Time of Death - North American Society for Serbian Studies

3
SERBIAN STUDIES
PUBLISHED BY TilE NORTH AMERICAN SOCIEI'Y FOR SERBIAN STUDIES
CONTENTS
VOLUME 5, NUMBER 4
FALL 1990
Edit Petrovic and Andrei Simic
MONTENEGRIN COLONISTS IN VOJVODINA: OBJECTIVE
AND SUBJECTIVE MEASURES OF ETHNICITY 1
5
Nicholas Moravcevich
THE PORTRAIT OF NIKOLA PASIC IN DOBRICA COSIC'S
NOVEL TIME OF DEATH
21
Zora Devrnja Zimmerman
ON THE HERMENEUTICS OF ORAL POETRY: AN
ANALYSIS OF THE KOSOVO MYTH OS
31
Svetlana Velmar-Jankovic
THE RECEPTION OF MOMCILO NASTASIJEVIC IN SERBIA
AND YUGOSLAVIA SINCE 1938
41
Dragan Kujundzic
THE EARLY CRNJANSKI: THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS
OF WRITING
55
BOOK REVIEWS
Slavko Todorovich
The Chilandarians: Serbian Monks on the Greek Mountain .
Boulder, Colorado
East European Monographs, 1989
(Paul Pavlovich)
69
Nicholas Moravcevich
21
THE PORTRAIT OF NlKOLA PASIC IN DOBRICA COSIC'S NOVEL
TIME OF DEATH
Tolstoyan in scope and Dantesque in perception Cosic's vast panorama of Serbia's most difficult struggle for survival in its modern
history contains a kaleidoscopic mixture of historical and fictional
personages, each of whom may appear to a casual reader to be equally
significant in his own corner of the vast novel's polyphonic structure. Yet, a closer, more analytical examination of the novel's dynamis clearly reveals that ideologically the most significant portion
of its action revolves around three characters, each of whom symbolically represents an entire segment of the national life and aspirations.
The first of these archetypal figures is of course Vukasin Katie,
the apostle of the liberal Serbian intelligentsia, the quintessential
Westernizer, the Cartesian rebel against the shifty parochialism of
the contemporary Serbian politics and a firm believer in the immutable value of high moral principles in both political theory and
practice. Uncompromising in the political arena almost to the point
of self-righteousness, he, like a modern Diogenes, most of the time
stands alone above the crowd of petty politicians lamenting in vain
over the follies of a small nation that stubbornly clings to goals that
are logically beyond its reach. The Serbian tragedy of 1915 is the
ultimate crucible of his spiritual mellowing through which he finally discovers in himself that long dormant affinity with his native
roots, with that woe-surfaited, sullen, sinewy peasant Serbia whose
stubborn resistance descends to the lower depths of the irrational,
untouched by the neat formulae of Cartesian logic and the predictable limits of the struggle for political gains.
The second archetypal figure in this thematic triangle is General
Zivojin MiSic, the tenacious commander of the First Serbian Army
and the hero of the great ballle of Suvobor Mountain, in which the
Austrian invaders, already in possession of one third of the Serbian
national territory and confident of an easy victory, arc suddenly
stopped, defeated and chased out of Serbia altogether by that same
molly peasant force which to them only a few days before seemed
to be on the brink of total exhaustion. MiSic is the epitome of the
crusty Serbian nationalist. Endowed with an unshakable faith in the
tenacity and stamina of the Serbian peasant soldier when he is de-
Nicholas Moravcevich
22
fending his threshold, Misic manages bettor than any of th o high
Serbian military commanders lo combine his vast formal knowledge
of the art of war with an uncanny, visceral sense for the capacity of
endurance that can be expected from a common man in circumstances of unprecedented national calamity. Himself a child from a
peasant family of modest means, he never lost that simplicity, and
integrity which characterize the unpretentious, rural existence and
that healthy down-to-earth common sense which form s th o essence
of popular wisdom. And il is precisely his strong bond with .Ll~e
people and the gift of sharp common sense that make Genera l MJSLC
rather skeptical about the grand idea of the Yugoslav unity that is
so readily embraced by the bevy of the politicians and officers around
him. In MiSic's view a common homeland of all tho South Slavs
would be an edifice erected by very unequal partners, and as such
would have little prospect for long term tranquility and survival.
