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The Encyclopedia of the Dead

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Encyclopedia of the Dead (Serbo-Croatian:

Enciklopedija mrtvih) is a collection of nine stories by
Serb/Yugoslav author Danilo Ki. Combining history and
fiction in what critics have seen as a postmodern fashion, the
stories (which have been compared to the work of Jorge Luis
Borges) have helped cement Ki's legacy as one of the most
important 20th-century Yugoslav authors.

The Encyclopedia of the Dead

Contents
1 Background and contents
2 Reception and influence
3 Stories
4 References

Background and contents

Cover of 1997 edition

Author

Danilo Ki

The Encyclopedia of the Dead, Ki's final work,[1] was first

Original title
Enciklopedija mrtvih
published in Serbo-Croatian in 1983. A French translation by
Translator
Michael Henry Heim
Pascale Delpech was published by Gallimard in 1985, and
received a mixed review in World Literature Today, the
Cover artist
Patsy Welch
reviewer finding them of uneven literary quality (but the
ISBN
9780810115149
translation "excellent").[2] It was translated in English by
Homo poeticus (1983)
Michael Henry Heim (a translation praised for its faithfulness Preceded by
in preserving the original "clarity and precision"[1]) and
published in 1989 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, then republished in 1997 by Northwestern UP in their European
Classics series.
The stories combine fiction and history in a postmodern fashion.[3] In a postscript, Ki provides historical
backgrounds and other information. As in his other works, in The Encyclopedia Ki attempts to "piece together
the hybrid identity of the Balkans"; his effort "is mediated through contradictory strategies (documentary, myth,
imaginary projection, metafictional allusions and references) that cannot provide narrative coherences or
certitudes".[4] A Tomb for Boris Davidovich was "a cenotaph...for the hidden victims of Stalin's purges", and
The Encyclopedia is an extension of that project of cataloging the victims of history "along more blatantly
metaphysical lines", according to Chris Power.[5] As in A Tomb, a predilection with missing texts is an
important theme in The Encyclopediain A Tomb, for instance, the missing entry in the Encyclopedia of
Revolutionaries for the titular character, and in An Encyclopedia the lost correspondence of Mendel Osipovich
in "Red Stamps with Lenin's Picture".[6]

Reception and influence

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Ki is frequently compared to Jorge Luis Borges (he had been accused of plagiarizing Borges and James Joyce
in A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, which prompted a "scathing response" in The Anatomy Lesson (1978)[7]), and
critics find this to be especially true of The Encyclopedia.[8] According to Angela Carter's review of The
Encyclopedia, however, Ki "is more haunted, less antic than the Argentine master".[9] Slovenian poet Ale
Debeljak mentions both Borges and Ki in a 1994 essay called "The Disintegration of Yugoslavia: The Twilight
of the Idols"; Debeljat, in a passage on who it was that young Yugoslav writers of the 1980s looked up to,
explains that "the truly decisive role in our formation as writers wasn't Borges, as influential as he was, but
Danilo Ki", citing The Encyclopedia as one of three Ki titles.[10] Less positive is German poet and translator
Michael Hofmann, who in a 1989 review in The Times Literary Supplement called Ki "a highly deliberate and
self-conscious author of vaguely Pyrrhic books" and finds "terrible cliches" and predictable outlines in the
stories.[11]

