Ranko Risojevic
Where Are You, Pavle
I wished to be there,
to see with my own eyes the pictures which obsessed me
from one morning to another, from then until now.
although I remained here, when I run over there
I saw men of authority in the burial procession
in dark suits, members of governments,
some, let’s say, a king, princes and entourage
and the golden robes of church dignitaries,
an enormous number of people
who came as it was expected of them
to pay respect
to the one who was on his way,
men who, although occasionally, laughed at him,
as if I had lost my mind, like the one who covered her head
and managed through the crowd, somehow,
to kiss His body, His robe and His hands –
I thrust myself forward and bowed to see if he was really there,
fearful it might be true.
People were already grabbing my coat,
dragging me away, but I saw it clearly –
he was not there, not there! He went away by himself, as usual
on foot to the Monastery, where he is going to wait for them,
the same one he used to be, remaining like that for eternity.
Translated by Sofija Skoric
Resurrection
Christ speaks:
all is done,
but I cannot find peace
until you resurrect in yourself, man!
I am waiting long time, you make no move,
so much laziness I did not expect.
Time has come, perhaps this morning, man,
as you eat fish, vegetables and bread,
as you drink wine, wait on children,
keep looking at your wife and the world beyond the window.
Perhaps you think you can bribe my father with that
this very morning, man, completely besides yourself,
all in the dust of nothing that means everything to you.
glance a little disperse your darkness,
is there a shining spot, like a needle’s top,
where you could settle all of you,
without thinking about fasting, children, wife,
leaving the morning behind the window,
the world beyond yourself, you finally in yourself?
Translated by Vasa Mihailovich
Betrayal
Whomever you look in the eyes – Peter!
He’ll fall asleep just as you need him.
He’ll leave you alone in the middle of the night
That’s the way it was from the beginnings –
You cannot say so about yourself –
I am firm and nothing will confuse me.
I see everything in myself, as if I were you and not I,
Doubly broken up,
Doubly magnified,
Doubly abandoned.
How could I swear to anyone,
as you can see me, believe me,
I will be firm, thinking only about you
at every moment of my present life.
nothing will come of it, why promisses.
Translated by Vasa Mihailovich
Sky above Golgotha
Has anyone ever seen that sky
on the day when the Martyr, voicelessly,
Called on his father, who had abandoned him?
Those on the hill are known,
The wider view is conjured up, like in a painting,
all the way to Varnava, in some thicket,
Though such ticket was never
Present in golgotha.
How many Marias were there?
Was He concerned about it?
Did He call any of them?
Did He mention His executioners?
He was looking at Heaven,
where His closed ones were,
Who destined His Journey and His Suffering.
Who was there on that day?
angels on the balcony?
Someone else too?
I cannot find peace
Because of the picture that was not there.
Everything is in it except for us.
Except for Him too?
Translated by Vasa Mihailovich
Suncica Denic
Exile
We are the new age fugitives
rejects of bygone years
in flight… in plight
in awe
before teh great unknown expanse
as we – who are who we are…
lame time trekkers
wire dancers
thumbless beggars
caress the meadows and bees
and play the flutes
while our little finger
tempts eternity
Translated by Nikola Miscevic
Yerma
Yerma, my sweet Yerma
I do fathom your solitude
almost…
the wrath
as you murmur and drift downstream
relentless
as you tell tales
and cry inconsolable
along your precarious meander
how else did you plough
your gorgeous gorges
how did you
aggravate and mend the open wounds
if not with your nectar drops
heavenly rains
and mourning leaves
have fed you
foliage of poplar and asp
weeping willow and lilac
linden before the looted fortress of hearth
and that ancient mulberry
the healer of monks
and dreaming destitute souls
those countless drops of yours
will merge and surge
and your torrent Yerma
will flood the shores and ramparts
until we drown Yerma – one and all…
Translated by Nikola Miscevic
Vilajet (Vilayet)
Maestral drizzle
rampant predatory feasts for beasts
exiled masses
honour to the foe
for earning my blind trust
in this deep drift of april snow
ahhh
who may have faith yet
in the ancient folksongs3
as Biljana whitens the sheets
in the stream
as orphaned Sulaiman’s4
mother
weeps
and Kosovo plain remembers
the yore
as great faiths of the world
collide with eternity
and stray birds dissect the galaxy
cormorants dive
to tame the ocean deep
bolted gates creak before the onslaught
while Biljana whitens her immaculate sheets
and sings
somewhere
between Heaven and Earth…
Translated by Nikola Miscevic
Zeljko Prodanovic
The Tale of a Singer
One day I sat in front of the temple of god’s tear in Baalbek, listening
to the crickets singing joyfully in the crown of the cypress tree, when
a young man came along riding on a two-humped Bactrian camel, a
balalaika slung over his shoulder. as he came closer he smiled at me
innocently, then got off the camel and sat down beside me. and as if
we had known each other for years, I would even say for centuries, the
young man sadly sighed and began to talk.
