Athens and Jerusalem in Njegoš’s poetry

moment when the providential shifts to the secular, then we see in The
Mountain Wreath the tragic climax of their meeting, only for things of
the world to move one step further, as in The False Emperor Šćepan the
Small. For, the chiliastic experience was brought to the heart of mod-
ernity, but at that point there no longer awaited a tragic hero, not even
a wise man awaited, but instead – a buffoon, an imposter. The buffoon
has a demonic scope and parodies, so that he appears as a ghost on the
ruins of one of the self-depleted and corrupted worlds.
However, for the first time Njegoš’s work does not have only a meta-
physical and historical, but also a powerful secular dimension: the
demonic clown. The pathway of the epochal messenger of modernity
and modern nihilism, legitimately transformed himself into a modern
figure of a swindler, of an imposter. Although he becomes characteris-
tic of the period par excellence, because he is – in the sense of the col-
lective self-representation – an unavoidable figure, model of the times
and a mythical pattern.9 By his very appearance he is not, as Peter
Sloterdijk said, completely devoid of tragic responses, at the time when
the Germans were creating a “sick and weepy actor, who will, thanks
to the approving confused masses, perform a suicidal imperial act.” 10
The resulting duality of the buffoon, whose figure turns like a ka-
leidoscope in different directions, is the result of a movement within
Njegoš’s poetry which leads toward the ontological paradox of Athens
and Jerusalem. His expression in The False Emperor Šćepan the Small
is, in fact, that of suffering in a modern sense of despair, nausea, silence:
“what else is the world but suffering.” This feeling is based on the newly
discovered content of time in the modern world.11 For suffering occurs
as a result of the modern understanding of linear time, as the linearity
which is devoid of a beginning and an end, in the ancient notion of
infinite time, which is separated from the idea of the circle. Suffering is,
therefore, a meaningless linearity (derived from the Christian linear-
ity) and ancient infinity (derived from the ancient idea of the eternal
recurrence of the same). In order for it to be meaningful, it would have
to be completed, but it is not complete. Suffering, therefore, is a useless
infinity. For – as Karl Lowith said – “modern historical thinking ...
from its progressive outlook, removes the Christian elements of cre-
ation and completion, while the ancient worldview appropriates the
idea of the infinite and continuous movement without taking its cir-
cular structure.” 12
What reveals to us the knowledge of the relationship between
Athens and Jerusalem – as a relationship that forms the very basis of
our civilization – as a dynamic center that is structured by Njegoš’s
poetic experience? It establishes Njegoš as the representative poet of
Serbian culture primarily for being the poet of the entire civilization
from which Serbian culture emerged, to which it belonged at different
times and which it is an inseparable component. Njegoš is not, there-
fore, a characteristic representative of Serbian culture only because
he is the greatest Serbian poet. Neither is he such simply because he
belongs to Serbian culture and tradition by his choice. Njegoš is repre-
sentative because in Serbian culture – in an authentic concert with her
crucial spiritual and poetic rhythm – he achieves the most general and
foundational moment of civilization which allows for the very exist-
ence of Serbian culture. Precisely due to the fact that he is an eminently
European poet, Njegoš is at the same time a representative Serbian poet.