Stories
"Simon Magus": a "masterly tale",[12] with two different endings, of a counter-prophet from the 1st
century AD. Magus, a reported sorcerer, is confronted by Peter (who is presented as a "tyrannical
power"[13]) while preaching against Christianity and its god, and accepts a challenge to perform a
miracle. In the first version, he flies into the clouds to be thrown down by God (see Simon Magus#Acts
of Peter); in the second, he is buried alive and after three days his body has putrefied. Both endings
confirm his prophetic qualities, in the eyes of his followers.
"Last Respects": the death of a prostitute in Hamburg, 1923 or 1924, leads to "a miracle of revolutionary
disobedience", an "elemental, irrational uprising" when her funeral is celebrated by the lower ranks of
society, who pillage the flowers from all over the cemetery to place them on Marietta's grave.
"The Encyclopedia of the Dead (A Whole Life)": a scholar spends a night in the Royal Library of Sweden
where she gains access to The Encyclopedia of the Dead, a unique exemplar of a book "containing the
biography of every ordinary life lived since 1789".[5]
The encyclopedia is the expression of a sociological and political philosophy; in the words of Gabriel Motola:
"The scrupulous detail is necessary to the compilers of this encyclopedia because they believe that history is
less the record of cataclysmic events caused by the high and mighty, who if mentioned in any other
encyclopedia are automatically omitted from this one, than it is the sum total of everyday occurrences of
ordinary folk".[7] The narrator reads the entry on her father and tries to record as much as she can.[14] The story
was published in The New Yorker, June 12, 1982.
"The Legend of the Sleepers" is a retelling (from one of the sleepers' perspectives) of the legend of the
Seven Sleepers.
"The Mirror of the Unknown": a girl foresees in a mirror, bought for her from a gypsy, how her father and
sister will be murdered.
"The Story of the Master and the Disciple": in Prague, Ben Haas (a writer who combines art and morality,
a combination otherwise thought impossible) takes on a mediocre writer as a disciple, who in turn
denounces his former master.
"To Die for One's Country Is Glorious": young Esterhzy, of a noble family, is executed for having

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participated in a brief uprising against the Habsburgs. His mother possibly participates in what could be a
cruel scheme to assist Esterhzy in keeping up appearances until the final moment. In a themed 1998
issue of the journal Rowohlt Literaturmagazin devoted to Ki, Hungarian poet Pter Esterhzy latches on
to this story in his remembrance.[15]
"The Book of Kings and Fools": written as an alternate biography of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
the story is a fictional history of a book, The Conspiracy. Like The Protocols, The Conspiracy is said to
be based on Maurice Joly's The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu. According to
Svetlana Boym, the story treats conspiracy theory as an "actual historical threat" which the narrator
attempts to disrupt, a tragic effort doomed to failure since the "violence persists" even after "the facts
have been revealed".[16]
The influence of this story in particular on four contemporary authors serves as evidence for Andrew Wachtel
that Ki is the most influential Yugoslav author in post-Yugoslav literature.[17] In addition, Ki's portrayal of
Sergei Nilus formed the basis for Umberto Eco's version of the character in Foucault's Pendulum (1988).[18]
"Red Stamps with Lenin's Picture": a woman explains in a letter to the biographer of Yiddish poet
Mendel Osipovitch that she was the poet's long-time lover. In her account, she provides biographical
detail and chastises his critics for their exaggerated and all-too literary interpretations ("lazy layers of
psychoanalytic criticism", according to a reviewer in The American[19]).

References
1. ^ a b Gorjup, Branko (1991). "Rev. of The Encyclopedia of the Dead by Danilo Ki" (http://www.jstor.org/stable
/40146289). World Literature Today 65 (1): 150. doi:10.2307/40146289 (https://dx.doi.org/10.2307%2F40146289).
2. ^ Lakich, John J. (1986). "Rev. of Encyclopdie des morts by Danilo Ki" (http://www.jstor.org/stable/40142350).
World Literature Today 60 (3): 491. doi:10.2307/40142350 (https://dx.doi.org/10.2307%2F40142350).
3. ^ Folks, Jeffrey J. (1991). "Rev. of Hourglass by Danilo Ki" (http://www.jstor.org/stable/40146288). World
Literature Today 65 (1): 150. doi:10.2307/40146288 (https://dx.doi.org/10.2307%2F40146288).
4. ^ Cornis-Pope, Marcel (2004). "From Resistance to Reformulation". In Cornis-Pope, Marcel; Neubauer, John.
History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries
(http://books.google.com/books?id=pV6sFB-KuU8C&pg=PA44). John Benjamins. pp. 3950.
ISBN 9789027234520.
5. ^ a b Power, Chris (2 August 2012). "A brief survey of the short story part 42: Danilo Ki"
(http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/02/short-story-danilo-kis). The Guardian. Retrieved 16 December
2013.
6. ^ Crnkovi, Gordana (2000). Imagined Dialogues: Eastern European Literature in Conversation with American and
English Literature (http://books.google.com/books?id=_metO0FLnugC&pg=PA22). Northwestern UP. p. 22.
ISBN 9780810117174.
7. ^ a b Motola, Gabriel (1993). "Danilo Ki: Death and the Mirror" (http://www.jstor.org/stable/4612839). The Antioch
Review 51 (4): 60521.