“Dear friend,” he said, “after all that has happened to me I can’t tell
you for certain whether what I am going to tell you has really happened.
More precisely, whether it happened to me or to some other man who
lived instead of me. In other words, I don’t even know whether I have
lived at all.
“So, if I have existed or if I still exist, then my name is ashug-Kerrib
and I come from Samarkand. and my sufferings began the day I met
alma.
“alma (Baal-ma or the crying tear) was – and you can take my word
for it – the most beautiful girl under the sun and I was the best poet
in Samarkand. as you may guess, love flamed my heart and warmed
my soul.
“But then shocking news came to me – alma got married!
“She went to Cordoba,” they told me, “and there she became the
sixth wife of caliph al-gizah.” at that moment it seemed as if I saw
death itself, but I quickly pulled myself together and made a salutary
decision: I left Samarkand and, firmly decided, set out to Cordoba. I
had no foreboding, however, how long and troubled this journey
would be.
“first, I arrived in Shiraz where I met the famous poet and astron-
omer Khayyam and told him about the misfortune that had befallen
me. He listened to me attentively, and when I finished, here is what he
told me.
“as far as I know,” Khayyam said, “the distance between two stars is
smaller than the distance between two hearts. So, your sufferings are
in vain. But since alma, as you say, is so beautiful, then you, ashug-
Kerrib, can with good reason be proud of the beauty of your sufferings,
worthy of the best poet from Samarkand.”
“I took Khayyam’s words as comfort, and then left Shiraz. I went
to Palestine with the intention to embark a ship that would take me
to Cordoba, but soon a new misfortune befell me. apparently, the
Christians and Saracens were fighting over their holy land, but I
didn’t know that.
“As soon as I arrived in gaza some brigands intercepted me and,
with no explanation, clapped me into a dungeon. I tried to explain to
them that I belonged to Zarathustra’s faith and that I had nothing to
do with their war, but they told me that it would be much wiser to keep
my mouth shut.
“among the prisoners, who, with no exception, were cruel and biza-
rre, I would single out one man, whose fate in a strange way interlaced
with mine.
“ I am from the Sahara,” said al-Korta, as the man was called, “from
the proud tribe of Tuareg. When I realized that the arabian bedouins
had forced my ancestors to accept their faith, I raided the mosque in
fes and went abroad.
“on the shores of the red Sea I came across the Carmatians, who
claimed that the Prophet was a liar and that the world was not created
by allah – but by Satan. I joined them and when the caliph from Bagh-
dad captured our chief and put him to death, we ravaged Mecca and
took the Black Stone with us. We threw it into the heart of the desert
and the soldiers of Baghdad’s caliph found it only twenty years later.
“Soon, however, I realized that I was neither a robber nor a murde-
rer and that I am strongest when I fight alone. I went to Persia where I
fought imam al-Sabah, because he was a tyrant, but I also fought the
robbers who robbed his caravans.
“and when these bedouins arrived, carrying the cross in one hand
and the sabre in the other, I came to Palestine. They captured me in the
battle by a purple river and that is how I got to the dungeon.
“That’s my story,” al-Korta said. “and you are going to Cordoba,” he
added, “and you will cover such a long way because of a woman. I’m
not going to persuade you that this is folly, although I know perfectly
well that love doesn’t exist. But I have to tell you this.
“It was in this very dungeon that Samson, the great hero from Phoe-
nicia, also spent his life. after leaving Baalbek, where he had spent a
year as alleluia, the one who carries the sun, he left his mistress astar-
ta and went out into the world. He wandered from town to town, flying
from one woman to another, and then he arrived in gaza and met
Delilah.
“and do you know what this bitch did to him? While he was asleep
in her arms, she cut his hair – the source of his strength. The Philisti-
nes then blinded him and threw him into the dungeon, where he spun
the mill wheel and ground Philistine corn. and so he who felt no fear
when faced by sixty bedouins and six lions at the same time, was over-
come by a woman! and now you go to Cordoba!”
“I spent three years in the dungeon in gaza. at the end of the third
year we received news that the Christians had suffered a crushing de-
feat and that, in retaliation, they would put us to death.
“The following morning they took us out and I watched with my
own eyes as they cut off heads, one after another. When it came to al-
Korta’s turn, he looked at me and smiled. “Death is a secret,” he whis-
pered, “just like love,” – and then his black head rolled into the dust.
Ranko Pavlovic
Emptiness
Two shadows in the empty room formed a right angle. one of them
stretched across the rotten floor with tiles spaced out just enough to
insert one of those thinner books in them, recognizable by the layer of
dust underneath it, so much darker it looked wet as if it was splashed
with water. another one was what remained of a skinny girl right befo-
re herexistence poured into a shadow. She stood with her back towards
the opening that once served as a window. Behind the girl one could see
a small square of lightened up sky bruised by redness of a burning sun
vanishing in the mouth of the nearby hill. Her eyes reflected disappe-
aring shades of flames of her former life that one might think she squ-
andered away.
a moment earlier, in a narrow alley, full of gaps and scattered gar-
bage, she paused for a moment beside him, piercing him with a look,
through which she wriggled to the icy lumps of anxiety hidden deep
within his pupils. She signaled with a slight movement of her eyes to
follow her through the opening where the door once used to be. They
found themselves in a ruined room with beams of spring afternoon
light sifting through the wracked roof and sporadically broken ceiling.
