Questioning the Great Narratives of War and Masculinity: The Routes and Roots of Violence in Melinda Nadj Abonji’s Novel <i>Tortoise Soldier</i> (<i>Schildkrötensoldat</i>)

Abstract This article analyzes the novel Tortoise Soldier by Melinda Nadj Abonji, a Swiss German writer with Vojvodina Hungarian roots, with a focus on her critique of the mechanisms of social and historical violence and its deep-seated roots in unsettled ghosts of the past haunting multiethnic communities. Those mechanisms are exemplified through the little-known fate of the Vojvodina Hungarian minority during the wars that tore apart Yugoslavia. This article argues that the violence bursting open during armed conflict has its roots as much in traditional masculinity and its destructive gender norms, which affect minorities, women, and the environment, as in the unresolved presence of a communicative memory that is used and abused to justify social and ethnic exclusion and marginalization. Nadj Abonji’s novel challenges official historical narratives while also exploring ways to process trauma and loss through a narrative coming-to-terms with grief and mourning.