Mise-en-abyme of the Reception. On the Early Reviews of the Dictionary of the Khazars in German

Abstract

With an implicit view on issues of theoretical importance, the paper analyzes the earliest phase in the reception of the Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić in the German-speaking area. The research focuses on reports about the novel and its author in the German print media published before the publication of the German translation of the work, with a view to the later development of reception within the newspaper, daily criticism. A detailed review of the content of this early reception phase shows that even then, before the publication of the Dictionary of the Khazars in German, almost all critical judgments about the novel were formulated, as well as the image of the writer's personal and authorial profile. The paper ends with a question about the value of these conclusions for understanding the general mechanisms of literary reception, ie. for possible generalizations in the domain of reception aesthetics.

Keywords

• Milorad Pavić
• Dictionary of the Khazars
• German-speaking area
• mechanisms of literary reception
• history of reception
• aesthetics of reception