Kobiece doświadczenie traumy wojennej w powieści Jasminy Musabegović Skretnice

Jasmina Musabegović (born 1941) is one of the best contemporary prose writers and essayists in Bosnia. In her work she sets the position of women in Bosnian-Hercegovinian society and the women’s personal experience of the 20^th century. It is the history of women’s emancipation and their alienation too.
The story is set in the thirties and forties of the 20^th century in Bosnia. The main character is a young Muslim woman, Fatima. Fictional space is mainly created by home and its center – the kitchen, which is traditionally a space assigned to women. Fatima is the victim of a collective trauma caused by war and genocide. The memory of the trauma causes a fragmented narration and the splitting of the subject speaking to some “me”.
The main scene of the story is Fatima’s body with typically feminine symbols and themes (water, land, bread). The discourse of the body should be linked with the concept of Tone Bringa (utjelovljenje kuće – a materialization of home), according to which the woman symbolically reflects the house, which is associated with its physicality. It also serves to release the experiences impossible to verbalize, including traumatic experiences of war.
Switches are a typical herstory. Jasmina Musabegović confirms the patriarchal order in a way, but eventually presents the woman as a mediator in the transgenerational transmission of trauma, which means denial of the patriarchal order and breaking the epic cultural code.