Matija Beckovic
Any city anytime anywhere
Whenever you get there…
Any city anytime anywhere
And there one usually arrives very late
So when you get there so very late
To that unknown city
And that city happens to be Valjevo
A city I had stumbled upon
You will venture along the lonely, only road there is
As there is no other
And that road – your road – as you will see
Never ever existed before
As it was born of your wanderings
On the same day as you …
And that road – your road – you must follow
To meet the woman you must meet
On the road you must stride
That very woman…
Who became your very own life
Was indeed your very own life
Long, long before you had found her
And you always knew
Since time immemorial
That she was there – forever
There for you – forever
Just like this alien city you had just discovered
So when you stumble upon a city
Any city anytime anywhere
Wherever from
From Velje Duboko perhaps, or Kolasin
Or from any other place
Or [even] from nowhere in fact – regardless
So when you leave your home
And head to anywhere, towards any place
Hasten to go – now – waste no precious time
And when you get there
Once you arrive to that city
Anytime anywhere
To Valjevo for example
Whenever you stumble upon that place – remember:
It will be late – very late
Because your journey is arduous and long
But she will surely meander into your life
And stay there – always – forever and beyond
Yes she will
The woman who had set out upon her own trail
Towards you, in search of you
Since who knows when
From who knows where
From a remote and desolate place
From Russian Jerusalem
From Caucasus, from Pjatigorsk
A place she had never seen
And her name…
Was her given name and more
Vera Pavladoljska perhaps
And she looked the way she appeared
Unique – like no one else, ever
On the glorious face of this our Mother Earth !
So when you get there
To that strange place, that remote town, alien city
Anytime, from anywhere…
And such venues are found and stumbled upon
In the dark, very, very late
In a deep nocturno – somewhere
Because such cities are always far, far away, very far
And we trek to find them from afar
From a great distance
Some remote, desolate, far away place
And our journey seems to last forever
As we all ponder one thing only
Our return !
But this road is the road of no return.
And he who dares endeavor
Must depart soon
Very soon, whenever that may be…
And whenever that may be
It will be that time of night or day
When one departs
And bids his hearth farewell
Usually on a Sunday
The blessed day
The day on which you had hit the road yourself
Never to return
And whenever you may journey on a Sunday
You are likely to stumble upon
Another alien town
And whichever town it may be
Or a city perhaps
Valjevo for example
It will become the city in which you had lived
Since ever – forever.
And the very instant you heard her name
Long before you set your eyes upon her
You knew that you were always with her
Since time immemorial
And that you had loved her for centuries
So, when you arrive
When you get to that alien city, your city,
Anytime anywhere
And such cities are stumbled upon
Very late at night
So when you get there
To that fateful elusive city
And if that city happens to be Valjevo
You will march into it
Amid the harmonious echoes
Of the footsteps of the Gemini
Your own footsteps and the footsteps of another
Echoes in sync
Footsteps in harmony
Your own footsteps and the echoes of the one who
Journeys with you
A fellow traveler
The one whose voice you can hear in the wild and the wind
Such a day – most unusual day for that time of year
Will catch you by surprise
And it will dazzle you at once
Make you uncertain, uneasy, unsure
And you will know not what city it is
And you will not recognize
The echoes of your own muffled footsteps and footprints
Vladimir J. Konecni
Port-au-Prince
Deep plunge then long glide
chest almost scraping the bottom.
Emerge without sound.
A lazy backstroke
belly in the air
watching a corpulent
blue-black hotel maid
soft-step in and out
of the Creole mural
encircling the pool.
The saddest of the still
almost human places
on this sad earth
beyond the barbed wire
on top of the wall:
Port-au-Prince.
And in this December 1982
Bébé Doc is ordering torture.
Mon cher Tonton Macoute Numéro Un,
did you give him the works?
Did he spit them out?
Did he cry out in pain? No?
Tonton Macoute No. 2 give No. 1 the works.
(Beckett and Pinter ponder, incognito.)
Afternoon on the empty verandah
of the hotel bar. A stuck-forever tropical fan.
The pool attendant’s thin black face
reflected in the mirror above the bottles,
a pair of eyes as still and watchful
as the unfocused ones of girls and parrots
in the mural by the mirror. Turn and look
beyond the wall at Port-au-Prince.
Not far the gleaming white palace of the Duvaliers.
Not far the ochre army barracks. Nearby
the dark shades of the Tonton Macoutes.
Some twenty kilometers up the coast,
the hard young white naked breasts
of Parisiennes sunning themselves
by the Club Med pool. Turned-on nipples
centimeters away from the lips and eyes
of black paupers scrubbing the tiles,
in rags, on their knees.
Not far, Mr. Brown, the proprietor,
and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the vegetarians,
read and are in Graham Greene’s
The Comedians at hotel “Trianon”.
Nearby, a human beast of burden pulls
an overloaded cart, another pushes.
The weight exceeds theirs by ten to one.
The wheel was invented, but when
it breaks, as it must, dread and resigned
sorrow will deepen their furrows.
Hotel “Trianon” is full of Manhattan men
in their fifties. Years later, one sees these faces,
those still alive, on balconies above Fifth Avenue
where the annual gay parade makes a right tum
at Washington Square. Later one understands
why Haitian boys ring the “Trianon” – so docile
and persistently friendly. Later one realizes
that for two dollars they received and gave AIDS.
Later one observes in Bangkok and Manila
hotelfuls of Japanese Shibumitsu managers,
penises erect at company expense, standing
in room doorways in their faux-silk pyjamas,
waiting for the whores to be brought by bus.
Ah, the Japanese waiting cocksure for an offing.
Thank God that in the “Trianon” in 1982,
in Bangkok and Manila, I was one of the
unwelcome guests. Still alive and healthy.
Bojan Ratkovic
Battleflag
They rang out all night, the bombs and the missiles. They do most
nights. The world shook and trembled and the ground swelled with
falling rubble. Older folks say the sound reminds them of fireworks.
