À Suwałki en Pologne et au Canada. Tziganes, Indiens, métis et êtres hybrides. Du cliché de l’étranger à l’hybridité exilique constitutive de la condition humaine

• Published in: Slovo
• Main Author: Bilos, Piotr
• Other Authors: Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Inalco)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: French
• Published: HAL CCSD 2021
• Subjects: revolt; romantic hero; Reporting; others; travel; nature and culture; technical progress; indigenous; non-native; foreign; foreignness; minorities; dominant and dominated; ecology; ecocriticism; Indians; Gypsies; Roma; Canada; values; axiology; education; society; nomadism and sedentary lifestyle; Reportage; autrui; voyage; nature et culture; progrès technique; autochtones; allogènes; étrangers; étrangéité; minorités; dominants et dominés; écologie; écocritique; Indiens; Tziganes; Roms; Gitans; valeurs; axiologie; éducation; société; nomadisme et sédentarité; révolte; héros romantique; [SHS.LITT]Humanities and Social Sciences/Literature; Fiedler; Indian; Metis
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03200385; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03200385/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03200385/file/SLOVO51_8_Art7_PBilos.pdf; https://doi.org/10.46298/slovo.2021.7447

International audience Arkady Fiedler’s Canada Smels like resin ( first edition in 1935) mixes reporting with a personal quest. The 14 stories of I doubt that you will be able to follow us (the volume was published in 2013) by Jacek Milewski exploit fiction in order to tell truths about the Polish Gypsy community. The two works reveal a common perspective that justifies studying them side by side. Arkady Fiedler and Jacek Milewski move outside their home group to communities, certainly firmly rooted in their culture, but also, in many respects, dominated and marginalized: Indians and Gypsies. The discovery of the other and its transposition into a narrative is part of a double exilic perspective, because exile affects both the subject-writer and his object of study. We think of the Edward Said’s figure of the intellectual, both outsider and exile. Born of crossing of borders, exile invites to destabilize the frameworks that belong to the native, domestic and familiar realm, to experience “foreigner” about whom we did not know much except that he is opposed to “we.” Here and there, the literary project presupposes a quasi‑scientific preparation; the establishment of quasi‑experimental conditions capable of breaking down obstacles which, in normal times, obscure or even make access to foreign countries impossible. Fiedler has extensively researched Canada and its history; his excursion, far from the main urban centers, becomes the vector of a discovery of “deep Canada.” Jacek Milewski began to frequent Gypsies as an educator; he learned their language and kept getting to know them closely. Fiedler and Milewski subvert the dualism between dominant and dominated. The Western/Indian opposition gives way to a contrasting palette: English, French, Indian factions allied with such and such a group of whites, metis, emigrants. In Milewski’s work, there is also an effect of paradoxical familiarity, cracking the wall of strangeness between the “native” reader and the Gypsies. In addition, beyond the Indians and the ...