The Critical Appreciation of Miloš Crnjanski’s Poem Serbia.
The critical appreciation of Miloš Crnjanski’s poem Serbia.
Great minds would not necessary been great if they did not live in a time of significant historical upheavals. Those moments, when the whole world changes, when the poet’s homeland is transformed, reborn and people’s lives are scarified, seem to be kinds of fuel that deepens artist’s pain, refinements his talent and thus makes him great.
In 1925 in Corfu, Miloš Crnjanski, who is considered to be one of the most prominent authors among Serbian writers and poets, wrote his poem Serbia, on which this essay will focus. Zdenko Lešić once said about Crnjanski that from the very beginning he was a poet who was fully aware of avant-garde nature of his poetic venture.[1] His aim was to freed language by changes “in word, in feeling, in thought” as well as to discover new possibilities through which poetry could be expressed.[2] As it has been already mentioned, this work will analyze Crnjanski’s poem, Serbia.
The year 1925 historically belongs to the period between the two world wars. World War I, and therefore Serbian Golgotha, ended with the Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919. The short twenty years period between the two biggest conflicts in world’s history was not, however, ample time, for country like Serbia, to make quick recovery from wounds sustained after Austrian invasion of Serbian territory, a huge number of war victims, and an epidemic of typhus. It must be emphasised that Corfu is not, by any means, an accidental place of origin of Serbia. It was there where the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, officially called Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, was formed after a meeting inside the Municipal Theatre of Corfu.[3] In his book, Lirika Itake, Crnjanski writes about Corfu and describes the atmosphere in which Serbia was written:
„Tu, kraj kanala, u more, veliko je groblje
Na toj utrini velike krstače na kojima piše:
,ZA PRAVDU I SLOBODU’ /.../
Vrćamo se u Krf putem koji vodi kroz ta
Great minds would not necessary been great if they did not live in a time of significant historical upheavals. Those moments, when the whole world changes, when the poet’s homeland is transformed, reborn and people’s lives are scarified, seem to be kinds of fuel that deepens artist’s pain, refinements his talent and thus makes him great.
In 1925 in Corfu, Miloš Crnjanski, who is considered to be one of the most prominent authors among Serbian writers and poets, wrote his poem Serbia, on which this essay will focus. Zdenko Lešić once said about Crnjanski that from the very beginning he was a poet who was fully aware of avant-garde nature of his poetic venture.[1] His aim was to freed language by changes “in word, in feeling, in thought” as well as to discover new possibilities through which poetry could be expressed.[2] As it has been already mentioned, this work will analyze Crnjanski’s poem, Serbia.
The year 1925 historically belongs to the period between the two world wars. World War I, and therefore Serbian Golgotha, ended with the Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919. The short twenty years period between the two biggest conflicts in world’s history was not, however, ample time, for country like Serbia, to make quick recovery from wounds sustained after Austrian invasion of Serbian territory, a huge number of war victims, and an epidemic of typhus. It must be emphasised that Corfu is not, by any means, an accidental place of origin of Serbia. It was there where the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, officially called Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, was formed after a meeting inside the Municipal Theatre of Corfu.[3] In his book, Lirika Itake, Crnjanski writes about Corfu and describes the atmosphere in which Serbia was written:
„Tu, kraj kanala, u more, veliko je groblje
Na toj utrini velike krstače na kojima piše:
,ZA PRAVDU I SLOBODU’ /.../
Vrćamo se u Krf putem koji vodi kroz ta
Bibliography: 1. Crnjanski, M., ‘Krf posle rata’, in: Lirika itake i komentari, ed. by Rosić, T., (Belgrade: BIGZ-SKZ, 1993). 2. Crnjanski, M., ‘Serbia’, in: Poezija (Lirika Itake, Komentari, Antologija kineske lirike, Pesme starog Japana, Lament nad Beogradom), Sabrana dela, IV, (Belgrade- Prosveta, Novi Sad-Matica Srpska, Sarajevo- Svjetlost, Belgrade, 1966). 3. Ćorović, V., Ilustrovana istorija Srba, VI, (Belgrade: Politika-Narodna knjiga, 2006). 4. Lešić, Z., ‘The Avantgarde Nature and Artistic Range of Crnjanski’s Poetry”, in: Miloš Crnjanski and Modern Serbian Literature, ed. by Norris, D., (Nottingham: Astra Press, 1988). 5. Petrov, A., ‘Serbia’, in: Poezija Crnjanskog i srpsko pesništvo, (Belgrade: Vuk Karadžić, 1971). [3] Ćorović, V., Ilustrovana istorija Srba, VI, (Belgrade: Politika-Narodna knjiga, 2006), p.136. [4] Crnjanski, M., ‘Krf posle rata’, in: Lirika itake i komentari, ed. by Rosić, T., (Belgrade: BIGZ-SKZ, 1993), pp. 317-318. [5] Petrov, A., ‘Serbia’, in: Poezija Crnjanskog i srpsko pesništvo, (Belgrade: Vuk Karadžić, 1971), p.110. [6] Crnjanski, M., ‘Serbia’, in: Poezija (Lirika Itake, Komentari, Antologija kineske lirike, Pesme starog Japana, Lament nad Beogradom), Sabrana dela, IV, (Belgrade- Prosveta, Novi Sad-Matica Srpska, Sarajevo- Svjetlost, Belgrade, 1966), p. 90. [9] Petrov, A., ‘Serbia’, in: Poezija Crnjanskog i srpsko pesništvo, (Belgrade: Vuk Karadžić, 1971), p.116.