They had fireworks in the former times — they would shoot up and
light up the skies with bursts of color and everyone would look up, and
their eyes would glimmer. No one looks at the skies anymore — the
sound of fireworks is the sound of death.
Older folks still talk about the former times, but those are just sto-
ries… fairy tales. The bombs are real, the sewers are real, the death and
the putrid smell are real, and the rest are fairy tales. This world — their
world — is their tomb.
Mornings are a time for weeping, weary faces, and empty silence.
A time for cleanup.
Blasts from the night before tore the roof into pieces and the main
bunker was in a shambles. A metal pipe snapped off the wall and killed
an older woman in her bed. Everyone worked on cleanup that day. Two
boys carried the corpse into the sewer tunnels. The sewers are where
all of them end up, eventually.
A tomb within a tomb.
The boys wiggled their way into a narrow corridor and forced the
stretcher in behind them. “Which smells better, Wynn? The sewers, or
last night’s dinner?” One of the boys grinned, his parted lips revealing
chipped, rotting teeth. The dead woman was hoisted up on a stretcher,
her cold face covered with a sheet.
“This ain’t the time for jokes, Donny,” Wynn Caden said without
turning around. He was a tall, lanky boy of nineteen and he towered
over his shorter companion. “But if I really had to guess, I’d say your
breath tops it all.” He pressed on, holding up the stretcher from the
front and marching forward, knee-deep in muck and waste. Donny
tried to keep up, pushing the stretcher from the back and staggering
through the filth — thick in smell and texture. The air of the sewers
made his throat convulse.
“How’s your li’l sis, Wynn? She okay?” Donny asked as they
squirmed their way through a bend in the pipes.
“She’s holding up,” Wynn said and hawked a big slab of spit into the
waste below. The yellowish-green slime floated up in the dark water,
and Wynn could see a hint of blood in the mixture. “I don’t know how
she does it, but she’s holding up.”
“How old is she now?” Donny pressed forward as the flicker of fluor-
escent tubes grew dimmer, and the darkness thickened.
“Turning ten next month,” Wynn said. A strong desire to barf cla-
wed at him from deep inside the gut, but he clenched his teeth and
swallowed down on the sickness.
Donny smiled as muck splashed against his beaten clothes. “Ten
already? She’s growin’ up quick. How old was she when your parents
died?”
“Not yet two.”
“Whoa… it’s been a long time.”
“It’s been forever. How’s your pop doin’?” Wynn took a big step for-
ward, careful not to slip and tumble into the liquid dung below. The
stench was now worse — at first it scarred the nostrils, and then, after
a while, it numbed them completely.
“Not too good, pal. I know he’ll end up down here too, like old
Mrs. Dorin.” Donny glanced sympathetically at the woman’s corpse,
frowned, and turned away. “Sometime soon.”
“Don’t think that way, Donny. You can’t.”
Donny shrugged. “I ain’t got much of a choice, pal. It is what it is,
and I guess that’s how it’s gotta be.”
Wynn stopped and turned around. He searched for Donny’s face
in the darkness. “Hey, you already know what I’m gonna say, don’t ya?
Either we stand and fight our way out of this goddamned pit or we
give up, lie down and wait for the rats to eat us. I’d rather fight. You
should, too.”
“Sure, Wynn. If you say so.” Donny looked away, eyes swelling.
“Don’t lose faith, Donny. It’s the only thing they couldn’t take from
us — it’s all we’ve got left.” Wynn whispered, and then they walked
in silence, listening to the splatter of the water and the scurrying of
rodents.
Just ahead, deep in the darkness, there was a hole in the pipes. The
boys walked carefully to the edge and lowered the corpse. On the count
of three, they swung the stretcher and dropped the dead woman into
the blackness below. The body tumbled down the pit, and then there
was a single deep splash. “Goodbye, Mrs. Dorin,” Wynn said, and
Donny mouthed a prayer. They turned and headed back.
***
They made their way back through the sewers, slowly climbing to the
bunker’s main floor. Suddenly, Donny jerked his head upward. He
heard something beyond the buzzing and twitching of florescent lights
— it was a steady, rattling sound.
“Something’s up,” Donny said.
Wynn nodded.
They moved closer. They could hear a commotion coming from
up ahead. Not the usual kind of commotion: the terror, the screaming,
the panic. This was different… this was something else.
Donny dropped his end of the stretcher and rushed forward. Wynn
pushed the contraption aside and followed. As they emerged from the
sewer pipes, they saw that a large crowd had gathered on the main
floor. They were talking loudly, and some were even laughing.
“Someone’s here, Wynn! Someone’s here from up top. Let’s go see.”
Donny took off, and Wynn leapt after him. They squirmed through
the mass of people and hurried to the front of the crowd.
“They’re coming, Wynn! My dear boy, they’re coming to save us!” A
tiny, pale woman with burn marks on her face grabbed Wynn by the
shirtsleeve, her voice cracking.
Wynn’s eyes widened. “Who’s coming, Betty? Who’s coming to
save us?”
“Battleflag! Our boys from Battleflag are coming! They’re gonna
free the city. They sent word. Thank the good Lord, Wynn! Thank the
good Lord!”
“But who… Who’s here from up top?” Wynn pushed himself up by
his toes, fighting to see. There was some movement ahead of him, and
then he felt the push of a dozen bodies.
The residents of the bunker swarmed forward until they had
formed a tight circle around one thin, ailing man who used a walking
stick to keep from falling over. His skin was dirty and scarred; his hair
wild and greasy. From his darkened face hung a patchy, rugged beard
covered in dirt. He wore the gray uniform of the surface rebels.
“My friends, listen up! Listen up, friends! Everyone, please, listen
here!” A thick man with a harsh voice screamed, his arms flailing
through the air. He made his way to the front, then stood beside the
stranger and gestured for calm. The crowd settled around him and
slowly the noise subsided. The man was Commander Marcus, the
bunker chief.
