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Copyright of Nasleđe is the property of University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Philology & Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The book "Free: Coming of Age at the End of History" is a captivating piece of Lea Ypi's philosophical memoir. The abstract offers a glimpse into Ypi's thought-provoking ideas on justice, communism, and dynamics of power. "Free" engages deeply with the philosophical concept of freedom, unraveling its intricacies and shedding light on its multifaceted dimensions, to this regard through a systematic review of the book the aim is to invite readers to critically reflect on the complexities inherent in the concept of freedom, forging a path for a deeper understanding of its profound implications in both theory and practice. As "Free" is based on a true story it is so vividly explains the historical timeline of the events in a way that the author (narrator) gives to the readers the zeitgeist (the spirit of the age). The paper aims to enrich the academic dialogue surrounding political philosophy, providing a comprehensive evaluation of Ypi's work and its implications for the evolving landscape of social and political thought. In the book review we found out that yes, the book is written about the end of the history but about the end of history that did not happen and through Nini's life (Ypi's grandmother) which is a central figure in her memoir we can understand that even though Nini's life was full of struggles and transitions she never lost her inner freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author aims to discuss three topics using the memory research method. The first part discusses construction of the imagined community and collective memory of 19th century Lithuanian intellectuals in a country where education in the national language, and the printing of books and papers, were banned. The second part of the article presents the impact of the Great War and the struggle for independence on collective memory as revealed in memoirs written in the 1914–1940 period by fighters on the front lines, refugees, intellectuals, and people in the occupied country. The third part discusses the extinction of the Great War and the battle for independence from collective memory as a natural and specially constructed phenomenon, caused by the Soviet regime.

The author aims to discuss three topics using the memory research method. The first part discusses construction of the imagined community and collective memory of 19th century Lithuanian intellectuals in a country where education in the national language, and the printing of books and papers, were banned. The second part of the article presents the impact of the Great War and the struggle for independence on collective memory as revealed in memoirs written in the 1914-1940 period by fighters on the front lines, refugees, intellectuals, and people in the occupied country. The third part discusses the extinction of the Great War and the battle for independence from collective memory as a natural and specially constructed phenomenon, caused by the Soviet regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to debates on appropriate levels of analysis, temporality, and the utility of fieldwork in relation to Peace and Conflict Studies (PCS), and International Relations more generally. It observes a recentism or privileging of the recent past in our studies and a consequent overlooking of the longer term. As a corrective, the article investigates the extent to which wartime memoirs and personal diaries (specifically from World War I and World War II) can help inform the study of contemporary peace and conflict. In essence, the article is a reflection on the epistemologies and methodologies employed by PCS and an investigation of the need for greater contextualisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bulgarian Folklore / Bulgarski Folklor is the property of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Ethnology & Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 2014, when Romanian society was celebrating a quarter of a century of social and cultural freedom, Gabriela Adameșteanu was publishing her "Romantic Years" novel. Operating not only as a viewer who 'observes', but as an actor who 'participates', the writer produces a substantial document about a historical period and the events that mark it, points out moments, facts, attitudes, as well as human relationships. Adameșteanu hesitates to classify her book as a memoir and this may be because she is aware that memory is itself subjective and it can thus betray. Memory is tender and selective, only a 'particle' represented from the past, not due to a volitional act, but to an affective stimulus. The book is, therefore, not only a narration of a life story, but a triumph of life against imagination, of reality against fiction, as the writer herself confesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study of the memoirs and letters of Princess Sālima bt. Saʿīd (d. 1922), whose father, Saʿīd b. Sulṭān (d. 1856), was the ruler of Oman and Zanzibar from 1832 to 1856. One hundred and fifty years ago, the princess entered into a relationship with a young German man, Rudolph Ruete. After the princess fell pregnant, putting her in conflict with the stipulations of her Islamic religion, she decided to elope with her lover and to bet on him. The paper argues that the princess was a revolutionary woman in opposition to traditional Zanzibari culture, and that her story highlights clearly the issue of women and the crisis of freedom in Arab and Islamic culture during that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IN HIS newly released Wars Apart: WWII Letters of Love and Anguish From Cairo to Christchurch, retired award-winning New Zealand journalist and academic Alan Samson tells the love story of his parents through the letters and photographs they exchanged while they were stationed in the Middle East during the Second World War. They later migrated to New Zealand and their story continued from Cairo to Christchurch. Cairo was the place in which his parents began their story, which continued as they adapted to the diversity and triumphs of a new life in New Zealand. A journalism lecturer who taught at Wellington’s Massey University for more than a decade and is a former Pacific Journalism Review reviews editor, Samson uses his academic research skills and journalistic expertise in telling this story of love and anguish, hope and despair, of his own mother and father who had distinguished service records with the South African and British armies.

