27 Jul Revitalizing Literary Peripheries: How the Swedish Festival Littfest Brought the Voices of Suppressed Cultures to Belgrade Through Cooperation with KROKODIL
This year’s edition of the regional literary festival KROKODIL has once again confirmed its role as an open space for contemporary social debates and the connecting of diverse cultures. Through the appearance of the Swedish festival Littfest within KROKODIL, authentic authors and topics that challenge dominant narratives and give space to voices from the margins were presented to the Belgrade audience.
On the first and second days of the KROKODIL festival, the appearance of the Swedish festival Littfest through the “Centers of the Periphery” program brought exceptional dynamism to the festival atmosphere, focusing on key questions of marginalized identities and freedom of expression. During the second day, the audience had the opportunity to see how literature can become a powerful tool for personal and collective decolonization—particularly through the presentations and testimonies of Sámi authors, such as Mats Jonsson, Linnea Axelsson, and Johan Sandberg McGuinne, who shed light on suppressed history, archival silences, and the dangers of transmitting superficial stereotypes. Following this, the focus expanded to questions of contemporary “migrant literature” and life between different languages and cultures, where writer Andrzej Tichý and poet Burcu Sahin, along with editor Per Bergström and artistic director Erik Jonsson, opened a dialogue on the hidden layers of society, the re-examination of Western stereotypes, and the construction of new spaces where the margin and periphery become the very centers of literary creation.
Speaking about the reasons for coming to Belgrade, Littfest artistic director Erik Jonsson emphasizes that the selection of writers presented in Belgrade reflects the very core of their home program in Sweden. Littfest is held in the city of Umeå in northern Sweden, far from major centers like Stockholm, Malmö, and Gothenburg. From this position emerged the title of their program—”Centers of the Periphery.”
“Littfest is held in northern Sweden, very far from the well-known cities… Umeå is located on the periphery of Sweden. During my travels to literary festivals around the world, I realized that the most interesting literature does not necessarily emerge in big cities like Paris or London. Our festival became large precisely because we can be the biggest festival in our own city… When we present stories from northern Sweden to an audience from, for example, Stockholm, we can bring closer issues and events from that part of the country that are otherwise not familiar to them. When we do that, the periphery becomes the center,” Jonsson pointed out.
A special focus of this year’s guest appearance was placed on the literature, history, and culture of the Sámi people, an indigenous people whose tradition was oral for centuries. Although there is often a public image of Sweden as a country without controversy or armed conflict, authors from this community remind us of a history of suppression, racial biology, and the banning of their language in schools. For this reason, half of the authors brought to Belgrade were representatives of the Sámi community.
A deeply rooted process of assimilation and decades of systemic suppression meant that many generations of the Sámi people grew up completely cut off from their own origins. Speaking about this painful legacy of forgetting, writer and author of the graphic novel When We Were Sámi, Mats Jonsson, explains how artistic creation and literature can serve as a powerful mechanism for the reconstruction and reclaiming of a stolen identity:
“I reclaimed my Sámi identity, which was lost when my grandfather stopped speaking about his origins. My father grew up not knowing that he, his brothers, and his sisters were Sámi. While growing up, the only things we knew were some vague memories from a distant past. Then I began working on my graphic novel When We Were Sámi, and one could say that its creation represented a process of personal decolonization taking place in real-time,” Jonsson explains.
Searching for the truth in official historical records, Jonsson faced the fact that archival material often consciously omits key elements from the lives of marginalized communities. Speaking about working with historical documents and the challenges he encountered during his research, the author adds: “I must say that the remaining gaps actually speak the most. It was like putting together pieces of a puzzle, but I didn’t know how big the puzzle was or how many pieces there were in total. I might have found a hundred pieces, but I know there are a thousand more that are missing or lost forever.”
Considering the relationship between official documentary sources and the artistic processing of the past, author Linnea Axelsson emphasizes that art has a unique ability and duty to illuminate historical injustices, emotional fractures, and traumas that dry archival documents usually remain silent about or marginalize.
“Literature deals with human emotions and experience, and such things generally do not make it into archives and documents. The view of a human being is also different from what we find in archival material, and the way stories are shaped differs as well. Literature often focuses on silences, interruptions, and stutters. It doesn’t have to offer a clear story with a beginning, middle, and end, because such a structure is, in a way, an artificial construction,” said Axelsson.
In addition to deep historical traumas, the complexity of the contemporary position of this people is also reflected in the fact that their traditional living space is geopolitically divided by state borders. Johan Sandberg McGuinne explained the complex and often contradictory perspective of a people who have survived for centuries on the territory of four different states, pointing to dark episodes from 20th-century European history:
“The most important thing to understand is that the Sámi are a people living in four different states, which means they have been influenced by four different state policies. The second important thing is that the Sámi were exposed to racial biology and racism… In the 1920s, the first institute for racial biology was founded in Sweden, whose representatives examined and photographed the Sámi, forcing children to strip naked to document what a ‘purebred Sámi’ supposedly looks like… We must understand that history and the way such ideas spread across Europe.”
In addition to the historical context and institutional discrimination, McGuinne draws attention to contemporary challenges encountered in daily life, warning against the simplification of their rich tradition and the reduction of an entire cultural identity to superficial pop-culture stereotypes.
“Culture is not just what you wear, the objects you use, or the job you do. It also encompasses family, language, and the way you react to different situations… When you say the word ‘Sámi,’ people immediately think of someone with reindeer. We must reach a point where people are allowed to be more than just one thing and where we accept diversity,” McGuinne emphasizes.
As part of the program, authors belonging to so-called “migrant literature” were also presented. Editor Per Bergström explained the decision to bring together writer Andrzej Tichý (born in Czechoslovakia) and poet Burcu Sahin (born in Sweden, of Turkish origin) in a joint conversation.
“Both are very good and prominent authors… Although Andrzej is a prose writer and Burcu is a poet, what they have in common is that they make visible those parts of society that often go unnoticed. We also wanted to include them because Swedish is not their mother tongue… Because of this, both can relate to so-called ‘migrant literature’ and write about the experience of living between different cultures,” Jonsson explained.
Speaking about the perception of the Balkans in Sweden and the encounter with the local audience, Erik Jonsson concludes that direct cooperation with KROKODIL completely changes the established representation of Sweden in Serbia and the region.
“There are many stereotypes, and it is interesting that a large number of people in Sweden have a certain idea of Serbs, but when they come to Serbia, that image completely falls apart; they see that it isn’t true. There are two ways of looking at literature: one is to see it as pure entertainment, while the other involves its ability to provide a voice to people who otherwise don’t have one, to build platforms, present perspectives from different parts of the world, and broaden the audience’s view. That is precisely why it is important to expand one’s own perspectives and learn something new,” Jonsson explained.
Littfest’s appearance at KROKODIL has once again confirmed the invaluable role of literary festivals in contemporary society. They are not just gathering places for lovers of the written word, but also powerful drivers of social change—spaces where marginalized stories get their stage, and literature becomes a bridge connecting distant cultures and illuminating what official histories often keep silent. The stories, testimonies, and dialogues exchanged during the Belgrade encounter clearly indicate why such events are more necessary today than ever. They act as cultural correctors that reject accepted narratives and build understanding where barriers exist. By opening doors to authors from the margins and giving them a central place, festivals like KROKODIL and Littfest prove time and again that literature has the power to broaden horizons, change consciousness, and redefine the world we live in.
Written by: KROKODIL’s journalists for a day Nataša Marjanović and Sofija Lapčević
Photos: Alex Dmitrović
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.