Moreover, in the pursuit of this dream Misic sees and laments the
abandonment of a much older and more logical quest for an unified
Serbia to which the nation was dedicated throughou t ils modern
history. And so, with all his instincts General Misic senses that the
Austro-German military threat to the country may, despite ils awesomeness, ultimately prove a lesser peril for national survival than
the mushrooming popular belief among the Serbs in tho possibility
of a brotherly union with the Croats and Slovenes, a goal whose
realization would require the voluntary and permanent sacrifice of
both Serbia's yet unrealized national aspirations and its very stalehood. This is why to all Katie's arguments about the need for the
South Slav union, MiSic's can only reply:
To je vase politicko maloumlje! Neccmo bili ni veCi
ni jaci ujedinjenjem sa nasim sadasn jim ratnim pro.Li~­
nicima, koje nikad nismo upoznali kao bracu. AIL th
zato dobra poznajemo kao ralne neprijatelje. Sa njim~
koji juriSaju od Drine psujuci nam majku opan~arsku 1
pravoslavnu, sa njima koji sa uperon im bajoncli~~
vii":u - "Predajte se, braco Srbi!" - n e mozomo nikad btti
slobodni. 1
The craftiest weaver of that very Yugoslav dream which so worries
General Misic and the third great figure of this novel's archetypal
Nicholas Moravcevich
23
triumvirate is the Prime Minister of the Royal Serbian Government
and the leader of the country's ruling Radical Party, Nikola Pasic.
In the Fall of 1914, when we first meet him in CosiC's novel, he
already has behind him some thirty-six years of keenest involvement
in his country's political life and almost twenty-five years of service
in the highest offices of the national government. Tempered by his
vast experience as a politician and statesman, Cosic's Pasic, holding
the helm of state in the most agonizing moments of Serbia's modern
history, appears as a towering symbol of his nation's dogged determination to carve its own destiny according to its own choices and
free from the arrogant dictates of either its friends or foes among the
great nations of Europe. And for this impossible stand, his past struggles for survival have given him formidable credentials. As Cosic
himself summarizes:
Otac mu je bio seljak, a on je stigao do carskih trpeza
i razgovarao sa carem Rusije. Bio Bakunjinov drug i
anarhista, pa je Srbija pod njegovim vocstvom postala
najjaca ddava od doba Nemanjica. U Svajcarskoj saznao sta je demokratija, licno od Bakunjina sta je revolucija. Nisu ga hteli za profesora geodezije, a morali su
da ga izaberu za vodju najvece politicke stranke. Na
vlast se uspeo najstrmijim putem: robijao, provukao se
kroz sramotu, izdaje, klevete. Povijao se i svijao. I temenovao pred prestolom Obrenovica. Pljuvali ga kao
izdajnika, pa ga prorokom nazivali. Bezao je iz zemlje
kao provalnik ducandzijskih kasa, vratio se kao spasilac Srbije. Najco se emigrantskog hleba i Bugarske soli.
Nista mu nije poklonjeno, niSta. 2
A broad understanding of human nature, accumulated in the decades of struggle for political and personal survival has taught Pasic
how to listen in silence and pay attention to details, how to exploit
trivia to diffuse tensions, hostility and fears, how to be cautious and
patient when formulating decisions and swift when executing them,
conciliatory in tone with everyone but unyielding on principles,
attentive to and respectful of opponents and leary of overzealous
followers. Not blessed with the gift of flamboyant oratory, he accomplished his goals and often disarmed his opponents with a certain
Nicholas Moravcevich
24
folksy directness and simplicity of manner that showed his indifference toward the outer trappings of power. The very same manner
helped him very much to retain all his life a strong and direct link
with the land's peasant masses for whose desires and inclinations
he had an unfailing instinct and a most profound respect. That same
brevity of expression and preference for silence over rhetorical verbosity which served him so well with his rural followers, his political opponents frequently found disturbing rather than praiseworthy.
