Summary
Bernhard Giesen: Triumph and Trauma
"Giesen's study Triumph and Trauma systematically shows that heroes and victims are constant cultural phenomena from the very beginning of civilization and that they are present in a modified form until today. This is a particularly intriguing insight because it contradicts the thesis that we live in the age of post-heroic societies. In addition to the important theoretical contribution that Giesen's book brings to important cultural issues, attention should also be drawn to its special relevance in the culture of Bosnian and related languages, in which pre-modern heroic paradigms and post-heroic victimological narratives collide, whose strange mixture in the post-Yugoslav space was probably a kind of intellectual preparation for war and genocide. The value of these Giesen's insights is also in the fact that it reminds us of the great importance of balance between heroism and sacrifice, a triumphalist and traumatic view of the world triumphalism, and suppress the memory of their own defeats, prone to reckless activism, but also to internal non-solidarity, while those collectives who fixated on their victim status, risk sinking into eternal passivity and defeatism, in constant expectation that someone from the outside will recognize their suffering and shower them with compassion. Both options are problematic and insufficient to face the challenges of modernity. Giesen's research helps us to better understand this complex relationship, but also the latent conflict that exists within every culture and that, ultimately, we better understand ourselves and the world around us."
Vahidin Preljević
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