Wynn was shoved and he shoved back, determined to keep his
place at the front of the crowd. Donny was there too, his eyes gleaming.
Lieutenant Marcus took a deep breath, his chest growing, and then
continued:
“My friends and fellow residents of Bunker 13-A, the man standing
before us is Captain Rom Ashe of Battleflag. He comes to us with an
important message from his headquarters in the north. He has asked
me to deliver this message to you, the good people of Bunker 13-A.”
The stranger nodded and tilted his body to the side, briefly reveal-
ing the black and gold insignia of the Battleflag rebel group sewn to the
side of his jacket. There was a collective gasp from the crowd. Moments
later, all were silent.
Lieutenant Marcus wiped the sweat from his wrinkled brow, then
unfolded a large piece of paper and began to read:
“The High Command of the Battleflag Resistance Corps wishes to
inform the people of the Red Zone, and particularly the residents of
Bunker 13-A — the largest civilian shelter for the Red Zone — that
major operations intended to liberate them and the entire region from
the brutal tyranny of the Forefathers are now underway. Battleflag has
committed all of its resources to the Red Zone Offensive, which will
put an end to the death and destruction brought on by the Forefathers
and their inhuman regime. The brunt of the offensive is set to begin
within the next twenty-four hours. We advise you, the residents of the
Red Zone, to stay put and await further instructions.”
Patrick Condliffe
Through a Wongar, Darkly
Dis-Located Readings – ASAL Mini-Conference Monash Feb 21-22, 2013.
B. Wongar, formerly known as Sreten Božić, is, in a manner of speak-
ing, doubly damned. On the one hand, he has received strong criticism
from the like of Indigenous critics such as Jackie Huggins who would
prefer that he ‘let [Aboriginal people] have a look at [the manuscript]
before it goes to print.’(Huggins, 1995)(89) Yet, white reviewers such as
Adams et al feel that they ‘found it difficult to believe in [his] book’s
authenticity [and] needed to counter the strong attack on white people,
and to do this… needed to think about [Wongar’s] motives … He
demands that you respond, demands that you react, because he’s as-
suming that he has the right to speak for Aborigines.’ (Adams, Kohut,
Webber, & Noyce, 1991)(8) To both parties, either affronted Aborigin-
als or incensed whites, Wongar has transgressed. This transgression
is steeped in the belief that the outsider to a culture has no position
speaking of or for another culture. Yet, the former complaint does not
completely take into account the importance of intended audience,
while the latter criticism is a direct result of it. Wongar, arguably, writes
for two audiences, both white, one is local the other international. If
Wongar’s novels could be said to have a hermeneutics, they one would
be to inform from a unique position on the repeated mistreatment of
aboriginals and the destruction of their, and our, environment and the
other, implicitly, is to shame. I argue that this can be explained as a
direct result of how Bakhtin’s notions of “outsidedness” and vzhivanie,
or “live-entering”, function within his texts, which are examples of
minority literature.
But first, a brief background of Wongar. Wongar arrived in Aus-
tralia from Serbia in 1960; he had travelled by way of Paris and Italy
after encountering difficulties under Tito’s regime. The nature of the
difficulties is somewhat vague, and, so, unfortunately unresolved as
of yet. After a fraught trip across the Tanami by way of camel Božić
began work on the Ord River Dam. Here he made some close
Aboriginal acquaintances; subsequently he spent much of his free
time travelling with his new friends, or spending time at Delisaville.
About this time Wongar met and married an Aboriginal woman,
Djumala, in a tribal ceremony. Sometime in 1970, Wongar claims to
have received a baptism of sorts. Travelling with some Indigenous
mates in Arnhem Land, in the forbidden zone, the group were
approached by a ranger. Wongar feigned extreme illness, face down
in the dirt, while his friend pretended to be a tribal healer chanting
over him. When questioned by the Ranger as to who the man lying in
the dust was, the men replied that he was ‘Wongar’, meaning amongst
other things “outsider”. The title stuck. (Wongar, 1999)(173) Wongar’s
first collection of short stories, The Sinners: Stories of Vietnam (1971),
disappeared into bargain bins as soon as it was published. His se-
cond, The Track to Bralgu (1978) shot to international acclaim cour-
tesy of Thomas Keneally’s review in the New York Times Review of
Books, in which Keneally praised Wongar as having a ‘fine voice’
and writing ‘arresting chants’, in reference to the poetics with his
work. (Keneally, 1978) It was at this point that Wongar’s ethnicity was
called into question. Little Brown had intimated that Wongar was in
fact an Aboriginal, Keneally reviewed it as such and Wongar did not
refute it; choosing, unfortunately, instead to play along. In 1981 Robert
Drew published the sensationally titled article ‘Solved! The Great B.
Wongar Mystery’ in the Bulletin magazine (Drewe, 1981). While a
friendly article with a not so politically correct cartoon, it prompted a
sea of invective. Wongar, however, continued to write under the same
name – producing seven more volumes of dystopian fiction set in the
Australian outback; winning among others the 1996 P.E.N Award for
his Nuclear Cycle of novels. He is still an active writer.
It is the notion of Wongar as the outsider that I wish to pursue today,
with the argument that engaging with his texts through the theory of
Bakhtinian “outsidedness” avoids and calls into question some of the
more tricky post-colonial critiques of his work, and the ad-hominem
attacks on himself as an author. The concept of “Outsidedness” is
elucidated in Bakhtin’s earlier essays Towards a Philosophy of the Act
(1993) and Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity (1990). Outsidedness,
or “exotopy”, defines the relationship between author and protagonist
and author and culture. Michael Holquist states that ‘the term [“out-
sidededness”], as always in dialogism, is not only spatial, but temporal:
it is only from the position outside something that it can be perceived
in categories that complete it in time and fix it in space.’ (Holquist,
1990) (30) In other words, to gain a true understanding of an event
or person, it must be witnessed from outside. What occurs cannot be
truly witnessed from within. The protagonist can only be properly
shaped from without, just as the event can only truly be witnessed.