He remained near the entrance, while she approached the hole on the
opposite side.
– I know you. You are Ivan Chabrilo – an empty voice interwoven
with nicotine clanged through the gaps of a damp room.
He had nothing to answer on that, he knew he was Ivan Chabrilo.
He pulled the cigarettes out of his pocket and started approaching her
to offer some, when she stopped him with a stretched out hand. Ivan
returned the pack into his pocket.
– I am nadine.
That was news to him, but he did not feel the need to comment on it,
just as he didn’t a moment ago when she said his name.
nadine could have been seventeen, twenty, or thirty-five years old.
It wasn’t just the darkness in the room with walls long blistered with
mortar where nothing but contours of her face were looming up by
sunset behind her back that made him doubt her age. It was her dried
lifeless body, worn out shabby clothes and rough voice more suited for
someone whose bones witnessed many decades.
He noticed something behind her heels, right where the two sha-
dows (shadow of her body and its reflection on the floor) formed an
angle – there were three or four plantlets peaking an inch from the dust
and striving towards the hole that served as a window. It must have
been the birds who carried the seeds in their beaks or feces, he thought.
Perhaps the wind brought a few drops of rain through the opening
so the seeds started growing and rushing to escape their prison of
tight membrane that was suffocating them the same way tight walls
suffocate the man trapped inside.
If a plant – he was surprised how he even thought of this – has a pa-
rent, is it a seed or is it a plant that creates the seed? Perhaps, in this
case, the parent is everything around – it is the rottenness from which
plantlets draw food, or the morning dew that moistens the dry rot.
Maybe it is the light itself, as well as moisture and nourishing juices
from the rot that are keeping the plants alive.
all beings have a parent, and even though we often do not know
who that might be, it is a question of more philosophical rather than
genealogical nature, he concluded.
– You do not know or you do not want to answer?
The question slammed into the silence, onto the fragile plantlets –
startling him thinking it will break them.
– or maybe you weren’t listening to me?
– I wasn’t, he admitted without hesitation.
– I asked why you were standing in the middle of the street? Were
you deciding to take a little walk or immediately enter the building
opposite from here?
– Some … something like that – he stuttered.
– I have been following you for months now – she said quietly, and
when he wanted to express his surprise, or perhaps indignation, she
silenced him by placing her twig-like finger on his lips.
– I know that you go to the one-bedroom apartment on the second
floor every evening, I even know the woman’s name written on the
nameplate on that door that stands there as a lonely pine on the cliff.
and I know that you leave the building before midnight, slowly dra-
wing the front door behind yourself so that the creaking won’t wake
up the neighbours.
The sun is now long gone, devoured by the hill at last. In the black
corners of the room the cobwebs of darkness started taking their toll.
– That really doesn’t…
The thin dry twig-like finger on her even thinner ash-violet lips
stopped his sentence before it even entered his thoughts.
Penetrating creak ruffled the damp darkness in the corners. a mo-
ment later there was another one, and another one…
a tiny mouse ran by the girls heels. faster than a blink of an eye. Su-
ddenly a bigger shadow rushed after it. Must be a mother, Ivan gues-
sed. Mother always feels when something is wrong, when her children
might be in danger f and she is ready to rush after to protect them.
– I saw you going to liberators Street, I had followed you for months.
His thoughts left the couple of rodents and plunged back into the
void to return to the face of an ambiguous figure similar to gaps in gray
darkness. Her face.
– You went there in the evenings but this time you didn’t go upstairs
because it’s a one-story building with no nameplate on the door. I
couldn’t find out the name of that woman with weather-beaten face
Milorad Djuric
The Legacy of Serbian Heroes
Many words will be written here today about the most beautiful na-
tional songs praising the chosen Serbian heroes in their best of ende-
avors and momentums; with their swords and deeds they left behind
the legacy to their children and resurrected those days and nights of
our history once more. Entangling the hank of time in front of the
reader, we will travel from the period of tsar Dusan to the first Serbian
uprising and Karadjordje.
Serbian national poets and storytellers created work of timeless
value at the sole peak of spoken literature. among them, and alongside
with fairytales, are the most beautiful heroic poems. Enslaved after
the Battle of Kosovo, centuries under the Turks suffering from low
morale and poor physical subsistence, cut off from any literature and
in order to retain at least parts of it, the Serbian nation started shaping
its history into heroic poetry. It had been remarked long time ago that
these poems can serve as historical documents. During the times of
Serbian uprisings, at the beginning of the XIX century, many chroni-
cles describing characters and occurrences were created.
