Literary essay about the novel "Aurora" (2): "Time is porous at the edges"

Balša's text spaces, in a broader sense, are located exactly where the introspection of the "imprisoned" (man's thought about himself) and knowledge/thought about the world meet.

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Photo: Filip Roganović
Photo: Filip Roganović
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

(Continuation from last issue)

White Russians from Podgorica

The contribution of the White Russians to the Yugoslav education system before and after the Second World War, which is in due course Balša Brković also drew attention in his famous essay on to Danilo Kish (Consensus in three letters, 2005), noting exactly that moment from Kiš's post-war memories - u Auroras takes on a new dimension, enlivened by the specific process of narrative fiction. The paradox and tragedy of the position of Russian emigrants are presented in short strokes, but suggestively and in relief. As imperialists who escaped from the revolutionary communist regime, they are faced in a new environment with the fascination of the "reds" for this new Russia, but above all with the Russophilism of any province - which makes them welcome new fellow citizens in all Podgorica circles.

The White Russians in Podgorica - in the time and space coordinates of Brkovićeva Aurore - they included: "seven-eight Russians, three-four Ukrainians, one Belarusian and one Kalmyk".

But these differences are erased far from the homeland.

And especially, as we have already seen - all differences disappear at the chess table.

After all:

"People may think too much about their differences."

Chapter VI brings an impressive experience of the scene in the Reading Room, carefully contextualized Tinovom Russia, a masterpiece of poetry ("Mother to my tribe as I dreamed/In lush evenings and hot predawn/Rule our spasm, great Russia,/Reign with our soul, Great Future...").

The bewitchment of the listeners is described by the narrator in pauses (the poem is not recited - it would be "too strong a dose"), emphasizing the cathartic effect of the verses. We hear sixteen quatrains in continuations, with a 2+2+3+2+4+3 arrangement, and with a well-thought-out effect of each of these smaller units. The ring composition brings the listeners back to the emotions and meanings from the beginning, now with even greater artistic power, after the exceptional impression left by all the words of Ujević, obviously sung in rapture, perfectly rhyming in a continuous rhythm, inspired by the "Angel of Celebration in the ancient Kremlin", dedicated and signed "in a deep heart" ("for your golden Petrograd tomorrow").

And that is part of the atmosphere of the opening of PŠK Aurora, with a significant share of Podgorica's White Russians in the whole story. "Hot Predawn" Russia Tina Ujević thus precedes the dawn, which Aurora announces by name and deed. (There is another, historical, certainly Russian connotation of the name - the association with the cruiser "Abpópa".) Everything at that time was focused on the Future. (Not only in football. Although there is room for that story in the novel as well). "Advanced ideas", hopes for the (super/super)man, the general spirit of progress and orientation to what is to come, faith in a brighter tomorrow - about which people with different ideological colors dreamed in their own way, and Aurora erased all their differences - were presented on persuasive and original way - through narration, dialogues and other genre forms already mentioned as an integral part of the text structure.

The end of the novel is designed according to the conventions of a classic closing with an allusion to a fairy tale, in a space that has been changed beyond recognition under the snowflakes (Podgorica in the snow - surreal), the spell is reminiscent of the whiteness of unwritten paper, and there the two will "sign" their footprints in snow and close the story on entering the year nineteen thirty-three. One that, unfortunately, will show that the predictions of some characters are in view Hitler's the chances of victory, from the point of view of the forces of peace - were too optimistic. But that is no longer part of this story.

The city as an artistic code

Balša's text spaces, in a broader sense, are located exactly where the introspection of the "imprisoned" (man's thought about himself) and knowledge/thought about the world meet. These are spatial and temporal structures that equally contain set i here, never i nowhere, always i everywhere, in which consciously or unconsciously each of us is looking for a Podgorica of our own, under this or that, old new or new old name. ("From what was not and what will never be the real skillful writers of the most beautiful stories about what is" - he will say Andrić in theirs Roadside signs, expressing the idea of ​​the universality of artistic truth.) And yet, The City is recognizable, it is a topos that has been functioning as an aesthetic code for more than two decades, with a foothold in an extratextual referential reality that it enriches with its semantics. In other words, Balša Brković created Podgorica as an artistic code, added poetics to the urban space that capital city in a country that may not be as big and important as it seems to some (especially those prone to pathetic patriotic enthusiasm and resting on the laurels of ancestral glory), but not as insignificant and unknown as it seems to some. "Little Montenegro, down on the Adriatic Sea"... (let's remember the irresistible episode in Fitzgerald's Gatsby about "little Montenegro, down on the Adriatic Sea", which is talked about with sympathy and respect). They say that Vranje is a brand The wrinkles of Stanković, and that makes sense. We find a similar literary situation in the "Podgorica Quartet" by Balša Brković. We can also note the differences. Let's say that one area with the status of the capital city as such is already established, "branded". But here we are talking about branding of a different kind. The space, which is like a "literary brand", emanates its uniqueness through the atmosphere of the text - it additionally establishes what is already marked in the reality it refers to, makes it recognizable in that higher sense, in which there is no Greece without Homer, nor Rome without Virgil (and Homer again)... not even Paris without it Balzac, nor Paris, again (the decadent one), without Baudelaire... There is nothing on the map of this world as a fixed and powerful Sign - until the poet sings and the narrator tells. Until a story with aura and meaning is told.

With preludes and etudes Rachmaninoff i Scriabin, the sounds of the piano, "carried by the magical powers of music", white Russians, surrendering to memory, travel "to some of their own moments of Russia".

"Time is porous at the edges." (Aurora)

With Brković's novels, the reader will certainly be able to travel to some of his own moments in Podgorica. At that time, the magic of the text comes to life, adds a special lighting and atmosphere to it, and makes it present, current.

And as "all stories contain other stories"...

“All moments are present in every single moment, I think. Both the future and the past slumber in every hour of our existence." (Private gallery)

Moments "untouchably ex" and unquestionably ours.

Bonus video: