Desanka Maksimović’s Engaged Medical Novel The Open Window (1954): Tuberculosis as a Social(ist) Issue

Barać, Stanislava (2022) Desanka Maksimović’s Engaged Medical Novel The Open Window (1954): Tuberculosis as a Social(ist) Issue. Slavia Meridionalis (22). pp. 1-20. ISSN 2392-2400

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Abstract

The Open Window (1954) is a novel written by the critically acclaimed and renowned poet Desanka Maksimović and continues in the same vein as her pre-war socially engaged short stories. It shows a possible new form of engagement not only in the author’s own work but also in Yugoslav literature in general. The initial hypothesis of this paper is that Maksimović – by intentionally choosing the genre of thethesis novel, and by shaping (consciously or unconsciously) the genre ofder Arztroman or the medical novel – takes part in a tradition of popular genres which hybridizes enlightenment with entertainment. The aims of this paper are a) to define the given genres and place The Open Window within the traditions mentioned above; b) to define and analyze the novel’s representation of tuberculosis; c) to explain how the author placed the subject of this contagious disease and its epidemic spread throughout the Kingdom of Yugoslavia into the frame of the debate between conservative and emancipatory social movements.

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