On that subject the Italian diplomat Carlo Sforza, who know Pasic
well and whose book on him Cosic most likely had consulted, says
the following:
Pasic's long silence suggested tho sinister intrigues
of a grand vizier. In truth, Pasic's laconic style, his hatred
of all rhetorical pathos were but a silent lesson offered
to those of his compatriots who allowed themselves an
excessive display of their sentiments - or who quite
simply indulged in those eternal discussions that so
many Slavs mistake for action. 3
Both Pasic's pregnant silences and his skill to channel discourse
with but a few understated summary phrases in the direction he
found most desirable, have been admirably captured by Cosic in his
depiction of the joint meeting of the Serbian govern men l, tho Supreme Headquarters of the Army, and Crown Prince Alok sandar in
the Fall of 1914 in Valjevo, and of the Prime Minister's preparation
for an even more agonizing secret meeting of tho Serbian Parliament
in the early Fall of 1915 in Nish, shortly before the second AustroGerman attack on Serbia.
As Cosic shows, the participants in both of these gatherings are
debating how to respond to the harsh Allied demands that Serbia
hands over Macedonia to the Bulgarians and Banal to the Romanians
as a price of their joining the Entente powers against tho AustroGerman coalition. Such an appalling request from a small nation
that went to war against the Central Powers in response to an ultimatum that actually asked for a lesser sacrifice, is the lasl straw for
everyone present and Pasic skillfully exploits this justifiable anger
over such a horrible injustice brought about by those vory allies who
had solemnly sworn to help Serbia in her most crucial struggle for
Nicholas Moravcevich
25
survival. At the Valjevo gathering, he first plainly discloses the scope
of this harsh demand and after that deliberately avoids entering into
the heated discussion concerning the requested territorial sacrifices
until all those present are utterly exhausted. Then, in the simplest
language possible, he quickly outlines the only available course left
to his beleaguered nation by slating to Crown Prince Aleksandar:
"Pa, ovaj, Prestolonaslednice. Mislim da je stanje jasno. Ne damo
Makedoniju. Da kod saveznika jos jace zakukamo za municiju i pomoc.
I da se borimo do pobede." 4
This he restates for himself even more clearly several months. later,
as he prepares his notes for the secret session of the Serbian Parliament on the eve of the second Austro-German invasion of the country in the Fall of 1915. While the Suvobor Mountain victory of General
Misic, which followed the already mentioned Council at Valjevo,
allowed Pasic some time to procrastinate with the Serbian response
to the Allied request, the impending new enemy invasion revives
that painful issue in all its immediacy again. Yet Pasic is unshaken
by the obvious injustice of compelling Serbia after all it had done
for the Allied cause to make this sacrifice as well, for he had never
expected to find any generosity in the foreign policies of the great
powers. Cosic repeatedly underlines that the essence of his political
genius lies in his early realization that Serbia can only save itself as
a nation if it deliberately overlooks the duplicity of its allies, if it
delays as much as possible with the territorial payments for the socalled "friendship" of its Balkan neighbors and if it continues to
fight against its foes for victory with all its might and far beyond the
boundaries of political prudence or easy national gain. Therefore,
CosiC's Pasic notes at the end that in the Parliament debate he would
disarm opponents of this policy by admitting at the outset everything that they may want to point out, concluding:
Vukasinu Katicu i slicnima javno reci: znam, gospodo da su saveznici nepravedni i bezdusni prema Srbiji
i znam da to nije prvi put. Zrtvuju nas i sada, ne ticemo
ih se mnogo. Ako se pobunimo ili izjavimo - ne verujemo vam, necemo s varna - bice im jos lakse da nas se
otarase. Sa saveznicima danas nikako njihovom politikom - neverstvom i ucenom. U takvim igrama gubi
Srbija. Mora im se, dakle, verovati. Makar se i pravili
Nicholas Moravcevich
26
da verujemo. Nikako drukcijc. I istrajavanjem u veri
vrsiti pritisak na njih. Prod Evropom i citavim svetom
zaduzili ih vernoscu. Danas kad im na Balkanu niko
vise nc veruje - Srbija trcba da ih zaduzi i prezaduzi
vernoscu. 5
And to this conviction CosiC's Pasic remains faithful to the very
end of the tragic Serbian retreat before the joint Austro-German and
Bulgarian onslaught.