In the second half of the 19th century, Western theater underwent significant changes, as a result of the way it began to be produced, organized and disseminated through international theatrical tours and networks, and became a global cultural force capable of accelerating changes in customs, habits, behaviors and social codes. Connected to this phenomenon, Brazilian theater felt the effects of these changes, among them in the relationships established between different types of workers linked to the scene such as actors and entrepreneurs, a topic still little investigated by the historiography of Brazilian theater. It is around this theme that the present article develops and for its elaboration the series of serials Scenas Comicas, published in Gazeta da Tarde between 1883 and 1884 was chosen as the main source and as additional sources periodicals, memoirs and memories, biographies, dictionaries, ministerial reports and government legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Quetes Litteraires is the property of Katolicki Uniwersityt Lubelski Jana Pawla II, Wydzial Nauk Humanistycznych, Institut Filologii Romaj and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

'Doesn't a breath of the air that pervaded earlier days caress us as well?' Walter Benjamin asks in 'On the Concept of History'. 'In the voices we hear, isn't there an echo of now silent ones? ... If so, then there is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one'. What does it mean to be in secret agreement with people that came before? To recognise that coming after involves the taking on of certain obligations – for example, to pay tribute, to make amends. This paper examines the role played by the cinema in Patrick Modiano's Dora Bruder. Part history, part memoir, Modiano's book investigates the events leading to the deportation of a sixteen-year-old Jewish girl during the Nazi Occupation of France. The author's examination of these events commemorates the lives lost during the Occupation and alerts us to what remains still to be said about these lives. The issue that I address concerns cinema's role in the author's evocation of Dora's afterlife, in other words, its facilitation of a type of writing in which the experience of the present is shaped by the unfinished business of people and events that demand something of us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Colloquia is the property of Institute of Lithuanian Literature & Folklore and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

An artistic interpretation of historical facts is quite relevant in the literature and non-fiction of a post-totalitarian society. Prose works on historical themes are valuable and interesting in that they create an illusion for readers to be present in a certain period of historical time, and it is the artistic modeling of events that makes priceless facts of history completely disappear. The historical past is an inexhaustible material that word artists have been referring to for centuries, creating the best examples of fiction. Prose texts of historical subjects are perceived by each next generation in a new way, historical events and phenomena are interpreted from different angles, the activities of famous figures of the past are widely covered. Non-fiction literature is a kind of literature that is on the verge of artistry and documentary. The main non-fiction genres are a diary, autobiography, biography, memoirs, confession, letters, etc. On the one hand, non-fiction literature claims to recognize the author's subjective truth about him in her texts; on the other hand, only the reader can either, demonstrating full confidence in the author, call this text documentary, or admit the presence of poetry and aesthetics in the work and tilt the scales in the direction of artistry. The material for observation and research of the phenomenon of artistic modeling are works that allow us to trace the most common, in our opinion, models of correlation of historical and artistic consciousness in postmodern literature and non-fiction of a post-totalitarian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how testimonial writings suchas memoirs contributed to shaping Colombian his-tory. It starts by differentiating the notions of me-moirs, diaries and history. Additionally, it attempts to elucidate the place of the witness as a central actor and architect of events during the 19th century, as opposed to the view of the witness as a victim who does not deserve his fate, typical of contemporary times. Between the memoirs of the nineteenth century, written to promote imitation, and the contemporary memoir, narrated to ensure non-repetition, there is a historiographical order that redefines time, narration and the role of historical knowledge.

