Mythistory in a Nationalist Age: A Comparative Analysis of Serbian and Greek Postmodern Fiction

My contextualization of mythistory, both within Greek women's postmodern fiction and Serbian postmodern narratives uncovers its complex involvement with the national issue. However, as my dissertation clearly shows, it is not only a persuasive rhetoric of nationalism, but also a narrative style that subtly promotes the political without propagandist intentions. Instead, in the texts analyzed emerge very distinct agendas of gender, identity, culture, philosophy, and aesthetics, all interwoven with the national problematic, but steering away from the definition by which mythistory is relegated to the transparently propagandist. Moreover, my dissertation defends the position that postmodernist Serbian and Greek literature, inclining towards the postcolonial interrogation of history rather than the more playful postmodern style employed in western literatures, engages the mythistorical narrative approach as a critical alternative to classical national allegories and organicist foundation narratives.