Refugalism and its consequences in Goran Petrović’s Story „Matica“

Abstract

Goran Petrović’s story „Matica“ artistically testifies to how much the exodus leaves a deep mark not only on the individuals who go through that experience, but also on their loved ones who wholeheartedly accept their refugees; how much the lives of both change, due to a traumatic event that leads to the disintegration of the familiar world, in all segments – from the work and life hinterland, to the family – whose ideal form, like a hexagonal beehive, is necessarily deformed. This content, on a spiritual level, determines the lives of both refugees and hosts. In Goran Petrović’s (1961–2024) short story „Matica“ (2002), a family of three (parents and a seven-year-old boy named Mali) is displaced by wartime circumstances from their own home and place of residence (some of the former Yugoslav republics, probably Croatia), and after a traumatic exodus, accompanied by physical insecurity, they arrive at their destination – the small apartment of their father’s parents in Serbia. This event deeply traumatizes the main character Andrija Gavrović, a retired JNA ensign, who, together with his wife, provides shelter to his son’s family. The stressful events and the long-term feeling of confusion, among other things due to their own mistakes in the past, the disappointment of expectations, and everything else related to the collapse of Yugoslavia – a state that seemed powerful and secure to contemporaries – raise a series of personal questions about delusions. They also lead to a specific psychological and metaphysical state of the protagonist who, after his relatives have fled, constantly tries to find a suitable metal nut, made according to standards, for his son’s children’s bicycle, preserved in the basement, which he intended for his grandson. The nut itself, as well as the constant search for it, are ambiguous, and their symbolic importance is the subject of the analysis conducted in this paper. More far-reachingly – taking into account the massiveness and repetitiveness of the exodus itself in Serbian history – it is shown that refugeehood determines the very existence of an entire people who, in their long history, inherit this experience, to such an extent and so many times that the exodus becomes one of the components of Serbian cultural identity. Goran Petrović’s „Matica“ is an artistic echo of that phenomenon, but also an indicator of how content from reality can be transposed into a highly aestheticized literary text and aesthetically universalized.