This article intends to show the process of Amazon colonization and the multiple tensions established between the indigenous populations and the various occupation fronts. In the construction of this approach, we highlight the use of bibliographic studies that represent the possibility of verifying the regional history, as well as the history of the indigenous peoples present in the Brazilian Amazon, besides narrative interviews. The teachers' narratives tell how they felt / feel about colonization and portray the colonizing process that affected indigenous peoples in Latin America. Showing the colonization process narrated by indigenous teachers was a way of listening to their versions of history, often not considered by the western / "official" view of the facts, giving visibility to those who are often made invisible by coloniality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores a recent stage of the national project in Taiwan as reflected in comic books. It compares historical comics and graphic memoirs as lieux de mémoire (according to Pierre Nora) and as stories that define Taiwan, situated between the historical apparatus and cultural memory (in Marita Sturken's terms). It argues that the memoirs' higher potential appeal is based on their relevance to contemporary concerns, on building links between the wu nianji 五年級 (fifth-grader) generation and present-day youth, and on depicting history as recoverable through elements of everyday life. The article also highlights borrowings from existing discourses of national history in the analyzed memoirs and their new contributions thereto: a focus on the postwar period; a strong generational consciousness; an idea of historical continuity as embodied in present everyday life; a nonantagonistic approach to national history that transcends ethnic and political divides and positions Taiwan in the midst of global flows; and a nonelite view of Taiwan's most recent history grounded in popular culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Co-herencia is the property of Universidad EAFIT and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The process of recovering the historical memory in biographical and autobiographical writtings is no longer restricted to an exclusive field of research. Authors such as Georges Bataille, John Hersey and Beatriz Sarlo scrutinize the correlations between History and memory in the literature, evaluating ethical matters and issues of social nature. In the light of this studies, this paper comments some excerpts of Assombrações do Recife Velho (1955), work of the sociologist Gilberto Freyre and Baú de ossos (1972), first volume of Pedro Nava's memoirs. The objective is to expose how fictional and historical elements are articulated in both works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the interaction of subjective and objective elements of memoirs on the example of such modifications as memoir autobiography and autobiographical memoirs. Subjectivity of memoir prose is interpreted as its constitutive element and the main determinant of the genre. Account is taken of the problematic nature of the classification of memoirs, the features and obstacles to using them as a historical source are also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Asia Minor Studies is the property of Asia Minor Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article introduces the concept of "postcolonial nostalgia" to discuss four memoirs by white expatriate Zimbabweans Alexandra Fuller and Peter Godwin. The authors borrow from colonial discourse, producing nostalgic accounts that may appeal to their Western audiences but which fail to challenge colonial mindsets in the way that their postcolonial self-image might lead us to expect. Written at a time of national crisis in Zimbabwe, the memoirs contrast a past of childhood innocence and settler contributions with a dystopic present. Even as the authors dissociate themselves from the white supremacist regime of the past, they present white settlers as benevolent and productive, and seem to lament the replacement of white order with nothing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The posthumously published Memoirs of the Late Mrs. Robinson (1801) has been read as a final – but flawed – attempt to defend the conduct and rescue the reputation of the notorious actress, poet, and one-time royal mistress, Mary Darby Robinson (1758–1800). Narrating her life as a pathetic tale of transgression and suffering, the Memoirs seems destabilised by inconsistencies in structure and gaps in content which are often discussed by modern critics as shortcomings: evidence of self-censorship, ‘confused’ intentions, or an inability to fashion an acceptable feminine persona. However, these so-called shortcomings may comprise a nuanced strategy of self-presentation designed to evoke curiosity and sympathy. Robinson's Memoirs was reprinted throughout the nineteenth century, spurring numerous novels, mini-biographies, and periodical articles. By examining nineteenth-century responses to the Memoirs, this essay argues for Robinson's life writing as innovative and influential, and gestures to the benefits of extending the traditional ‘edges’ of Romanticism in terms of both genre and period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses author Frances Burney's "Memoirs of Doctor Burney" which she had begun after the death of her father, Dr. Charles Burney dealing with Burney's claim to authority for Memoir as she had access to familial privacy due to her relations with the subject. Topics include Burney's fraught relationship with her father, her domestic and professional identity, and Burney's objection to the works of James Boswell.

The article presents an unpublished memoir of the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis, which focuses on biographical information on Brandeis. Topics, including Brandeis's parents emigration from Prague, (present day) Czech Republic to the U.S., his growing up in Louisville, Kentucky in the second half of the 19th century and his attending Harvard Law School, are discussed.

The article discusses the use of the memoirs of American women missionaries in Asia to promote evangelicalism during antebellum period. An overview of the development of the American missionary Harriet Atwood Newell's memoir by minister and professor Leonard Woods is provided.

Among the numerous foreign testimonies left by the Western travelers about the Romanians in the 18thcentury, there are also those of the Italian travelers. Out of these travellers who went through the Romanian area and wrote about the Romanians in the 18thcentury, we shall mention here: Anton Maria del Chiaro (1669 - post 1727), Bartolomeo Ferrati (? - 1749), Giovanni Francesco Bossi (? - after 1733), Francescantonio Manzi (1695-1749), Giovanni Bartolomeo Frontali (1714-1803), Giovanni Battista Vannucci (1712-1748), Francantonio Minotto (? - post 1777), Lionardo Panzini (1739-1807), Domenico Sestini (1750-1832), Francesco Griselini (1717-1783), Constantino Guglielmo Ludolf (1759-1839), Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799), Francesco Pizzagalli (? - post 1792), Luigi Mayer (1755-1803), Camillo Giacomazzi (1753-1833), Niccollo Foscarini (XVIIIthcentury). This paper aims to deal with the Italian travelers who have come through the Romanian area in the 18thcentury and have left, under various forms, testimonies about the Romanians, the accent falling on the larger works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lower Danube area was part of the Romanian front that separated, through the Siret line, the two belligerent camps: the Romanians and the Russians on the north of Siret river. In January 1918, there was a conflict between the former Allies, Romanians and Russians, from which the Germans benefited. This study presents the fights in Galati and their effects upon the occupied Brăila, using unpublished historical sources (the memoirs of German general Robert Kosch and photographs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The memoir of a silver-aged researcher has been introduced with the aims of assisting and enhancing the enlightenment of the research creativities of young scientists and engineers. It is stressed that research creativity absolutely depends on the human character and the sincere attitude of the research leader. To meet the excellent books as well as the respectable leader, especially in young ages, is also the most important factors for cultivating creativity. Further, it is essential to ensure the freedom and heretical behaviors in research activities, and good rivals are necessitated to cultivate the research creativity each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the narrative of Humberto de Campos in his first volume of memoirs (1886-1900) with regard to the education of the author. The first section emphasizes the importance of autobiographical writing for research in History of Education, and especially in History of Mathematics Education. The second section is a brief presentation of Humberto de Campos as a Brazilian writer. The next part discusses the theoretical and methodological foundations adopted for the use of autobiographical sources in research. The core of the text consists of approaching the main school experiences narrated by Humberto de Campos in Parnaíba, in the interior of the state of Piauí, in the 1890s, highlighting practices that involve mathematical knowledge. The writer’s school memories emphasize the material precariousness of elementary education, the simultaneous teaching of many students of different levels in schools managed by a single teacher and the teaching methods based on repetition and memorization and supported by practices of punishment and humiliation of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Russkaa Starina is the property of Cherkas Global University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A literary criticism of the book "Snake Wine" by Canadian travel writer and poet Patrick Anderson is presented. It examines the book's issues of colonial cosmopolitanism, colonial discourse, and utopian desire in literature. It outlines the book as a travel memoir and its unstable narration, cosmopolitan vision, self-refection, modernism writing, resistance and colonial attitudes is also examined.