Insomuch as this relates to Wongar it puts him in an oddly unique
position. Wongar, or at this point in time, the young
Božić grew up during the Second World War and enjoyed his teen-
age years during the turmoil that befell Yugoslavia before Marshall
Tito came to power. He witnessed ethnic cleansing first hand in his
village, and was only too aware of the kinds of wholesale slaughter
that occurred at Jasenovac – the Nazi concentration camp colloquially
known as the Balkan Holocaust. Located just inside the border of
(what is now known as) Croatia it was an independently operated camp,
supervised by Nazis. It functioned on a scale comparable to Belsen and
Lublin, and “processed” mainly ethnic Serbs, Jews and Roma at the
behest of the Ustaše. I think it can be safely argued that Wongar had
an education in the appearance and experience of genocide, through
the various unpleasant experiences of his childhood. This informs
the dialogism that he brings to his writing and also to his position
as an outsider. Wongar’s temporal position begins as past-historical
observer and segues into current observer.
This context marries well with Holquist’s interpretation of Bakhtin,
where ‘dialogisms primary thrust is always in the direction of the
historical and social specificity.’ (Holquist, 1990)(31) Wongar’s position
as witness and author then is unique, seeing from outside the historical
actions of White Australia upon Aboriginal Australia and drawing
his own natural correlation between one set of historical events and
another more contemporary, and continuing, issue found within the
treatment of Aboriginals in Australia.
Bakhtin utilises the foundations of “outsidedness,” to build what
would eventually become his theory of dialogue and dialogism, the
concept of vzhivanie. Gary Morson and Caryl Emerson translate
vzhivanie as “live entering” or “living into”; for my and everybody else’s
comfort I shall refer to it “live entering” from here and spare us all the
trauma of my attempts at Russian. It is an idea not far removed from
empathy, the concept is such that one person actively considers and
enters into another’s understanding and perception of the world.
Yet, during this process the individual never loses sight of their own
individuality and history. Thereby translating one set of individual’s
experiences to another. This is the foundation of the relationship
between an author and his/her protagonist, as well as the foundation
for understanding the other as basis for the aesthetic act – in this case
writing. Bakhtin defines the process of “live-entering” in terms of inter-
personal phenomological relations. Such that, when ‘I contemplate a
whole human being who is situated outside and over against me, our
concrete, actually experienced horizons do not coincide… I shall
always see and know something that he, from his place outside and
over against me, cannot see himself; parts of the body that are ina-
ccessible to his own gaze.’ (Bakhtin, 1990)(23) In other words, it is
only from the position of “outsidedness” that one can truly develop a
complete picture of an event, or person. In this instance being “outside”
is a privileged position that allows the unembedded observer to see
events in their entirety. Bakhtin continues that ‘[a]s we gaze at each
other, two different worlds are reflected in the pupils of our eyes. It is
possible, upon assuming a different position, to reduce this difference
completely, it would be necessary to merge into one, to become one
and the same person’. (Bakhtin, 1990) (23) While it is impossible to
completely assimilate with another, that is precisely not Bakhtin’s
intention; rather the ‘I’ must remain intact, returning to itself after
‘living-into’. Bakhtin realises the impossibility of truly investing a
‘pure projection’ of oneself ‘involving the loss of [one’s] own unique
place outside the other’; and that even if it were possible it would be
‘fruitless and senseless.’ (26) The point of live entering is to experience
the suffering or emotional vacillations of the other, to completely enter
the Other would render impossible the reconciliation with one’s own
context, and from an authorial standpoint, dialogism.
The aesthetic moment for Bakhtin begins at the point of return
from “live-entering”. Upon return two sets of experience are reconciled
Dušan Puvačić
Exile and Loneliness in A Novel About London by Miloš Crnjanski
The wanderings of the Russian Prince Nikolai Radinovich Ryepnin
end in suicide. The collision of two worlds and the collision between a
man and a mighty city1) ends in the only possible and logical outcome
– the triumph of the destructive forces of life over the despair of the
lonely man and over the bravery of the heretic.
Roman o Londonu (A Novel about London) is a work of simple
structure but of rich and original expression and of complex existential
significance. The living drama of Prince Ryepnin who, faced with po-
verty and age, finds a way out in voluntary death, goes beyond the
framework of an individual fate and individual tragedy. By this fate
through which is written ‘yet another, disgusting tragi-comedy of a
Russian emigrant in London – who knows for how-manieth time’2) –
Crnjanski has achieved far more than this: he has given to Serbian
literature an engaging and suggestive story of the dread loneliness
of the human individual in the modern world and of his inability to
resist the destructive forces of civilization personified in the polyp-like
nature of a city of millions.
Around this central theme of the novel Crnjanski has portrayed a
luxurious, cosmopolitan fresco constructed of a multiplicity of human
fates which serve as a background on which unfolds the drama of a
man’s lost being, of his resignation, alienation, disappointment, aging
and poverty in all their tragic complexity. Portraying the ‘helplessness
in a foreign country’3) of the exile, Crnjanski has achieved a masterly
penetration of the inner life of the personality who, in the nightmares
between the past and present, in the insatiable longing for his native
land and limitless devotion to a beloved being, prepares for his
departure from the stage of life with the calm of dignified despair and
the icy peace of an honest person determined to preserve his moral
integrity. The narrative, the thought, the psychological and poetic
currents of Roman u Londonu come together in a many-layered, multi-
significant structure which not only ennobles the reader, but disturbs
and activates him intellectually – as does every good book.
