Two different misunderstandings

(Olga Vojičić Komatina, In the Trace of the Spark of Vladika Rad and Jevrem Brković, Ratković's Poetry Evenings, Bijelo Polje, 2025) (Continuation from last issue)

Referring to Aristotle's observation of the process of mimesis, which states that mimesis implies authentic imitation of nature and human activities, but that this is only part of a literary work, because it is also made up of unavoidable imagination, and in that context it says that Honor of Balzac said that literature is a sublime lie, true in detail, and therefore the author also looks at Brković's a narrative procedure of which he says: "Here history is no longer explicitly a fact, but is also imagination and dreaming and a manner of life," which is actually an analytically precise evaluation of Brković's narrative.

On the other hand, explaining the name itself Njegoševo work and the intention of the author to perpetuate the greatest Montenegrin romantic song of all time with that phrase, if it can be said that way, says that the abandonment of the original name, the title "Izvi Iskra" is only Njegoš's pretension to make that song the crowning work of a time and a nation and a climate, such as Montenegrin, because, as the author says: "...the wreath constitutes a special network of customs, rules, prohibitions, written and unwritten laws, oral traditions, characteristic of the ethnic group described by Petar II Petrović", which is to say that Njegoš wanted to unite and instill that same song into the collective, which was important to him in the fight against darkness and evil and victory over them, because in Christian symbolism, the wreath means: "...victory over the forces of darkness and evil". But the entire poem, as the author says, is dedicated and directed towards achieving "freedom", because as we already know that "Montenegrins do not love chains", then the very symbol of this entire poem appears to us, called with a special intention "Mountain Wreath", because it is about the Montenegrin wreath, i.e. victory over the forces of evil and darkness and the realization of the greatest ideal of every Montenegrin throughout the centuries, which is freedom.

This freedom is what connects both Njegoš and Brković and many other Montenegrin authors who dealt with it, and it implies not only heroism in the fight for freedom but also humanity, which was emphasized in every work of the Montenegrin character from Rade Tomov, through Marko Miljanov until Jevrem Brković and after him, but the generation of Brković and those who came after him moved things forward in Montenegrin literature, and therefore Young Lompar, Happy Perovic, Milorad Popovic, also Vito Nikolic i Leso Ivanovic i Miro Glavurtić and many others, like painters Dimitrija Popović, have created works that Montenegrin literature can be proud of and consider itself a separate entity with the full capacity of modernity, but also close to all literatures in the environment, and some writers can even be shared with the environment, which is a normal consequence of linguistic proximity.

The author observes a vision of the curse of the land "which transcends a narrow regional meaning and dominantly relates to the narrowness of man in his own being... The being of the Duklja area is doubled and is in tragic collision with the world and itself."

As much as Rade Tomov had a desire for freedom from external enemies and a striving for a collective that would keep the country free through bloodshed and constant struggle, so much so that individual freedom is on a pedestal in Brković, as in other Montenegrin writers, but in Brković history is dominant, which, as the author says: "...becomes a form of fictionality, but in a new, postmodern way."

Comparing the attitude towards female characters in Njegoš and Brković, it is diametrically opposed, because in Rade Tomov, the female character, as in the entire Montenegrin epic, as the author says, has created a “cult of the suffering and the tormented”, while Brković “deals with every kind of false masochism, megalomania and other characteristics of the deformation of national characteristics”. What drives Brković’s prose, but also poetry, is the departure from the escape from women’s sexuality and a peculiar false conservatism: “... which is ripe for radical reconstructive interventions”, as the author points out, who has recognized another dispute between what tradition brought from the past and what the contemporary moment of living and creating works of art requires.