The article argues that the first specimens of Pashto original narratives in free prose are to be found in the historiographical compilation Tārīkh-i murassa (1724) among the texts of the chronicles, diaries, and memoirs written by the Khatak tribal rulers Khūshūāl Khān (d. 1689) and Afżal Khān (d. circa 1740/41). Over thirty fragments from these texts may be qualified as short stories for, being focused on particular events and episodes, they are distinguished by strikingly realistic manner of narration and well developed elements of detailing, descriptiveness and emotiveness. Richly illustrated with translations of selected excerpts from original Pashto texts the article summarises the stories' subject-matters by grouping them into three main categories (wars, incidents, everyday life events) and discusses various aspects of the authors' narration techniques, such as compression of time and space in kea moments of action, accentuated portrayal of characters, extensive use of direct speech with a range of stylistic timbres. The article proves that the stories of the Khatak chiefs may be viewed also as unique documents on the realities of the Pashtun tribal life in pre-modern times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents author's reaction to Edhem Eldem's response to his article on memoirs of Ottoman military leader Sarkis Torossian. He questions Eldem's viewpoints, stating them to be two-sided and lacking awareness of developments in Torossian debate. Eldem's treatment of Hakan Erdem's book on Torossian debates is discussed.

In this article, I examine the intertextuality of reminiscence writings of Karelian evacuees in Finland. The main topics of these writings are the two journeys of evacuation from the ceded Karelia to Finland, which writers experienced as children during and after the Second World War, and journeys back to the region of their childhood, which became possible after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the case of negotiations surrounding spatiotemporal distance and the creation of bridges between the past and the present, I argue that intertextuality plays a crucial but somewhat underanalyzed role in reminiscing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents a memoir of his involvement with comic books, anime, and science fiction films. He mentions his interest in manga and other foreign comics, his role in the growth of interest in anime in the U.S., and his participation in science fiction film societies, mostly in Los Angeles, California.

This essay examines the rhetorical identities of Hillary Clinton’s two political memoirs—Living HistoryandHard Choices. The first spanned her childhood through her years as first lady. The second recounted her tenure as secretary of state. Though both memoirs were written with a past orientation, they also sought to keep alive a future run for the presidency. Situating the two Clinton memoirs in the history of biography, we employ corpus rhetorical methods from the digital humanities to establish thatHard Choicesfeatured a policy wonk identity compared toLiving History’smore personal storyteller identity. This result is not surprising in light of the different segments of life each memoir covered. Adding surprise and insight is the discovery that both memoirs also feature additional Clinton identities that shed light on her strategies for a future presidential run and revealed the identity problems she faced as a woman vying for the presidency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the characterization of military labour and martial honour in the Vida de la Monja Alférez attributed to Catalina de Erauso (?1592–1650). Reading Erauso’s Vida against the backdrop of the military revolution and concurrent social upheavals, and alongside other military memoirs from the period, I argue that there is an underlying coherence between the Vida’s criminal episodes and heroic scenes, which in turn reflects a conflicted notion of martial honour that comprises both exemplary conduct and transgression. At stake in this recontextualization of the Vida is a more nuanced grasp of the text itself and a more capacious understanding of the ways in which the professionalization of war was represented in early modern literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the literary scene in Romania focusing on the history of life writing works such as biographies, journals, and memoirs. topics include history of Romanian confessional literature, aftermath of communism, and history of Romanian politics. The article talks about Gabriel Liiceanu's "Scrisori către fiul meu", Mircea Cărtărescu's "Zen: Jurnal 2004–2010", and Gheorghe Florescu's "Confesiunile unui cafegiu". ,

The article focuses on the works on life writing in Finland focusing on the books written by Finnish authors dealing with memoirs, biography and autobiographies of finish authors such as Helena Ruuska, Hannu Mäkelä, and Anita Konkka. The article talks about Finnish politics in the 1970s and early 80s and the works of Finnish authors Matti Klinge,politician Jörn Donner, and historian Teemu Keskisarja

The article presents the author's views on an archive of American slavery consisting of memoirs, dealing with topics including the methodological challenges presented by memoirs, a counter-history of slavery in 18th century Pennsylvania, and Moravian slavery.

