This thesis proposes a dialogical reading of theatre’s movements – travelling texts, actors, directors, and characters on the stage– and the ‘travelling turn’ (Erll, 2011) in Memory Studies, a recently defined subset of the disciple which has offered insights into memory’s transnational and mobile qualities. The terrain here explored is an imaginary borderland—a route connecting Spain and the Former Yugoslavia—which has been theatrically imagined with surprising frequency. Through a focus on transnational productions that deliberately entangle the histories of these two regions, I explore the repeated motif of the traveller and his/her theatrical function.
Spain and the Former Yugoslavia offer a rich interconnected history to explore the relationship between travel and memory. It is estimated that between 1936 and 1939 over 1,600 Yugoslavs travelled to Spain to fight in the Civil War. The volunteers became national symbols of the fight against fascism in the Balkans and are today referred to as transnational heroes: ‘Naši Španci’ [our Spaniards]. During the war in Yugoslavia, and in the two decades following the country’s dissolution, engagement with the Spanish Civil War came to occupy a prominent role in the region’s artistic output. Representation of the ideological divide in Spain of the 1930s provided an avenue for Yugoslav artists to critically examine the history of internal strife in the Balkans, whilst simultaneously avoiding overt mention of local politics. One example of this phenomenon has been the long-standing interest in Jose Sanchis Sinisterra’s emblematic play about the Spanish Civil War, ¡Ay, Carmela! Conversely, Spanish news-coverage of the dissolution of Yugoslavia (and, in particular, the Siege of Sarajevo) brought up long-standing questions regarding yet-unaddressed traumas of the Spanish Civil War, e.g. with respect to exhumation, memory politics, and (more recently) secession. These questions have been explored by authors and playwrights such as Clara Usón, Slobodan (Boban) Minic, Hadi Kurich, Juan Mayorga, and Laila Ripoll, amongst others, through the creation of parallels with the Former Yugoslavia. Taking these historical entanglements into account, I explore how engagement with ‘other’ civil wars in countries that have their own experience with dissolution has allowed artists a critical lens with which to explore local issues—while appearing to do precisely the opposite.
Alma Prelec is an AHRC-funded doctoral candidate at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (University of London) and Stipendiary Lecturer in the Sub-Faculty of Spanish (Humanities Division) at the University of Oxford. Prior to joining Central, she trained on the postgraduate course at the Oxford School of Drama and completed a BA and Clarendon-funded MSt at the University of Oxford, specialising in Golden Age and Contemporary Spanish theatre.From 2020-2021 she was co-editor of the MHRA journal, Working Papers in the Humanities, and she is currently editorial assistant at Contemporary Theatre Review. Forthcoming publications include ‘From Golden Age to Civil War: Stages of Spain in Yugoslavia’ inDaring Adaptations, Creative Failures and Experimental Performance in Iberian and Transnational Contexts (Liverpool University Press, 2023) and The Eyes, an English translation of Pablo Messiez’ Los ojos (MHRA New Translations, 2023). She has collaborated with various cultural institutions, including the London ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art), the Theatre Times, and the Instituto Cervantes in London.