Congist'26: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Crisis

The Collapse of the Heroized Concept of Nationality, Exemplified by Some Protagonists in László Krasznahorkai's Work

D3-S4-K1

15 May 2026, 14:50

20m

Kurul Odası (Istanbul University Faculty of Letters)

Oral Presentation Session 4.7 (Day 3)

Speaker

Erika Verešová (Istanbul University)

Description

László Krasznahorkai's life's work to date is already characterized by generalizing features of its reception. These include the dark world of his prose works, the visionary character of the narrative instance, the apocalyptic narrative situations arising from the conflict between chaos and order, the issue of poverty or indigence as a societal trap, the infinite sentence fabric embodying music, image and text simultaneously, the novels that are thematically and motivically linked to one another, or respectively the main theme of several of his works: human existence, oscillating between devastating destruction and blessed creation, etc.
This study investigates the outlined topology of the Krasznahorkai universe and attempts to unravel the crisis states of its protagonists arising from controversial life situations. In each microverse, permeated by nihilism and hopelessness, the possibility of escape is already germinating - the author allows for a better existential alternative than what strictly speaking reality can offer. This alternative is embodied by the unconditional recognition of human imagination, education, high-quality knowledge, and the unconditional recognition of artistic aesthetics. The concern felt about the disappearance of aesthetic education as a (national) identity crisis is an other key motive in Krasznahorkai's work as well.
In addition to examining certain identity characteristics of the protagonists of László Krasznahorkai, the following question will also be explored, whether in relation to his works mentioned above, the theory of transculturality could be applied as a first-aid kit in the search for a way out of an immoral social structure.
The analysis focuses on his earlier work - the novels Satantango, The Melancholy of Resistance, War and War, Seiobo on Earth and, from the more recent works, the novel Zsömle is Gone.