Using the space created by the land invasions, over the last ten years or so there has been a proliferation of exile memoirs written by white Zimbabweans living in the diaspora, which foreground colonial nostalgia and postcolonial anxiety. This article profiles elements of this latest wave of 'white (female) writing', arguing that writers such as Alexandra Fuller construct their own personal narratives based on an extremely teleological and narrow interpretation of the history of Zimbabwe. It is argued that memoirs are used as a mechanism to uphold an idealised (i.e. powerful) white identity, because whites' current 'destabilised' identity has resulted in them clinging to a seemingly utopian version of both what it meant to be white and the past. The article also examines some aspects of whiteness studies, utilising Peter Mc Laren's framework to argue that these memoirs are beset by a whiteness of social amnesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual soldiers' writings are a staple of Civil War literature. Edited volumes such as these demonstrate that the genre is still not only thriving but also academically valuable. Sailors, scouts, [...]

This article mines an early history of modern Lebanon by placing a special focus on the country's Jewish community and examining inter-Lebanese relations where Lebanese Jews take centre stage. Like Lebanon's Christians – Maronites in the main – Lebanon's Jews reveal themselves to have played an important role in the establishment of the Lebanese republic as a ‘confederation of minorities’. But the role of Lebanese Jews was a discreet, low-pitched one, and their ‘voices’ and ‘stories’ seem to have been left out of traditional history books. This article is an attempt at correcting a lacuna of exclusionvis-à-visLebanese Jews, mending their memory and restoring them to their rightful place as a foundational element of modern Lebanese history and socio-cultural production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The memoirs of Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon (1675-1755), are among the most studied sources on French court life under King Louis XIV. Historians have, however, largely overlooked the presence of animals in the „Mémoires“. Based on the empirical example of Saint-Simon’s account, the article aims at broadening our understanding ofthe early modern „court society“ (Norbert Elias) as a social figuration of interacting animate beings. While equine competences had had a decisive role in the courtly career of Saint-Simon’s father, the author of the memoirs confined himself largely to the role of an observer who documented the interactions at court that involved animals. In the duke’s critical view, the hunting practices of the king stood for his arbitrary, luxurious system of power, whereas the exchange of animal gifts between members of the court elite revealed patronage ties. Furthermore, Saint-Simons’ detailed descriptions of characters compared other courtiers with cats, monkeys, or snipes, invoking such imagery to allude to their behaviour or alleged physiognomic similarities. The zoomorphization of court life in the memoirs is a reflection of a world view according to which an animal side was inherent to the nature of all men – even the „man of the court“. Simultaneously, however, it also chronicles the co-presence of thousands of living animals of various species in and around the Château de Versailles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Saint Simon’s Memoirs, tightened between the model of the chronicle and that of the autobiography, articulate throughout two different and confuse projects: on the side of the chronicle, the subject remains uncertain, the memorialist hesitating between a diary of the life of court, a general picture of France in his period, and an occasional extension in Europe; on the side of the narrative of his own life, the will to limit itself to a political autobiography is overwhelmed by the feelings of the writer. The writing of the reality seems incapable of being reduced in a clearly defined genre.

Reis Felix claims he has no imagination in order to justify the closeness between his fiction and his experienced life. When editing the Portuguese translation of his short novel, Da Gama, Cary Grant, and the Election of 1934, it became clear to me that Reis Felix is being endearingly but also unnecessarily modest. For two main reasons: 1) all fiction is autobiographical; 2) by giving form to his memory, Reis Felix accomplished a magnificent work of imagination. Mainly, where was he--the alter ego of the author--in the climatic cinema scene where a young woman faces the hardship of love whilst watching an (as far as I could verify, I'm still searching) inexistent Cary Grant movie? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]