Selections from the poetry of two important poets whose work marks the second half of the XNUMXth century in Montenegrin literature, Radovan Zogović and Jevrem Brković, have just been published by the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (CANU).
A selection from Zogović's poetry entitled "Rebellious Poems" was prepared by the poet Miraš Martinović, who has been dedicated to Zogović's poetry and life for decades, while "Lyrics of Duklje", a selection from Brković's poetry on over 700 pages, was prepared by professor Tatjana Đurišić - Bečanović, certainly the most thorough connoisseur of the great Brković opus.
"For the institutionalization of Montenegrin literature and the redefinition of its canon, the selection from the poetry of the most prominent Montenegrin poet of the second half of the 20th century - Jevrem Brković, whose verses are carriers of a large amount of identity schemes, which are extremely functional in the construction of the Montenegrin identity narrative, and therefore they become important in terms of social semiotics, which is significant for the national system of literature in the institutional, aesthetic and evolutionary sense.
In this selection, there were poems that reached the highest aesthetic quality, grouped according to the affinity of motifs and chronology, so that the reader could get an impression of the development line and maturation of the poet's talent, observe the stages of his poetic evolution and recognize the dominant lyrical processes and strategies. Brković's decades-long creation resulted in an extremely dynamic poetic discourse, in which the form and length of the verse, meter and other rhythmic-metrical units vary, moving from traditional to modernist models, while covering a diverse range of topics, but maintaining an almost constant motivic core, based on an identity substrate that is inextricably linked to the extremely complex language of space and the stable structure of the lyrical subject.
Poets who are important in terms of social semiotics, especially self-identification processes, i.e. the establishment of identity models, impose themselves on the national literary canon and semiotic space as centers around whose texts solid identity structures are formed. The work of Jevrem Brković functions as the foundation of the Montenegrin identity narrative, with the Dukljan model as a basis, which increasingly suppresses the identity model with Serbianness as the basis of the Montenegrin national being. Layers of memory that were erased under the influence of the cult of Nemanjić and Dušan's empire, as well as the later Kosovo mythology, Brković reactivates and brings into the collective memory of his nation." (...) "Thus, Montenegrin culture, disputed and identity threatened for centuries by various colonial pretensions, has survived and exists because it has a very powerful, marked beginning, embodied in the statehood of Duklja. In the poetry of Jevrem Brković, a very important role is played by the defensive system of messages (Hall 1976), as well as the accumulation of identity information, which leads to the strengthening of Montenegrin culture and its (self) identification through aesthetic, poetic means: existence, but also the replacement of a later category of causation. To explain the phenomenon means to indicate its origin (Lotman 1976: 282). Therefore, in the poetry of Jevrem Brković, a strong semioticization of the "beginning" of Montenegrin culture was realized, which is located deep in the past, in the thick darkness of the past before Nemanjić, so that the Montenegrin identity narrative would get its own special historical and semiotic roots", wrote Tatjana Đurišić - Bečanović in extensive preface entitled "Curse of the Dukljan poet".
In the preface, Miraš Martinović mentions, among other things, an interesting conversation with Radovan Zogović about the time of "conflict on the literary left": "In response to my question, he factually explains the essence of the conflict. I am particularly interested in the relationship with Krleža, who was an important party in the conflict, the meetings with him, after all, to which Zogović replies: I met M. Krleža for the first time, on his initiative, in 1945, in May, a few days after the liberation Zagreb. At that meeting, which, at my request, was attended by Marin Franičević and Jože Horvat, and which, as it would be said in foreign and political announcements, "took place in a friendly and cordial atmosphere", neither Krleža nor I mentioned a single word "Pečat" nor our responses to "Pečat's" attack. There was no conversation about that matter between us even in our subsequent meetings, and there were more of them - whenever Krleža came to Belgrade or I "jumped" to Zagreb. Twice only there was, so to speak, a partial deviation from this. The first time in my apartment and, if I remember correctly, in the spring of 1947. We were supposed to go to the dining table, but Krleža, staying in his chair, hurriedly uttered this sentence: Before we start dining, I would like to say something about the Dialectical Antibarbarus and what was said about me there. I replied that there is no need for that - that is the past, there is a war between us and that and our friendly relationship. No, Krleža said, and he said something about my attitude towards him from the meeting in Zagreb until that day - exactly because of that (attitude) he has to say his part, and right now, before we start lunch. And he said without waiting for my possible reply:
"I have done many ugly things in my life, but what I did to you in Antibarabarus, I consider the worst or one of the worst". He remained silent and then asked: "So, can we consider this matter liquidated?" I answered that I considered it as such even at our first meeting in Zagreb."
These two books published by CANU, with their thoroughness and seriousness, represent a model of how to preserve the awareness of important poets in the Montenegrin era.
Bonus video:
