Świadectwo wbrew zapomnieniu – reminiscencje Evy Grlić i Jeli Godlar między literaturą i egzystencją

The article deals with the literary struggle with oblivion. The author analyses works of two Croatian authors – Eva Grlić’s (Sjećanja 1998) who came from the cosmopolitan family of Hungarian Jews, active in the Tito’s underground army and imprisoned on the Naked Island, and Jela Godlar’s (Limenke and ciklame 1992) who had connections with the seaside town Šibenik, but having complex Central European roots. These texts stand out from the Croatian writing of the 1990s due to their focus on the events of the Second World War and the period directly proceeding its end. The authors’ intention was to “save from oblivion” a generational experience before the primacy of the collective consciousness will be given to narratives about the next – post-Yugoslav – war. The works are a psychological and aesthetic expression of fear of oblivion understood as the final blurring of traces (narrative testimonies) of existence in a such important period of modern history.