multi-level migration systems theory which consists of three intertwined and constantly overlapping levels. The macro level takes into account the global perspective of a receiving country along with all of its political, economic and cultural opportunities. In contrast with global outlook, the micro level considers an individual’s personal expectations in a foreign country. Finally, the meso level refers to social, symbolic and transactional networks which intercede among the first two levels (Block, 2006). Considering the dynamic nature of identity, the aim of the present research was threefold as it aimed to investigate the migratory motivations, the critical experiences and the effect of the migration during an individual’s formative years on his or her self-identification. Three hypotheses were formulated: (1) The macro, meso, and micro levels of the multi-level migration system theory will undergo changes in the participants who have experienced the double migration; (2) Critical experiences will provoke destabilisation of the identities of the repatriated participants; (3) Participants who have spent a part of their formative years in Italy will have a hybrid perception of their identity and those who migrated in adulthood will manifest less fluctuating identity dynamics. The eight participants of this qualitative research repatriated in Croatia after a prolonged stay in Italy and their identity (re)constructions have been investigated with semi-structured interviews which served as guidance in the formation of their life stories. The transcripts of their oral narratives have been examined with the content analysis method. The obtained results indicate that the macro level never altered despite the double migratory experience, while micro and meso levels were subjected to significant changes. Therefore, the first hypothesis was partially confirmed. The second hypothesis was confirmed since all the participants had critical experiences which provoked a sort of destabilisation of their identities. Finally, in verifying the third hypothesis, we established that identities of all the participants who migrated in adulthood were tied solely to the country in which they spent their formative years while two out of three participants who have spent a part of their formative years in Italy have a double identity. This research suggests a possible existence of an even greater impact of migration when moving during the formative years and indicates a strong role of the language in identity (re)modelling.
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How Not to Get Lost in Translation? Transferring Croatian Realia Into Italian Culture
Literary works written in non-standard varieties are generally significantly less frequently translated than those written in the standard variety. Although the last 30 years have seen more than 600 Italian literary prototexts get published in Croatian (Mikšić and Huber 2023: 38-39), very few of them are written in a non-standard variety. In this paper we analyze the Italian translation of Croatian culture-specific items excerpted from Hotel Zagorje, a contemporary Croatian novel written by Ivana Bodrožić in 2010. Apart from the Standard Croatian variety, the novel contains an array of urban vernaculars and rural varieties (namely, the urban vernaculars of Zagreb and Vukovar, the rural Kaikavian speech of Kumrovec and a local Serbian vernacular). These varieties simultaneously make the prototext difficult to translate due to numerous culture- specific items and suitable for a methodological analysis in class, since the translation abounds in the examples of usage of various translation strategies. For this reason, analysis of the Italian translation of said novel (Hotel Tito, translated by Estera Miočić in 2019) was included in the Translation theories course taught as a part of the Department of Italian Studies’ graduate programme at the University of Zagreb’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Culture-specific items are defined as concepts typical of a certain culture (Liebmann 2015: 14), which means that their translation creates a lexical gap. Translators typically try to fill in this gap by using various translation strategies. The classification of these diverse strategies as well as their typologies were taken from various sources (Ivir 1991, Mailhac 1996, Osimo 2011, Pavlović 2015, Veselica Majhut 2020). They vary from the borrowing of foreign lexemes which denote culturally-specific items to the formation of neologisms and the use of footnotes, if the translator wants their text to be appropriate (Toury 1995: 56) and thus enrich the target culture with new knowledge. On the other hand, generalization, paraphrases or even complete omission are used when the translator is aiming for an acceptable (Toury, ibid) metatext in the target culture. Venuti (2002: 20 et passim) calls these two opposites foreignization and domestication. The so-called domesticated translations make their translators seem invisible, but deprive the reader of a broader perspective and new knowledge. According to the Skopos theory, a functional translation theory which emphasizes the purpose a translation will have (Reiss and Vermeer 2014), the translator is an intercultural mediator. They assess which strategies should be used and how the metatext should be formed to accomplish successfully its function in the target culture and with the target reader. The traductological analysis of literary translations helps students gain a deeper insight into the nature of the literary translation as a process. A part of it is carried out by each student independently, in the form of a seminal paper, while the rest is done together with the teacher during lessons. It has been observed that the students’ attitudes on what constitutes a high-quality literary translation change over the course of the teaching process. The overall results of the analysis show that students notice and classify correctly the translation strategies used to translate culture-specific items. They are also able to recognize correctly that the translation in question is an example of an acceptable (Toury 1995), i.e. domesticated translation (Venuti 2002, Osimo 2011), thus proving that they have mastered the curriculum of the course. Students recognized correctly that the most frequently used strategy was neutralization, employed in cases when the original expressions belong to various diatopic, diastratic and diaphasic varieties. Following this strategy, local speech and slang are translated into Standard Italian. Neutralization is followed by generalization and paraphrasing, both of which are far less frequent. Students consider all these strategies to be inappropriate and perceive the parts of text in which they are used as examples of bad translation. On the other hand, they have a positive view of the use of explanation. This strategy is mostly applied when translating the names of the toponyms (mountains, rivers, lakes, parts of the city). It is also sometimes used for some brand names and products, although these terms are mostly translated using the generalization strategy, which usually introduces an Italian general hyperonym instead of a Croatian brand name (for example: ‘a certain type of candy’ > ‘candy’). Students perceive generalization as bad translation and change their mind only when introduced to the notion of overtranslating and Umberto Eco’s idea that translating means creating – in the best possible scenario – just roughly the same text (Eco 2003). One of the ways to achieve an acceptable translation (Toury 1995) is by using paraphrasing. This strategy is frequently used in the analyzed metatext, mostly when translating the structure of the Croatian education system and Croatian eating habits. We noted several examples of adaptation as well. Students regard them as successful interventions which facilitate the understanding of the metatext. When adapting, the translator often uses diatopically neutral terms or changes the diatopic markedness of the prototext into the diaphasic markedness of the metatext. These subtle semantic changes are usually not noticed by our students. Borrowing is one of the few used strategies that result in the foreignization of the metatext, since the reader is introduced to the culture-specific items belonging to the source culture. Almost all instances of borrowing refer to culinary terminology and are accompanied by footnotes which explain their meaning. Students generally believe that this strategy should be used far more frequently. Liebmann (2015: 32) states that, to translate successfully, the translator should be bicultural. The analysis of translation strategies used in the translation of Hotel Zagorje has shown that culture is a very complex concept, and that not even native speakers of a language have full command of all its culture-specific items. Our overall results show that our students regularly consider the foreignization of the translation to be a negative phenomenon. Frequent neutralizations, generalizations and paraphrasing make them perceive the metatext as “a too free translation”. It seems that, in cases where the target language is their own mother tongue, students value an acceptable translation much more than an appropriate one. At the same time, when the target language is Italian, they seem to place a much higher value on appropriate translations of Croatian prototexts.
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Dora Kapetanović University od Zadar Tommaseo, Niccolò. 2020. Canti corsi, Annalisa Nesi (a c. di). Milano: Fondazione Pietro Bembo / Ugo Guanda Editore