The Memoirs of Prota Mateja nenadovic and the manuscripts of
Vuk Karadzic on Serbian warfare on the Dahias coincide with the poem
of filip Visnjic The Beginning of the Revolt Against the Dahijas. This is
how the national poet imagined his heroes: they are, just as historical
events often prove, an aspect of the best collective characteristics and
patriotic ideals. They sailed out from national imagination that, after
all, had a stronghold life, to give spiritual protection for people and set
an example of power and consolation that were forbidden. Some of tho-
se heroes are real historical figures – just like duke Momcilo, Starina
novak, Stojan Jankovic, Ilija Bircanin, Karadjordje.
There always had been and still exist to this day, those who think
with defiance about our, as they call it, “decasyllabic history.” This was
caused either by ignorance or by poor belief that justice and truth, be-
auty and heroism cannot go side by side. neither is good enough beca-
use knowledge can be acquired and poor belief can be changed. obvi-
ously, to those people it seems as if ideals presented in our national he-
roic poetry are set too high and thus cannot be reached by an ordi-
nary person. “one who is born to crawl – cannot fly!” Since there is an
undeniable difference between an aesculapian snake and a falcon, it is
proven that the size of one nation is measured by the height of its ideals.
and what are these Serbian heroes like, these Serbian falcons, as
most commonly described by any national poet? They are beautiful
and proud, courageous and compassionate, wise and ethical. They are
of great physical and spiritual strength, guardians of high moral prin-
ciples, loyal to their orthodox faith, homeland, and their people. In
life and in death, they are their own pinnacles. They struggle mightily
all their life against the enemies, for freedom, for justice, for those who
are weaker. and even when they die, they stay victorious taking count-
less enemies with them. In life, in death and after it, they stay an epit-
ome of behavior for all of us.
all of our best heroes are always lonely. This shows that the poet whi-
le trying to elevate the importance of the heroes was still portraying
them as regular human beings. Milos obilic, the greatest Serbian kni-
ght without fear and shortcomings, had only two companions: Ivan
Kosancic and Milan Toplica; they all fell in decisive battle of Kosovo.
Marko Kraljevic, the greatest of Serbian heroes, usually rides alone,
fights alone, and trusts in no one but his horse Sarac. In the Turkish
army of Kosovo, Banovic Strahinja is only followed by his hound Ka-
raman. Duke Dojcina had no companion when he got deathly sick
after his duel with the arab known for taking away from Serbs not
only their gold but their honour as well. Starina novak, our most fa-
mous haiduk, surrounded himself only with closest members of his
family: sons grujica and Tatomir and his brother radivoj. Stojan Jan-
kovic also fights alone; meanwhile Tadija Senjanin has two reliable
friends by his side… When one of our heroes is surrounded by trusted
company during the time of his extraordinary achievement, it usually
consists of not more than one or two brothers or closest friends (some-
times referred to as “brothers in bond”).
This loneliness symbolizes the Serbian people left with no real help,
no real friends, under the brutal Turkish occupation (which eventually
was dissolved during the seemingly calm period in Europe that lasted
until 1912) and also at the time when they were surrounded by other,
older opponents, which are also remembered as “the latins, the old
deceivers.”
There are little of us, but there are many Hungarians…
However, the poet living through difficult times, in the name of the
people felt deeply about the ancient Serbian disunity that has brought
to us all the evils of this world, as well as feeling of loneliness to our
homes.
There is a British folk legend about King arthur and forty knights
falling into a magical sleep in the cave hidden from the human eyes.
Whenever Britain is endangered, they will awaken and stand in her
defense, beating every enemy. The message here is the same as in our
legend of Marko Kraljevic who also fell into magical sleep in his cave.
Prior to that he gave some hay to his Sarac and thrust his sword into
the rock, so that blood from it drips into the cup. When Sarac eats all
of the hay, when the cup is filled with blood and the sword comes out
of the rock, the Serbs will be in frantic danger and Marko will awaken
once more to go and save them. In our country, we only have one great
hero, a lonely rescuer – in their country there are forty great heroes, an
army of rescuers.
another legend of Marko comes to mind, according to which the
virtues of heroism will be held even more vulnerable and lonely in the
new times. Surrounded by the people with firearms, Marko took the
rifle and accidentally shot the palm of his hand. He said: “now, hero-
ism alone will not save us, because the worst of ignorance can kill the
best of heroes.”
faced with no further perspectives but the hard earth and the un-
reachable sky – the national poet could only lean on spiritual guidance
just like a mythical sculptor Pygmalion, who with the strength of his
talent and desire was able to make his work come to life. It was his pur-
pose as the national poet to express and magnify love; not love for a
woman, but for orthodox faith and fatherland, putting his art to the
harder test of resisting many temptations. for how long did he have to
be in agony, alone and unprotected, the poet or the nation, living in a
large vast of time, creating such giants of solitude and making them
serve as most powerful examples for next generations!
It is only with Karadjordje and with the first Serbian uprising that
people, as a collective character, started to appear in poetry. “People
rise on their feet, same as the grass rises from the earth!” and so it was
in reality: released from the jaws of five centuries long occupation by
ottoman Empire, the Serbian nation came out of darkness and was
getting ready to rebuild its modern state, which would find ways to
resist any enemy.