As the unoccupied national territory gradually becomes smaller
and smaller and the promised Allied help remains nowhere in sight,
FasiG's popularity begins to wane even among his hardiest supporters. Yet the escalating national calamity only strengthens his belief
in the utmost need for an additional super-human defense effort on
the part of the exhausted nation, its demoralized army and its disillusioned leadership. To that effect he orders tho evacuation of all
national institutions, all movable cultural and historical relics, all
children over fourteen years of age and a large portion of tho civilian
population from the captured cities and towns, and thus he gradually turns the initial military retreat into a vast national exodus.
Pressed from three sides by the pursuing enemies, tho nation on the
move is slowly squeezed into the desolate region of Kosovo, the last
corner of the national territory and the one in which five cen turies
earlier the medieval Empire of Serbia was crushed by the ouoman
Turks. Yet even then, in the town of Prizrcn, during tho last joint
meeting of the Government and the Supreme Army Headquarters
held on Serbian soil, CosiC's Pasic, amidst universal gloom prophetically announces:
Iako kapitulacija ima jake osnove i pravc razloge, narodu skracuje htve, ja smatram da mi no treba da kapituliramo iz jednog jedinog razloga. Iako smo isterani
sa svoje teritorije, cvrsto sam ubedjon da mi ovaj rat
mozemo dobiti. Pred nama je najveca pobeda u nasoj
istoriji. Daleka je, ali je ja jasno vi dim. 6
Confident of this, Pasic counsels the withdrawal of both the army
and the civilian escapees through the Albanian mountains to the sea
and Allied help. The winter exodus westward, which ensues, is the
Nicholas Moravcevich
26
da verujemo. Nikako drukcije. 1 istrajavanjem u veri
vrsili pritisak na njih. Prod Evropom i citavim svet?m
zaduziti ih vernoscu. Danas kad im na Balkanu n1ko
viSe ne veruje - Srbija trcba da ih zad uzi i prezaduzi
vernoscu .5
And to this conviction CosiC's Pasic rem ai ns faithful to the ver~
end of the tragic Serbian retreat before the joint Austro-Gorman an
Bulgarian onslaught.
As the unoccupied national territory gradually becomes smaller
and smaller and the promised Allied help remain s nowhere in sight,
Pasic's popularity begins to wane even among his hardiest s uppo~tf
ers. Yet the escalating national calamity only strengthens his belle
in the utmost need for an additional super-human defense effort ?11
the part of the exhausted nation, its demoralized army an? its dJ~i
illusioned leadership. To that effect he orders the evacua l1o~ of all
national institutions, all movable cultural and historical rohcs, a
children over fourteen years of age and a large portion of tho civilian
population from the captured cities and towns, and thus he gradually turns the initial military retreat into a vas t nation al exodus.
