Europe as Simulacrum - Vojislav Despotov, Europe Number Two

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problems of the unusually organized fellowship of the artists he joins as well as with the more general problems such as nationalism and universal, everlasting problems rooted in the human nature.
The most attractive motif is found in the title: The idea of the existence of a 1:1 scale model of the European continent in Siberia. (There is a quite obvious similarity between this idea of simulation and Borges’s story about cartographers who map the empire in its so detailed and precise in a 1:1 scale that the map actually covers the whole territory. The map is thus equivalent to the real model upon which it is based and becomes its simulacrum). Similar to Danilo Kiš, the author frequently employs pseudo-documentary material to create the impression of reality in the story of a parallel Europe. Despotov integrates the testimonies of observers and participants in this extraordinary enterprise as well as quotations from various written sources, which connect different time periods, ...

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Empire about a misplaced written order to begin large scale engineering work in Siberia, newspaper and spy reports, experts’ assumptions on suspicious state economic transactions, memories of the imperial army headquarters’ chief, Rasputin’s statements, which were not taken seriously because of his reputation, as well as anecdotes about work in the Siberian camps during communism, and the personal hardship of runaway camp inmates that ran away. Certain theoretical-philosophical postulates on nature of simulation and simulacrum may help understand Vojislav Despotov’s presentation of Europe in the novel. Jean Baudrillard, a leading authority on the subject of the simulacrum, acted as a ...

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