To create a portrait of a hero, national poet most often employs two
main techniques: with the painting process, using decasyllabic rhyme
as a brush on the walls prepared for frescoes, he paints an image of a
hero; and with the psychological approach, when the poet gives the
hero personality by using the events and actions in which he places
him. furthermore, he always strives for the physical and the spiritual
descriptions to unite and to have the hero awarded with both inner
and outer beauty. Sometimes the poet spends numerous verses to ac-
complish it, and sometimes he only needs a few to achieve his goal.
Milos Vojinovic, historically known as domestikos or the Domes-
tic of the imperial table of Tsar Dusan, is one of our ancient heroes. In
the poem The Marriage of Dusan where the tsar’s name Stefan is chan-
ged into a more national name “Stjepan,” Vojinovic is his younger ne-
phew, who always shined on the battlefield “as the bright sun shines
behind the mountains.” He exceeds the latins, ie. the Italians, ie. the
Catholics in everything: he beats the detained latin king, he jumps
over three horses with knights carrying three flames of swords, he hits
an apple with an arrow through a ring, among three girls who look
alike he recognizes roksanda who Dusan will later marry, and at last
he slays the monstrous three-headed latin duke Balacki. He secretly
accomplished all of it at his uncle’s wedding, dressed as a black Bulgar-
ian, in order to preserve the reputation of the tsar and the empire, and
to confirm one of the basic principles of the legacy:
It is difficult for everyone, everywhere, without their own compatriots!
Duke Momcilo, who rides a horse with wings named Jabucilo, and
who can fly wherever he wants, swings his sword using nothing but
the power of his mind. He is not afraid of anyone but god. He repre-
sents a hero from pre-Kosovo era as well as a historical figure of four-
Nebojsa Radic
My Language is My Homeland
“My language is my homeland” joyfully exclaims the famous Portugu-
ese poet fernando Pessoa while the american writer of romanian ori-
gin, andrew Codrescu complains by saying “I used to be a romanian,
then I translated myself into the English language!” The motif of lan-
guage as homeland is present in most if not all the world literatures.
language is the last safe house for a writer and a man, the shelter yet to
be conquered by an army, the sanctuary that no outlaw dares to step in
or bandit to dishonour, the intangible yet invaluable commodity that
no banker has managed to put a price tag on. one’s mother tongue is
inseparable from one’s identity and being. The mother tongue is the ul-
timate treasure that is passed down to the next generation for safekeep-
ing. Just remember all those centuries of ottoman rule over Balkans
when the folk, spoken poetry carried the Serbian name, memories, wis-
dom, proverbs and chants. The language is also an active component
of the identity building process.
It’s not only a language that is passed to us for safe-keeping but it
comes also with the responsibility to develop it further, to nurture it,
enriching it and pass it onto the next generation.
In our case the question of language and identity has several diffe-
rent, perhaps unique dimensions. for example, the question of the for-
mation of the languages that didn’t exist in former Yugoslavia: Bos-
nian and Montenegrin. The question here is: what were the criteria for
these to become “languages”? alas, as it is widely recognised, this was
not a subtle linguistic point but more of a blunt political and short-
term interest of the local elite and as such consigned to the research
agenda of the history of languages (and politics too). Therefore, for the
purpose of our dialogue on these pages, I suggest a comparative ap-
proach to the subject of the nation, ethnicity and their language and
will just glance at the English and their language.
The last time a conqueror set foot on the English “green and pleas-
ant” countryside was in 1066 when the normans led by William (hen-
ceforth so adeptly nicknamed) the Conqueror, defeated the anglo-
Saxons at the battle of Hastings, in the south east of England.
The winners of this bloody battle that saw King Harold, the last
anglo-Saxon king being transfixed by an arrow, imposed their rule,
their laws and brought with them their own language, french.
furthermore, many a folk story was told about richard the lion
Heart, one of the great English heroes. This, although he did not
speak English and was publicly expressing his dislike of England com-
plaining that he would gladly sell it if he only could find a buyer! Then
there was King John called the lackland who was so unpopular and
mean to everyone that to date no royal family would name a child after
his name, although John is a name most common in England.
Interestingly enough, that King John was forced by some of his
barons to sign and verify the Magna CarTa lIBErTaTuM (1215),
the first charter, bill of rights that defined the roles, duties and rights of
the King and his subjects. one interesting feature of this document is
certainly the list of names of the barons entrusted to oversee its imple-
mentation. Most of those were norman names. names of the norman
conquerors, the powerful french speaking aristocracy.
Hence, in the days of John lackland, English (anglo-Saxon) was
the language of the farmers while french was the language of the priv-
ileged aristocracy, If we only glance at the English language vocabulary
we will see that the anglo-Saxon words denote animals in the fields
and the french denote meat of the animals on the table: i.e. ox Vs beef.