Pressed from three sides by the pursuing enemies, tho nation on the
move is slowly squeezed into the desolate region of Kosovo, the l~st
corner of the national territory and the one in which five ccntunes
earlier the medieval Empire of Serbia was crushed by the Ollo~.an
Turks. Yet even then, in the town of Prizren , during tho las t JO!llt
meeting of the Government and the Supremo Army Headquarters
held on Serbian soil, Cosic's Pasic, amidst universa l gloom prophetically announces:
Iako kapilulacija ima jake osnove i prave razloge, narodu skracuje htve, ja smatram da mi no treba da kap~
iluliramo iz jednog jedinog razloga. Iako smo iste_ram
sa svoje teritorije, cvrsto sam ubodjcn da mi ova) ~a~
mozemo dobili. Pred nama je najveca pobeda u naso)
istoriji. Daleka je, ali je ja jasno vidim. 6
Confident of this, Pasic counsels the withdrawal of both the armY
and the civilian escapees through the Albanian mountains to the sea
and Allied help. The winter exodus westward, which ensues, is the
Nicholas Moravcevich
27
supreme sacrifice of the tottering nation both for the Allied cause
and for its own fading dream of resurrection. Yet when that as well
does not spur the Allies to rush food and supplies to the starving
survivors of this epic retreat, even Pasic's faith in the national salvation through them _begins to peter out. For the first time since the
outbreak of the war Cosic shows him sitting at the Council of State
in Skadar without any plan for a way out. There, as Crown Prince
Aleksandar concludes his review of the Serbian deplorable situation
with the question "What are we to do now", both the assembled
ministers and the disillusioned Pasic respond only with a long and
,
uneasy silence.
From this moment until the end of Cosic's novel, Pasic is shown
only once more, and in circumstances that even more poignantly
underscore the impression that he is an exhausted statesman who
has lost control over events and people. The setting for this scene
is the Albanian harbor of Medova, from where the Italian Government has finally consented to evacuate to Brindisi only the Serbian
King, the highest government officials and the Allied diplomatic
representatives. And there, in the harbor commander's office, surrounded and vilified by the thousands of starving Serbian refugees,
humiliated and helpless Pasic is again shown not only speechless,
but sobbing.
In the few remaining pages of the novel Cosic continues in an
almost summary form with account of the aftermath of the great
exodus. As the French navy finally transports the Serbian army to
the island of Corfu and the civilian refugees to Italy, North Africa
and France, his vast chronicle of the great Serbian anabasis comes
to its end.
Whether or not Cosic's choice to conclude his novel at this point
is organically justifiable is an issue over which the critics will spill
much ink in the days to come. Certainly, the redeployment of the
Serbian army several months later on lhe Salonika Front and its final
successful struggle to liberate the lost homeland and realize Pasic's
dream of tho union of all South Slavs, would not only provide enough
material for an interesting fifth volume of this vast work, but would
also give an organically more appropriate conclusion to a story rooted
in the great historical events of the First World Wa_r. But oven if one
sets aside the question of the most appropriate historical (or chronological) span for a composition of this kind, what still remains is
Nicholas Moravcevich
28
to determine whether Lh e novel in its present form is orga nically
complete from the standpoint of Lhe satisfactory revelation of the
destinies of ils most significant characters. And although Cosic himself in his essay "Romani islorija" clearly stales that tho historicallychronological and thematic frame of his novel deliberately encompasses only that part of the Serbian war struggle which ends with
its army's belated departure to Corfu, his choice of such narrow
temporal boundaries is from Lh e standpoint of character development quite unfortunate. Cosic's treatment of the destiny of any of
the three archetypal characters mentioned hero could serve as an
example of this, since all of them survive tho agony of the great
exodus, but even a ~lance at that of Pasic alone clearly suffices to
illustrate the point. Cosic introduces Pasic as a sta tesma n who from
the beginning of the war knows better than anyone that Serbia's long
range national and political aspirations can be realized only through
an unparalleled sacrifice for the Allied cause. Then he shows how
the enormity of the nation's actual suffering combined wilh the fear
that it might have been in vain because of the Allied failures to
recognize it and help brings even Pasic Lo the end of hi s spiritual
endurance. And since Pasic leaves in that slate both the port of
Medova and the pages of CosiC's novel, its ending sugges ts a profound and lasting personal and political defeat. But sin ce Pasic is a
historical personage whose career as a statesman did not end there,
we know from a number of historical sources that in a maller of days
he recovered and continued to lead his government until every one
of his assumptions were pro~en correct by history. This is why his
character, as portraye~ by Cosic, appears psychologically incomplete and unfinished. Cosic introduces him to us with certain ideals
and aspirations that clearly represent the guiding force of his political philosophy and then allows him to leave without resolving clearly
what will happen to those ideals and aspirations after all. The novel
in its present form lacks an organically appropriate denouement.
