Irina Nozadze
PhD Student
Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
Shota Dzidziguri Bascology Center of TSU,
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-0931-756X
Irina Nozadze
PhD Student
Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
Shota Dzidziguri Bascology Center of TSU,
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-0931-756X
"Obabakoak" – Phantasmagoric World of Bernardo Atxaga
Abstract
In recent years Basque literature has chosen the novel as a leading genre (like the Spanish literature of the twentieth century). It can be said that the Basque novels of the past three decades are accompanied by a postmodernist premise, according to which everything has already been said, but it’s necessary to tell it again. The Basque literary scholar Mari José Olaziregi points out that this type of Basque novel is eclectic, because it is influenced by intertextuality and although modernist methods are adopted, at the same time, parodic and ironic combinations of genres and a remarkable variety of typologies are at the fore.
It was in this atmosphere that the contemporary Basque writer Bernardo Atxaga appeared on the literary scene. He started publishing books in the 1970s, when Basque literature became an independent social institution. The cultural unconventionality of a democratic nature, which arose from the socio-cultural changes of the 1960s, created a favorable political environment for the Basque literary system.
The phantasmagorical world in which the writer grew up was significantly reflected in his collection of short stories "Obabakoak". The stories are presented in an interesting and strange form and at the same time, they are thematically connected with each other through the ideological development of loneliness and fatality. With a similar structure, the collection is very close to the novel genre. The stories, first of all, are connected to each other by the fact that the action in all of them takes place in Obaba.
As Bernardo Atxaga points out, naturalistic writing often makes the mistake of taking a certain point of view, describing the characters in detail and looking for some logical explanation for their behavior or a sympathetic attitude that can not be natural to the characters themselves. Fantasy is nothing but the reality of "others", a combination of beliefs and representations of each person. Therefore, the writer came to the conclusion that in order to talk about the world he knew, it was necessary to transfer the action to an unreal, fictional place. Thus was born Obaba, the world in which the action takes place.
Bernardo Atxaga gracefully presents his creations by combining different forms and in order to enrich this aesthetic world, he does not hesitate to transform the structure of his work based on the means of artistic representation. For him, writing is a process of constant search for new ideological-aesthetic possibilities. In the report, we will discuss the fundamental novel of Atxaga called "Obabakoak", its main ideological-aesthetic aspects and the role of the writer himself in the light of modern literary challenges.
Keywords: Bernardo Atxaga, Phantasmagoria, Contemporary Basque Literature.