Joseph Williams, an american linguist, undertook to investigate
the etymology of the vocabulary in the English language. He worked
on a sample of 10,000 words taken from business correspondence. He
came up with the following:
Words of french origin made up 41%;
“original” English words made up 33%;
of latin origin 15%;
old norse words 2%;
Dutch words 1%;
all other languages 10%.
How did such historical and linguistic circumstances influence the
English language? Well, based on evidence we must conclude that such
an influence was undoubtedly positive for: English is said to be the
language with the richest lexicon of all; it became the Lingua Franca of
the international affairs and it is the language that all other languages
feel a need “to resist”.
one interesting feature of such an English language is that its inter-
national dimension is characterised and defined by the non-native
speakers (us) language production for the vast majority of the speakers
are not native! Hence, the prototypical liverpudlians/Scouses, Man-
cunians, Jordies and Cockneys are not speakers of the English that
features so prominently as Lingua Franca.
and how is this interesting “situation” reflected on the identity of
the “subjects”? Well, today beyond the twilight of the “Empire where
the sun never sets”, the situation is still quite intriguing. The peoples
living here on the British Isles are the English, the Scots, the Welsh
and the Irish.
So, one feels like asking, where do these Brits come from then?
Well, the ones to call themselves the Brits are typically the English
while the Scots tend to be Scottish, the Irish tend to be Irish and the
Welsh… Welsh!
Some less young readers will recognise here the well known pat-
tern and recall the days of former Yugoslavia when only the Serbians
Nikolay Alexandrov
Myths about Great Leo
November 20th 1910 – the date of leo Tolstoy’s death. a whole century
has passed since then. a century without Tolstoy… Sounds sad and
lonely. Chekhov used to say: “…When there is such figure in literature
as Tolstoy, it is much easier and even enjoyable to be a writer. Even after
realising that you personally haven’t done and will never do anything
grand, it is still easier – leo Tolstoy will do it for you”. Without Tolstoy
it’s not as easy and enjoyable anymore, and not only in literature. no
more focal point, nothing to lean on.
We all know that Tolstoy’s death shocked his contemporaries. But
his departure from Yasnaja Polyana (Clear glade Estate) probably ca-
used even greater shock. It looked like a renouncement. It was as if the
king deserted his kingdom, abolished his throne.
Interestingly enough, hardly anyone among Tolstoy’s contempora-
ries questioned his magnitude as a writer; it was accepted as an abso-
lute fact. Whoever disagreed and argued with him seemed to be more
frustrated and angry with that particular way Tolstoy always spoke, he
spoke with a firm confidence of a ruler. Even though that caused a lot of
frustration, his right of doing so was never challenged. The frustration
had a different ground: it’s not what you say – it’s how you say it.
nobody doubted Tolstoy’s artistic gift, his scope of genius; further
on, however, people were lost in contradictions. Tolstoy – a great art-
ist, but a poor philosopher. Tolstoy is a genius but not a clever one, as
Vassilij rosanov once said. Tolstoy – a big writer, but he doesn’t under-
stand, doesn’t feel history. Tolstoy is a unique creator, but weak as a
moralist, as a religious thinker or a social schemer.
Tolstoy himself seem to have intensified these contradictions: a no-
bleman preaching simple living; a writer advocating to learn writing
from peasant children; family man acting against family; a Christian
rebelling against the Church or pagan practicing Christianity; an art-
ist confronting music, arts, literature (and not just some decadents, but
Shakespeare himself) and science; non-resistance acting against the state.
Everyone took that special something from Tolstoy that was per-
fect for them. Everyone created their own myths about him. Some pro-
claimed his achievement in realism and “ripping off social masks”;
others – glorified his literary genius as such. for some people he was
the embodiment of pagan world-view, for example Merezhkovskyj
called him “flesh psychic” but then again Merezhkovskij himself was
a materialist who didn’t personify god. But for others it was a social
component of Tolstoy that played the most important role – his stri-
ving for a simple life of a common person; in fact, thanks to Tolstoy
the entire populist direction glorifying moral fabric of peasant com-
munities emerged and strengthened. a lot of people saw Tolstoy as a
true Christian and were dignified by the Church’s act of his excom-
munication. although we can’t help but wonder why, as Tolstoy him-
self proclaimed that he didn’t accept orthodox dogma and was creating
his own.
It seems Tolstoy’s genius has always been surrounded by don’ts and
but’s, as if in attempt to challenge, to handicap his monolithic figure.
Meanwhile the main goal was not to fight him but to appropriate him.
not many would be able to talk to him as equals. Konstantine leontiev
was one of the few who argued over Tolstoy’s artistic gift offering Mar-
kevitch as an argument… Does anyone nowadays remember Marke-
vich’s books? But nonetheless leontiev felt congenial to Tolstoy.
There is no single myth about Tolstoy – there is mythology. He
represents the entire system of myths. His healthy psyche was opposed
to Dostoevsky’s “madness” and “abnormality” (Mihajlovskij) creating
the idea that early Tolstoy is not the same as Tolstoy later in life, that
Tolstoy turned out to be opposing himself. one thing is Tolstoy who
wrote “War and Peace” but Tolstoy who is a religious preacher, is a
whole different matter. However going through Tolstoy’s diaries we
can see that he realized his missionary role rather early in life.