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8. ^ Vuleti, Ivana (2003). The Prose Fiction of Danilo Ki, Serbian Jewish Writer: Childhood and the Holocaust
(http://books.google.com/books?id=kLBiAAAAMAAJ). Edwin Mellen. p. 19. ISBN 9780773467774.
9. ^ Carter, Angela (1993). "Danilo Kis: The Encyclopedia of the Dead". Expletives deleted: selected writings
(http://books.google.com/books?id=ee0T5ti3zGoC). Vintage. pp. 2425. ISBN 9780099222811.
10. ^ Debeljak, Ale (1994). "The Disintegration of Yugoslavia: Twilight of the Idols" (http://www.jstor.org/stable
/20007177). International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 8 (1): 14768. doi:10.1007/bf02199310
(https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fbf02199310).
11. ^ Hofmann, Michael (30 June 1989). "Rev. of The Encyclopedia of the Dead by Danilo Ki" (http://www.thetls.co.uk/tls/public/article1325328.ece). The Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
12. ^ Taylor, Benjamin (1995). Into the Open: Reflections on Genius and Modernity (http://books.google.com
/books?id=uSYap2qVQMwC&pg=PA107). NYU Press. pp. 107 n.1. ISBN 9780814782132.
13. ^ Rajhona, Flora; Laczko, Eszter (2010). "The Forms of Narrative Material in the Exempla of Pelbartus de
Themeswar's Pomerius". In Breuer, Dieter; Tsks, Gbor. Fortunatus, Melusine, Genovefa (http://books.google.com
/books?id=HxQyox1jLoEC&pg=PA49). Peter Lang. pp. 3552. ISBN 9783034303149.
14. ^ Weber, Harold (1999). "The 'Garbage Heap' of Memory: At Play in Pope's Archives of Dulness"
(http://www.jstor.org/stable/30053312). Eighteenth-Century Studies 33 (1): 119. doi:10.1353/ecs.1999.0060
(https://dx.doi.org/10.1353%2Fecs.1999.0060).
15. ^ Snel, Guido (2004). "Gardens of the Mind, Places of Doubt: Fictionalized Autobiography in Eastern Europe". In
Cornis-Pope, Marcel; Neubauer, John. History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and
Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries (http://books.google.com/books?id=pV6sFB-KuU8C&pg=PA386). John
Benjamins. pp. 386400. ISBN 9789027234520.
16. ^ Boym, Svetlana (1999). "Conspiracy Theories and Literary Ethics: Umberto Eco, Danilo Ki and The Protocols of
Zion" (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1771244). Comparative Literature 51 (2): 97122. doi:10.2307/1771244
(https://dx.doi.org/10.2307%2F1771244).
17. ^ Wachtel, Andrew (2006). "The Legacy of Danilo Ki in Post-Yugoslav Literature" (http://www.jstor.org/stable
/20459238). The Slavic and East European Journal 50 (1): 13549. doi:10.2307/20459238 (https://dx.doi.org
/10.2307%2F20459238).
18. ^ Hagemeister, Michael (2008). "The Protocols of the Elders of Zioin: Between History and Fiction". New German
Critique 35 (1): 8395. doi:10.1215/0094033x-2007-020 (https://dx.doi.org/10.1215%2F0094033x-2007-020).
19. ^ "The A-List: The Encyclopedia of the Dead" (http://www.theamericanmag.com/article.php?feature=fiction&
column=42&article=4030). The American. n.d. Retrieved 16 December 2013.

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