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CULTURAL APPROPRIATION IN TWO SHORT STORIES BY ALICE MUNRO: “FIVE POINTS” AND “THE ALBANIAN VIRGIN” — ECHOES OF THE BALKANS —t1o> NIKOLA TUTEK’ “That was a lie in one way and in another way true.” Alice Munro, “Five Points” ABSTRACT In this paper I will analyze the literary presentation of characters of Croatian and Albanian origin in two short stories by Alice Munro, “Five Points” and “The Albanian Virgin”. The analyses will be conducted mainly from the point of view of Cultural Appropriation, and based on three main points: 1. The inevitable shift in meanings of all cultural information that crosses the Atlantic and the reflection of that shift in literature; 2. How the reinterpreted (semantically shifted) features of Balkan cultures/mentalities form preconceptions which become the basis for identifying and understanding certain national groups/ minorities overseas, and how these constructed notions about Croats and Albanians were used by Alice Munro in creating narration and characters; 3. Scrutinizing every detectable instance of cultural appropriation and reinterpretation in these two short stories with regard to Balkans. As a conclusion, I will provide an overview of possible strengths and weaknesses of literary production which are partially or entirely based on the elements of the reinterpreted features of distant cultures in the two short stories. CULTURAL APPROPRIATION, ARTISTIC RE-INTERPRETATION OF CULTURE, AND BENIGN CULTURAL ROMANTICISM Cultural Appropriation The definition of cultural appropriation accepted by the Writer’s Union of Canada, approved June 1992 and cited in an essay by Bruce Ziff and Pratima V. Rao, states that cultural appropriation is “the taking — from a culture that is not ones own — of intellectual property, cultural expressions or artifacts, 1 University of Rijeka. + 71 +