In the very first pages of the novel Ryepnin is presented as a person
that, by its poetic subtext, suggests the internal complexity and defeat
of an individual lost in a cold, selfish and insensible world. ‘Snow-flakes
lingered longer on that face than on those of others – as if on the face of
some frozen man.’4) This sentence, however, tells the reader something
more: namely that Ryepnin’s internal frigidity that transfers to his face
is the cold of a man determined on death. Reconciled with death as
the sole way out, Ryepnin is indeed partly already dead. There remain
just some matters to settle which will make his death less painful –
for others. Here, then, is clearly hinted what will be later definitely
stated; that he thinks of his own death ‘as if it referred to another man.’5)
Ryepnin’s very face is presented as a map of his fate. There may be read
‘a weariness of life’6) and the hovering expression ‘of sadness and
despair.’7) Eyes fixed upon the endless and well-known wasteland of
the abyss, he looks about him ‘as if the world were a dream and not
reality.’8 ) Ryepnin leaves this world as though believing that one dream
replaces another.
In the first chapter the writer, invisible, accompanies ‘a human sha-
dow in a worn overcoat.’9) In ‘the train that charged underground’10) that
living corpse ‘cried out, dumbly’11) of equality and brotherhood, ironi-
cally completing the writer’s initial thought of the world as a huge,
strange stage on which each plays his role, God knows why, and when-
ce he goes, God knows whither, and that only in this final parting ‘do
all the kings and beggars come together.12) Ryepnin is a lost and imper-
ceptible particle of pride and suffering in ‘the astronomical conglo-
merate’13) of London. He, ‘no matter who,’14) is the desperate exile troubled
by the fear of the future on the burned embers of ruined illusions. ‘That
very winter – the last winter of the war – England had shown him of
what she was capable, if she willed it.’15) He was past fifty, with a wife he
loved and for whom he could not ensure a normal and decent life since
he was unemployed and he saw only one way out that was acceptable to
his moral standards – and honorable and voluntary death.
Already in the introductory chapter, in which the writer presents
Ryepnin in a cluster of intertwined and whirling pictures, the thread
may be seen that will run through the entire novel as its basic leitmotif:
the fateful destructiveness of human loneliness. Ryepnin is alone and
mute in the roaring compartment of the underground railway, isolated
before the station deep in snow; not only is he without anyone to greet
him, but nobody notices him, his name is known to no one.16) Nobody
ever calls at the house where he and his wife live, not the milkman, not
the postman, not the newspaper deliverer, not even the dustman. ‘For
a whole year no one had asked whether they were alive.’ 17)
Although with this series of images he has prepared the reader for
a direct and closer encounter with the hero, the writer lays his cards
on the table and warns the reader that his book will posses several
layers of meaning.
This will be a book not only about this man in London and about
his wife, not only about their love, but also about the Russians who
had arrived in London, before them, many years ago. They all of
them were ‘displaced’ persons. On the other hand, it will not merely
be a tale about them, but also about that London world that, packed
like sardines, travels to London in the morning to work and in the
evening returns from London, with its back turned to it, and, most of
all, it will peak of that immense city whose embrace has proved fatal
to so many men and women, – and which watches all the dumbly, like
some massive sphinx, listening to passer-by after passer-by asking:
Where here is there happiness? Where, is the ingress and egress of
passer-by, in crowds and in isolation, -four, eight, fourteen million of
them, – is the sense?18 )
In Roman o Londonu, then, several thematic lines are interwoven.
They do not flow parallel nor rhythmically smoothly. Their appear-
ance and disappearance are governed by the moods and momentary
preoccupations of the central hero, whom the invisible writer, stubb-
ornly follows from the first page to the last, expressing himself only
occasionally with brief interventions and leaving him only at the
moment before death to make, without a single witness, the fateful
step into the brotherhood and equality of extinction. The thematic
lines appear with the regularity of leitmotif. At times they even have
a certain element of monotony. This monotony, however, has its pro-
found psychological justification. A man who is prepared to die, be-
ing convinced that there is no other way out of the misery in which
he finds himself, is apt to be preoccupied with several basic thoughts.
In his consciousness they succeed one another, follow on and cross
over in a nightmarish resolution and clarification of the dilemma.
We have seen that Ryepnin is clearly defined on the first pages
of the novel. His relation to the obsessive preoccupations of his own
consciousness will scarcely change even later, since his behaviors, his
attitudes and experiences and determined by clear and unambiguous
feelings. These feelings which, at times, turn into moral principles t
which he holds firmly, to some great extent, although not completely,
determine his fate. Ryepnin’s life ends in suicide not merely because
he is unable to alter certain basic existential suppositions, but also
because he does not wish to change them at the price of moral com-
promise. Therefore he sees his life situation as being to such an extent
unchangeable and final that he sees in suicide the sole solution which
will guarantee Nadya, his beloved wife, security. By this act he would
liberate himself from moral compromise and from dependence on
the humiliating charity of others.
In the web of relationships that determine Ryepnin’s inner life
and physical existence, several basic circles stand out in which his
____________________
1) Miloš Crnjanski, Roman o Londonu, Vol. 1, Belgrade, 1971, p. 21.
2) Ibid., p. 236.
3) Ibid., 67.
4) Ibid., p. 37.
5) Ibid., p. 384.
6) Ibid., p. 39.
7) Ibid., p. 37.
8 ) Ibid., p. 36.
9) Ibid., p. 14.
10) Ibid., p. 10.
11) Ibid.
12) Ibid., p. 9.
13) Ibid., p. 16.
14) Ibid., p. 14.
15) Ibid., p. 12.
16) Ibid., p. 15.
17) Ibid., p. 18.