There were doubts about Tolstoy’s sincerity, questions about his
genuine impulsiveness and true reasons behind his actions which we-
re mistaken for a demonstration, a deliberate show. His constant and
scrupulous self-picking, analysis of each and every action in the light
of the rightfulness made people wonder. all those rules that he cre-
ated, all those frames that he tried to fit in brought nothing but smirk.
His fear of death and his fight against it seemed strange and misun-
derstood. His last “gesture” (as characterized by andre Belyj) – the
departure from Yasnaja Polyana put everyone in shock. Meanwhile
by that time Tolstoy had stopped thinking about preaching and was
focused on silence. His departure, his silence and withdrawal from the
surrounding world – it’s not an attempt to escape the responsibility;
it’s a different form of it.
a hundred years later our generation is still trying to understand
and contribute to Tolstoy’s mythology. Pavel Basinsky marked this
memorable date with a release of colossal and detailed book under a
catchy but rather odd title “Escape from Paradise”.
It’s a book live-journal; attempt to make Tolstoy more familiar to
us at this day and age. The book is full of details, facts and quotes – and
this fact alone makes it valuable. Basinsky offered to look at Tolstoy the
way we would look at a common person. Here we see an old guy, with
personal issues, tired from “gloria Mundi”. Here he is trying to escape.
Here is the reaction of the press. Here are the difficulties that waited
for him on his road. Why can’t we just look at simple, human motives?
This is definitely some sort of attempt to simplify Tolstoy. While
gorki saw him as “pagan god” who is nonetheless slightly crafty and
cunning of course – just like he saw everyone, just like he saw Lenin,
Basinsky took god and turned him into a tired old guy. This is also a
myth in a sense; or rather an anti-myth.
It’s interesting to point out that thanks to experts from “Big Book”
award – Basinsky found himself next to Pelevin and his novel “T”,
which was also inspired by Tolstoy and his departure from Yasnaja
Polyana. although Pelevin’s Tolstoy is different – he is more of a token,
a symbol of Tolstoy, a live version of Tolstoy from repin’s painting
whose journey to optin Monastery is a road to Shambhala, the land
of happiness and tranquility. Pelevin is openly phantasmagorical. He
offers his reader to participate in a strange yet fascinating game with
figurative Tolstoy (T). But who is more mythological among the two –
fictional Pelevin or factual Basinsky – I wouldn’t dare to judge.
a hundred years have passed. full collection of Tolstoy’s work cou-
nts up to hundred volumes – plenty of work for another century.
Children on Tolstoy:
Helena Petrovna Konyayeva, a teacher of russian language and lite-
rature in gymnasium n 12 of the city of Belgorod, gave her students an
interesting classwork: she asked each of them to answer the question
“What do I think of Tolstoy?”. “Izvestia” published excerpts from these
works. Spelling and punctuation are preserved.
Anonymous. 7th grade.
– I think that Tolstoy died miserably. I think he left his home in order to
escape his faith and was punished by god for it. Everybody knows that
pneumonia is curable; it was curable even in those days.
Karina, 7th grade
– I like his book Mumu, Kidnapping – Caucasian Style, War and Peace,
Sebastopol sketches.
Ayan, 9th grade
– His story “The lion and the Pup” is very touching and sad. He pro-
bably visualized himself in the role of that same lion – kind, tender,
loving but at the same time aggressive, mean and vicious.
Sonya, 7th grade
– I have some of his books at home, but nobody reads them.
Arina, 8th grade
– Tolstoy lived in his big estate “Zelenaja Polyana” (“green glade”),
and died there too.
Ivana Dobrilovic
The Last Farewell, No, Tolstoy, Until We Meet Again!
“How is a road beaten down through the untouched snow? one person
walks ahead, sweating, swearing, and barely moving his feet. He keeps
getting stuck in the loose, deep snow. He goes far ahead, marking his
path with uneven black pits.” With this question-answer motif, like
that of a beginning of a religious text, Varlam Shalamov opens his
story Through the Snow (with which he opens his collection of stories,
Kolyma Tales), a beautiful extended metaphor about writing on a blank
paper as walking through the white snow; the back pits left behind as
traces of ink. reading these lines undoubtedly elicits a mental picture
– Tolstoy beating down the white, untouched snow.
and it is one hundred years ago on a snowy november day that
lev nikolaevitch Tolstoy most certainly continued on his path just
moments after he had passed away.
