EPIPHANY IN "BERENIKINA KOSA" BY NEDJELJKO FABRIO

Abstract

The paper examines some common points and dynamics of (new)historical and genealogical novels through the analysis of 'Berenikina kosa'. The first part deals with the place of history and historical time in some philosophical-anthropological studies. Attempt has been made to find a middle-of-the-road - albeit unsystematic - path among the writer's general viewpoints, from which the stand on history in the novel 'Berenikina kosa' can be deducted, and the standing that defends an aesthetic product as autonomous, unrepeatable and irreducible to the writer's general reflective universe.
The second part relates how Fabrio's work is reflected in literary criticism and in the latest reviews of Croatian post-modern literature. A more thorough and methodical reflection can be observed only in the 90s, which is definitely points to a certain lagging behind of literary criticism. Finally, examples of transition points towards the sacred, distant and imaginary, all woven in the prose fabric of 'Berenikina kosa' are depicted: they are regarded as epiphanic/hyerophanic isomorphs of light and hope contrasting the isomorphs of darkness and senselessness of history. The epiphanic Utopia in 'Berenikina kosa' presents itself as a strategy for tempering the tragism of exercising the life.