18 ) Ibid., p. 21
Dragoljub P. Antic
On the Source of Culture and Science: A Monograph
The Monograph “On the Source of Culture and Science” is composed of
the contributions made by participants of the International Scientific
Conference held in Belgrade from the 21st to the 23rd of September,
2012. The first day of the conference took place in the “Sava Centre,”
the second day in the formal hall of University of Belgrade’s rectory
while the third day took place at the Archeological Site “Vinca” and
“Lepenski Vir” with the last session being held in the “Lepenski Vir”
Hotel in Donji Milanovac. The organizers of this complex manifesta-
tion were: Vinca Neolithic: Belgrade, an association for conserving
and nurturing of the Vincha culture; the Association of Milutin Mi-
lankovic: Belgrade; “Cirilica Beograd”, a social organization for the
fostering of the Cyrillic alphabet; the Regional-Social Organization for
the Unification of Serbs: Moscow; the Regional-Social Organization
“Serbskoje Zemljacestvo Moskva”; the Medical Chamber of Serbia and
“KoloBenija Beograd”. The conference was held with the support of the
Ministry of Culture and Information of Serbia, the township of
Grocka, the city of Pancevo, the archeological park of Starcevo,
“Dveri Srpske” organization, touristic organizations of Belgrade and
“Ilustrovana Politika.” The conference was also accompanied by the
following events: an exhibition at the “Progres” gallery; concerts of
ancient music and songs from parts of the “Iliad” played to the sounds
of “gusle” by young “gusla” players Milan Kovacevic and Nikola Je-
knic (for the first time, after more than 3000 years of the formation
of this epoch, as judged by the writings in ancient Serbian language, as
well as in decasyllabic form); a great number of performances given by
many folklore dance groups on the street of “Knez Mihajlo” in Belgrade,
as well as on the plateau by the archeological site in Vinca. As many as
sixty-four authors, eleven of which were from abroad (Russia, United
States of America, Great Britain, Montenegro and Macedonia) were
a part of this conference. The credentials of the participants speaks
to the quality of the discussions and their contributions: thirteen
academics coming from ten academies of science; eleven University
professors; nine Doctors of Science; two master students and around
twenty researchers of various profiles (historians, art historians, ethno-
logists, engineers, philologists, doctors and writers). The work presen-
ted at this conference can be categorized into over twenty disciplines
(anthropology, archeology, archaeogenetics, architecture, enology,
ethnology, ethnomusicology, history, history of mathematics and astro-
nomy, history of literacy, history of mining and metallurgy, history of
law, history of the arts, linguistics, mythology, law, sociology, Serbian
studies, physics). With this, the conference completely satisfied the
expectation that the formation of civilization, culture and science
and its continuity and conservation of heritage may be considered
through multidisciplinary enlightenment covering a period as long
as ten millennia.
The Monograph “On the Source of Culture and Science” unifies
texts which consider the earliest appearances and continuity of growth
of tame animals and agricultures, the formation of mining and metal-
lurgy, of trades, of artistic and symbolic expression, as well as the spaw-
ning of literacy, of mathematical, astronomical and calendar know-
ledge, the shaping of societies and the first characteristics of organized
community, the formation of mythology, faith and other ethnological
characteristics, essential customs, the formation of medicine and
the first shapes of law, architecture and urbanization, early forms of
transport and trade, etc. The conference compared the formation and
development of the aforementioned characteristics of civilization on
the Balkan Peninsula with other civilization formation cores in the
world and considered the link between the two, while discussing the
temporal relation between the two as well. The great cultural heritage
we have today stands as proof of the permanence of this original
civilization
Significant members from abroad gave the conference a special
tone. Anatolij Aleksejevich Kljosov is a biochemist and one of today’s
leading world experts in the production of special biomaterial, an
academic of the Russian Academy “DNK-Genealogy” from Moscow
who has been a professor at the Lomonosov University in Moscow for
many years and who has also taught biology at Harvard. At the con-
ference, his works (in the area of DNK-genealogy) proved that ancient
Europeans sprung during Neolithic time in the area of Lepensi Vir and
Vinca and that some 6000 years ago they began to spread to the wider
Eurasian area, returning in a wave-like fashion. With this argument,
he proves the results of anthropologist Srboljub Zivanovic, as well as
the results of the formation and widening of the European pre-nations
and literacy analyzed by Jovan Deretic and Dragoljub Antic. Moreover,
Andrej Aleksandrovich Tjunjajev, an academic of the Russian Academy
of Science and the chief editor of the periodical “Prezident” was yet
another significant member of the conference who came up with
similar results albeit through different means. Giancarlo Tomatsoli,
an Italian who interprets 4000 years of old writing from Crete proved
that there are ancient roots of the Slavs found in the Balkans. Jelena
Mironova, another Russian points to probable cultural linkage in the
time of the Neolithic culture to the wider areas of Europe and Asia. A
few more works were devoted to ancient literacy: Aristotel Tentov and
Tome Bosevski from Macedonia by means of decryption of text of the
famous “Rosetta Stone” (Kamen Rozeta); Radomir Djordjevic with his
code from Sadro; Miroslava Petrovic with a display of decryption of
the letters and language of Svetlislav Bilbija. Bozidar Mitrovic focused
on the ancient roots of mathematics from the time of the Vinca culture
as well as on the roots of law and solar symbolism from the Neolithic
period which are found in the civilization and heritage of the Serbs
and Orthodoxy.
The archeological traces of this first European civilization were
shown by Radmilo Petrovic, Dragan Jacanovic, Dusan Raskovic and
Gordana Cadjenovic while Ivan Kuljancic enlightened the conference
with the roots of vine and wine growing and the cult of Bakizm. The
deep roots of ethnic music and its relation to the Neolithic times
were presented by Mirjana Zakic and Svetlana Svetic-Vukosavljevic.
Dragan Jacanovic provided proof concerning the knowledge of the
calendar and descriptions of jewelry, clothes and funeral rituals from
the Bronze and Iron Age found in Serbian Epic poetry. On the basis
of Milutin Jacimovic’s and Novak Andesilic’s analyses, Slobodan
Jarcevic sang the “Iliad” in decasyllabic form after which he came
across numerous verifications of Jacimovic’s analyses that Homer’s
Troy was located on the fortress Skadar, while also coming across
other numerous facts which confirm the Serbian character of the par-
ticipants of the Trojan war. More works of historians, art historians,
ethnologists, philologists, sociologists, and other researchers showed a
vast continuity of the first European civilizations up to today focusing
on its integration within the Serbian cultural heritage and indicating
and stressing the essential ways of nurturing and upholding this
cultural heritage (Zivojin Andrejic, Vida Tomic, Slobodan Filipovic,
Antonije I Ivan Skokljev, Momir Jovic, Miodrag Milanovic, Milan
Stevancevic, Radmilo Marojevic, Mile Medic, Rade Rajic et al). A last
special block of the Conference was dedicated to the fostering of the
Cyrillic alphabet with about 15 works focusing on this subject.