Too many of its characters seem to leave its pages as if they were
random participants in some amprphous, open-ended, moder.n
chronicle. One can only hope that Cosic too will eventually sec th1s
and add the necessary sequel to what he has already wrillen, so that
his stirring tale of Serbia's crucifixion and agony on the cross of
history would also include the ultimate triumph of its res urrection
within the framework of the kingdom of Yugoslavia whose true mas-
Nicholas Moravcevich
29
ter builder was Nikola Pasic.
Aside from this, the question that remains is whether CosiC's portrait of Pasic is accurate and true to life? On that subject Cosic himself has spoken at length while discussing the artistic uses of the
historical material in his essay "Roman i istorija." There he states
that the most essential thing in fictionalizing historical material is
not to tailor, manipulate or twist established historical facts, but to
accept them for what they are and then explore and highlight the
psychological motivations behind them and emotional responses to
them. In his own words:
Covek je cilj istorijskog romana; covek a ne dogadjaj;
covek a ne funkcija. . .. Romansijer traga za motivacijom covekovog cina i delanja, za pokretackom miSlju i
licnim dilemama, za istinitim i uverljivim dozivljavanjima istorijske situacije, za covekovim osecanjima u istorijskom zbivanju. 7
Therefore, despite CosiC's ample utilization of poetic licence in
the artistic recreation of the historically significant content of his
novel, there is essentially no difference between his portrait of Pasic
and that sketched by historians interested in Pasic's political career.
The two leading historiographers of Pasic in the West, Carlo Sforza
and Alex Dragnich, 8 tell us with no disagreement that he was a
methodical and deliberate man with an enormous capacity for hard
organizational work and little love for rhetorical embellishments
and posturing. Although a superb tactician who seldom tried for the
impossible, he also knew how to stand firm on questions of principle. Both a realist and an idealist, he knew how to make a number
of small, practical goals become stepping stones toward a large, visionary one far on the horizon, but he also knew how to wait, or, if
it was utterly unavoidable, settle for less than the ideal. A thoroughly civilized man, he never lost his composure or dignity in
discourse with either high or low, and never lost touch with the
common people, who in turn supported him throughout his political
life.
The image of Pasic from the pages of CosiC's novel is substantially
the same, except that Cosic shows all this in a more dramatic, more
embellished way. His attention to detail, his rendering of the appro-
Nicholas Moravcevich
30
priate atmosphere and mood of the times and his sensitive delving
into the psychological motivation behind Pa~ic's most agonizing war
decisions enriches our perception of the man and his environment
with a sense of empathy that a historical summary cannot elicit. For
there where factual historical biographies like Dragn!ch's and Sforza's accurately depict the man and his milieu, an inspired fictional
biography like CosiC's reincarnates for us both the man and his times
with the tridimensional veracity found only in a groat work of art.
And for posterity's remembrance of the greatest modern Serbian
statesman, Nikola Pa~ic, to whom to this day his nation has failed
to erect a fitting monument in its capital, CosiC's artistic endeavor
has finally provided a far more lasting substitute.
University of Illinois at Chicago
'Dobrica Cosic. Vreme smrti. In Four Volumes. Beograd : Prosveta, 1972-79. Vol. 4,
p. 461.
2 Ibid., Vol. 4, p. 33.
'~arlo Sforza. Fifty Years of War and Diplomacy in t110 Balkans: Poshich and the
Umon of the Yugoslavs. New York: Columbia University Pross, 1940, P· 47.
•o. Cosic. Vreme smrti.
'Ibid., Vol. 4, pp. 97-8.
•Ibid., Vol. 4, p. 524.
'An unpublished essay by D. Cosic entitled "Romani istorija," P· 3.
•Alex N. Dragnich. Serbia, Nikala Pa§ic, and Yugoslavia . New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1974, pp. 224-29.