on november 1st 1910, twenty days before his death, Vladimir Cher-
tkov, his close friend and personal secretary, received a telegram from
Tolstoy. It read: “fell ill yesterday stop seen by passengers stop left train
feeling weak stop fear publicity stop feeling better now stop traveling on
stop take measures stop notify stop nikolayev” (leo Tolstoy’s private
“pseudonym”). Having learnt from Tolstoy that he wanted to see him,
Chertkov left Tula by night train and arrived in astapovo in the mor-
ning of november 2nd 1910, finding Tolstoy in bed, very weak but con-
scious. Shortly after Chertkov’s arrival, Tolstoy asked him to take all
possible measures to keep his wife, Sofia andreyevna from visiting
him. Then, he spoke gently about a letter Chertkov had sent to him
from nice concerning P.P. nikolayev’s The Concept of God as a Perfect
Foundation for living, stating that the author “establishes his idea on
a thorough and sound basis.” a few days later, Chertkov came across
some of Tolstoy’s notes that he had been writing down for him in his
diary. The following thoughts had been written in Tolstoy’s diary on
november 1st 1910: “god alone exists truly. Man manifests Him in
time, space and matter. The more god’s manifestation in man (life)
the more man exists. This union with the lives of other beings is
accomplished through love. god is not love, but the more there is of
love, the more man manifests god, and the more he truly exists…”
We read Chertkov’s account The Last Days of Tolstoy, taking in every
detail as if it will provide us with a new, never-before-seen insight into
Tolstoy’s brilliant psyche. It sheds light into the last days of a god of
literature, a sort of peak-through-a-key-hole feel; a culmination of pri-
vate moments that, given the situation, would never be written about
by Tolstoy himself. and so we settle for Chertkov’s descriptions, rea-
ding carefully so as not to miss one single detail; reading between the
lines; believing that we have discovered something about Tolstoy that
not even Chertkov himself was aware of. as if reading Tolstoy’s last
words creates an illusion that we know all of his works.
on october 28th 1910, three days before contacting Chertkov, Tol-
stoy vanished from Yasnaya Polyana and left home to embark on his
desired journey to a village, where he planned to live alone, away from
his family, away from the church; in a place where he would find spi-
ritual salvation – a place very personal to him. His disappearance, along
with his illness, quickly became a popular media event, mimicking to-
day’s fever over the lives of celebrities – and their deaths. Tolstoy was
aware of these events as Chertkov read him newspaper articles that
dealt with his escape and his illness, also, consisting of memorabilia
over the immense impact the great author had on the literary and Chri-
stian world – some fearing his death would bolster his great number
of supporters among the young, the peasantry and the intelligentsia
circles. Despite all the commotion in the outer world, Tolstoy, while
slowly dying in bed, had simpler things in mind, such as embarking
on his planned journey. according to Chertkov, Tolstoy, despite his
illness, wanted to get back on his feet so that he could start his new life
in the village. Village life, or “simple, self-sustainable life,” as Tolstoy
referred to it, was something that he had longed for more and more,
with each work he wrote. He specifically expressed his disgust with
being a slave to the state in a letter to his friend Vasili Botkin: “the
truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but
above all to corrupt its citizens … Henceforth, I shall never serve any
government anywhere.” The term servitude meant something else for
Tolstoy, something positive indeed and we can see this in the following
statement in his 1886 novel What is To be Done? – “The vocation of
every man and woman is to serve other people,” and by serve other peo-
ple, he means, to genuinely help other people.
Tolstoy believed that a true Christian could find lasting contentment by
striving for inner self-perfection by following the great commandment
of loving one’s neighbour and god rather than looking outward to the
Church or state for guidance. Taking into consideration his radical Chri-
stian belief and his utmost strong desire to live according to it, could
one hold it against Tolstoy for leaving his family estate, his wife of 48
years, to pursue a life alone in a village? Was it not irresponsible and
selfish of him to leave, to embark on a new life alone – an act, which, by
its very nature, stands in stark contrast to the principles of love, family
and tolerance enforced by the writer throughout his literary works?
Evidently, he needed to pay tribute to his own inner responsibility, a
mission more important to his soul than any other. However, one must
not forget that within this man on his path towards spiritual salvation,
in front of us lies a simple old man on his deathbed, like any other old
man, dealing with the pains, illnesses and confusions of the mind. Just
a few days before his death, he writes in his journal: “I am now suf-
fering the torments of hell: I am calling to mind all the infamies of
my former life-these reminiscences do not pass away and they poison
my existence. generally people regret that the individuality does not
retain memory after death. What a happiness that it does not! What an
anguish it would be if I remembered in this life all the evil, all that is
painful to the conscience, committed by me in a previous life… What
a happiness that reminiscences disappear with death and that there
only remains consciousness.”
one can say that Tolstoy indeed set on his planned spiritual journey. I
like to think that his passing has taken him there. If he had somehow
been physically alive to live through and face his own death, I am sure
he would not object to it, for he would know that it is taking him to а
place where his consciousness remains; this time, to a place even more
private than his room. Chertkov’s account finishes here, while Tolstoy
continues to live on through the works of his followers, ones that will
now be beating down through their virgin snow like Tolstoy beat
down through his; ones that will write novels reminiscent of Tolstoy’s
“Youth,” “Boyhood” and “Childhood”… allowing Tolstoy to be born ma-
ny times thereafter.