As discussed during the closing session, the conference, which was
made up of various scientific disciplines and perspectives, proved that
the first European civilization was founded in the time and space of
the culture of “Lepenski Vir,” “Starcevo” and “Vinca” and its conti-
nuity is visible today. The conference adopted many important conclu-
sions and launched further initiative for the alteration of scholarly
history textbooks, strengthened cooperation within Slavic nations as
well as strengthening the conservation of the Cyrillic alphabet. The
Monograph “On the Source of Culture and Science” gives a comple-te
display of this great scientific gathering and provides great opportu-
nities to researchers of various profiles to engage in these explorations.
Translated by: Ivana Dobrilovic, Toronto
Bozidar T. Mitrovic
Abstract
The word KULTuRA / Culture (as well as culture itself) originated
from the Serbian/ancient Russian word KOLO, which was transformed
from KVLV into CVLT/Kult, (it is even recorded in the Latin language
that the word culture originated from the word (cult) COLLO/KOLO).
The earliest world view (mirovozrenje) of the ancient Slavs/SloVena,
who used to call themselves KoloVeni, was ingeniously simple –
“Everything is Kolo/Circle” (the unity of the movement of the Earth
round the Sun, nature and man) – on which basis they discovered that
this Kolo (Circle) of interdependence within the cyclical movement
was materialized in the cross section of wood in the form of a growth
ring – in Serbian: God (Godovi). This allowed the people of Lepenski
Vir to specify a period of one year (Godina is the Serbian/Russian word
for “year”) as the time of resurrection of nature. Through this finding
they were able to change their nomadic way of life into a sedentary
one (which also accounts for the beginning of culture) and to start
building houses of (divine) wood in Vinča, plant crops in furrows and
to harvest crops at the same location.
This simple world view/мировозрења of the ancient SloVena/Сло-
Вена/Slavs gave birth to architecture, law and medicine (med-Isina/
медИсина), which account for the very origins of culture, although
the origins of law, medicine and architecture have unreasonably and
arbitrarily been attributed to Rome or Greece.
Dragoljub P. Antic
Abstract
From the point of view of historical processes, this analysis sheds light
on the issue of environmental conditions in the last millennium and
on the validity of the “historical truth” about the emergence of the
first European civilization based on the grounds of actual technical
and physical aspects. The problem was approached starting with the
pre-conditions necessary for the emergence of civilization, thus po-
tential areas with long-term stable conditions were identified. Then
all the sites were analyzed from the standpoint of physical, linguistic
and cultural continuity. The analysis was further strengthened by
comprising numerous records from historians from the Classical Pe-
riod, the Middle Ages and later centuries. The conclusion formed is
that the most favorable conditions in the last 40 million years were in
the area of the Hem peninsula, part of Asia Minor, and in the general
area of the northern Black Sea: places of origin of the first European
civilization. Similarly, European ancestors had characteristics that are
visible today mostly in Serbs, Russians and other Slavs. New genetic
analysis has fully confirmed this scenario and the paths of European
ancestors and their other migrations.
Keywords: natural sciences, physical and technical conditions, histo-
rical processes, civilization, continuity
Radoje Radojević
When Serbia Sailed the High Seas
It is a little known fact that once upon a time when steam shipping was
in its heyday and the main mode of intercontinental travel, one of the
top luxury ocean liners bore the name SS Servia. The story that follows
is an attempt to salvage from oblivion this great vessel that brought
Serbia much favourable publicity over the years as it battled the savage
waves of the North Atlantic.
The story begins with the Cunard Line, one of the leading ope-
rators of passenger ships on the North Atlantic for over a century, and
the only shipping company to operate a scheduled passenger service
between Europe and North America to this day. The company was
founded by a Canadian, Samuel Cunard of Nova Scotia.1) In 1839 Cu-
nard was awarded the first British transatlantic steamship mail con-
tract, and the next year formed the British and North American Royal
Mail Steam-Packet Company to operate the line’s four pioneer paddle
steamers on the Liverpool-Halifax-Boston route. For most of the next
30 years, Cunard held the Blue Riband2) for the fastest Atlantic voyage.
However, in the 1870s Cunard experienced stern competition from
its rivals, the White Star Line and the Inman Line and began to falter
financially. To meet this challenge, in 1879 the firm was reorganized as
Cunard Steamship Company, Ltd. to raise capital. With the injection
of fresh capital the company immediately proceeded to place an order
for a new super vessel. The contract was award to J & G Thomson (later
John Brown & Company), a shipbuilding yard in Clydebank near
Glasgow, Scotland.
Thompson designed and built a vessel introducing many inno-
vations. With a double bottom, subdivided into 16 water-tight com-
partments, the ship was practically unsinkable. As long as at least two
of its compartments remained intact, the ship could stay afloat. She
was the first large ocean liner to be built of steel instead of iron, and
the first Cunard ship lit by electric incandescent lamps which had
been just invented by Thomas Edison. For these and other reasons,
maritime historians often consider her to be the first “modern” ocean
liner.3) With the length of 515 feet and a width of 52.1 feet she was the
second largest ocean liner of the time, surpassed only by Brunel’s SS
Great Eastern. With her design and construction guided by Admiralty
specifications, she had many features that satisfied the requirements
for her to be placed high on the Admiralty’s reserve list of the armed
auxiliary cruisers, where she could be called into service in times of
war. She had 5 decks, one of which was the promenade deck. She was
propelled by 3 expansion engines with a total horsepower of 10,300
IHP. When first tested she attained a top speed of 17.5 Kts and the best
average speed of 16.7 Kts, though she never attained the Blue Riband.
She was serviced by a crew of 298 and had passenger capacity of 480 1st
class and 750 steerage. It cost £256,903 to be built.
This ship was christened SS Servia and launched on March 1, 1881.
Its “godmother” was Elodie Lawton Mijatović. Servia is what English-
speaking people used to call Serbia before World War I. It was changed
by British journalists into Serbia at some point between August 1914
and April 1915. Servia smacked too much of servility, reminded the
English readers of “serfs” and was disrespectful for a valiant ally.4)
Elodie Lawton was a British author who lived in Boston in the
1850s, where she was an advocate of the abolitionist movement. In
1864, while on a trip to Germany, she met Čedomilj Mijatović who was
completing his studies in economics at Leipzig and they ended up
getting married. In 1865 they settled in Belgrade where Čedomilj, at
the age of 23, became a professor of political economy at the Belgrade
Velika Škola, the highest educational institution in Serbia at that time,
the predecessor of University of Belgrade. Over the next 40 years Čedo-
milj will leave an important imprint on Serbian history as a Serbian
statesman, economist, historian, writer, politician, and diplomat. He
was six times minister of Finance in the Principality/Kingdom of Serbia,
three times minister of foreign affairs and minister plenipotentiary of
Serbia to the Court of St. James’s (1884–1885; 1895–1900, and 1902/1903),
to Romania (1894), and the Ottoman Empire (1900). Elodie, meanwhile,
after mastering the Serbian language became the first English-spea-
king female historian in Serbia. In 1872 she published The History of
Modern Serbia (London: William Tweedie) and in 1874, Serbian Folk-
lore (London: W. Isbister & Co). She translated Serbian national poems
of the Kosovo cycle into English and tried to organise them into one
national ballad: Kosovo: an Attempt to bring Serbian National Songs,
about the Fall of the Serbian Empire at the Battle of Kosovo, into one
Poem (London: W. Isbister, 1881).
Under his wife’s influence, Čedomilj became Serbia’s greatest all-
time Anglophile. Together, through their writings and publications,
they contributed a lot to the promotion of Serbia’s history and culture
throughout the English-speaking world, while his translations of
important English works into Serbian made those works available to
the Serbian reading public. Indeed, he was probably the most active
and influential Serbian translator from English during the 19th
century. The bibliography of his translations includes about a dozen
titles. Most of them dealt with religious topics. That was his effort to
contribute to religious revival of the Serbian people. His translations
into Serbian include sermons of well-known British preachers such as
Dr. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Canon Henry Parry Liddon and Dr.
Macduff. He also translated John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and
Dr. David Brown’s
Commentaries to the Gospels. His translation of Henry Thomas
Buckle’s book History of Civilisation in England, was published in Ser-
bian in 1871 and influenced several generations of pro-Western Serbs.
Mijatović also published several of his own original works in
English: Constantine, the Last Emperor of the Greeks or the Conquest
of Constantinople by the Turks (A.D. 1453 (London: Sampson Low,
Marston & Company, 1892); A Royal Tragedy. Being the Story of the
Assassination of King Alexander and Queen Draga of Servia (London:
Eveleigh Nash, 1906); Servia and the Servians (London: Sir Isaac Pitman
& Sons, 1908); he co-authored with Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace,
Prince Kropotkin, and J. D. Bourchier A Short History of Russia and
the Balkan States (London: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company,
1914), and in 1917 he published The Memoirs of a Balkan Diplomatist
(London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne: Cassel and Co.). His
book Servia and the Servians together with his entries on Serbia in the
Tenth and Eleventh editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica served a
very important purpose of offering a favourable view of Serbia to the
Anglo-American public at the beginning of the twentieth century in a
very turbulent and decisive period in her history.
With Čedomilj always being close to the seat of power in Serbia,
the couple easily attracted and befriended many important and
influential Britons, some of whom left an inerasable mark on Serbia’s
history and society.
One of such friends was the wealthy Scottish philanthropist
Francis Mackenzie. Mackenzie was a Scottish member of the Plymouth
Brethren, a Nazarene group. He travelled to Belgrade in 1876 to start
work for the British and Foreign Bible Society to foster religiosity
among the Serbian people. He stayed in Belgrade from 1876 till 1895
and became a prominent figure in Belgrade society. Over the years
he befriended many Serbian politicians and other prominent Belgrade
residents. While in Belgrade he managed to enlarge his already sizeable
wealth. He correctly predicted that Belgrade’s city limits would spread
eastwards. In 1879, he bought a large piece of agricultural and swampy
land named, “Simić’s Majur”, from the son of Stojan Simic, president/
chairman of the Serbian Parliament for 7500 gold ducats. He parceled
this land out into building lots and sold them one by one. Out of the
money he earned, he built a large Peace Hall which was renowned for
political events.
He financed the publishing of Hrišćanski Vesnik (Christian Mess-
enger) the first monthly journal dedicated to religious revival in Serbia
which had been founded by Mijatović and Aleksa Ilić, a Belgrade priest.
____________________
1) The Cunard Line is no longer owned by Canadians. It is now a British-
American owned shipping company based at Carnival House in
Southampton, England, and operated by Carnival UK.
2) The Blue Riband is an unofficial accolade given to the passenger liner
crossing the Atlantic Ocean in regular service with the record highest
speed. The term was borrowed from horse racing and was not widely
used until after 1910. Under the unwritten rules, the record is based on
average speed rather than passage time because ships follow different
routes. Traditionally, a ship is considered a “record breaker” if it wins the
eastbound speed record, but is not credited with the Blue Riband unless it
wins the more difficult westbound record against the Gulf Stream
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Riband
3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Servia
4) Paul Fussel, The Great War and Modern Memory, London 1975, p. 175