As he says. Bakhtin: “For Dostoyevsky "it is not important what his hero represents in the world, but above all, what the world represents for the hero and what he represents for himself," the author compares with Brković's "characters of diffuse individuality and emotional dynamics," which encourages her to conclude that "this classic was one of Brković's models" in creating his historical, mythical pages of the Duklja, Zeta and Montenegrin historical chronicles, which were imagined by imagination, but with parts of truth, and this truth is what Brković managed to achieve in his novels and in the very perceivers of his work, because if the writer managed to convince the reader that his work is true, then he has written a valuable work of art. Brković, like Petar II Petrović, managed to convince that literature is truth, but with Brković it is cathartic, while many abuse Njegoš precisely because they imagine that everything written by Vladika Rade is correct, which is nonsense and a shallow interpretation, and this book by the author Olga Vojičić Komatin is truly valuable testimony of literature through the centuries in Montenegro, because it is precisely by comparing the greatest Montenegrin writer who was also a Montenegrin ruler, but also the one who intended to be the greatest, because he knew the power of his talent, but the same Montenegrins inhumanly expelled him from Montenegro and intended to liquidate him, which they tried to do on several occasions, that it is perhaps the best picture of the current state of a society, both from a sociological and literary perspective, because refusing to evaluate Jevrem Brković objectively and place Njegoš in his place in history, they continue to stuff Njegoš into everyday discourse, and Jevrem Brković, and even members of his family from the second generation, are called out and attacked, because they miss the dead Jevrem so that they can have someone who consciously exposed himself to the attacks of that epic Montenegro that lives in the nineteenth century and which Jevrem Brković tried in vain to modernize through literature, and in "Heretical Verses" he spoke about that only Montenegrin discourse that leads the self-destruction of Montenegrins, which is consciously carried out under the direction of others, but that is a story for anthropological-sociological-medical analysis, while it was mentioned here only because it is inseparable from the work of Jevrem Brković, and for no other reason.

As lonely as Njegoš was, "a sad orphan among the whirlwinds," Jevrem Brković was even lonelier in his permanent struggle for something that those around him did not understand, and when they did, it seemed it would be too late. But that's how it is.

But perhaps the reason for this lies precisely in what the author says: “Heroes typical of the Montenegrin ethical, ethnic area were originally created by Petar II Petrović... It has already been noted that Brković possesses a certain anti-traditionalist resistance to the glorification of ethnic characteristics... humanity and heroism. Brković does not take such a position because he does not believe in the millennial tradition, but because he wants to discover the deepest background of the action of the hyperbolized mythical way of existence and survival.” Whether this is the cause of such a bizarre attitude of today's countrymen towards Njegoš and the meaningless mimesis of Rade Tomov's work and its transposition into the present, which takes on the characteristics of the grotesque, but also such a psalm towards Brković, is up to you to judge, but it seems that the author hit the target when she analytically explained and brilliantly explained this different attitude towards the tradition of Njegoš and the resistance of Brković.

In addition to the comparative analysis of "Gorski vijenac" and "Ljubavnik Duklja", the author provided a very meticulous comparative expertise of the most interesting personality and time in the entire history of Montenegro, which is the short reign of Šcepan the Little, a very interesting and enigmatic character who managed to rule Montenegro and break the linearity of the Petrović rule as secular and ecclesiastical rulers of Montenegro, after the Crnojevićs and Balšićs of Zeta and the Voislavljevićs of Dukla. So Njegoš was interested in the personality of Šćepan the Younger in order to portray him “as an impostor ruler” who, out of nowhere, managed to deceive the Montenegrins and take advantage of their favoritism towards the Russian Empire, presenting himself as the missing Russian ruler.

Of course, Šćepan Mali as a ruler was accepted by the Montenegrins, and even when it was found out that he was not the Russian emperor, the Montenegrins listened and loved him and expelled the Russian ambassador Dolgorukov from Montenegro, when he tried to overthrow the then Montenegrin ruler. But when they failed to do so publicly, they sent Stevan Paljikardo, a Greek, through the Ottoman court, who approached Šćepan and slaughtered him and escaped without a trace, thus ending the period of rule when, according to Njegoš, Montenegro was deceived by an impostor, but according to Brković, it was a period when Montenegro was becoming more modern, more contemporary, closer to European nations and further away from great Russia, which, as much as it helped, also used Montenegro for its narrowly Russian interests, and so in a later period Montenegro declared war on Japan, which was only ended after the year 2000 by the suppression of peace by modern statesmen, which is humorous today, but earlier Montenegrins were ready to fight for Russia wherever it was necessary, which speaks of the heroism but also the naivety of Montenegrins, because every hint of Russia was not in the interest of Montenegro, and the same happened with its neighbors, who eventually occupied Montenegro and committed a series of crimes with a strong, but it turned out to be insufficiently supported by the world, the resistance offered by the Montenegrins through first a general uprising that failed and then through ten years of Komite warfare with the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, but unsuccessful warfare, as it turned out in the end.

The author provided an explanation of the treatment of Šćepan Mali by many Montenegrin writers, from Stefan Zanović, Stjepan Mitrova Ljubisa, through Petar II Petrović to Jevrem Brković and others.

Namely, Zanović wrote a work of an entertaining nature, especially since Zanović himself was an impostor of noble titles, so this, as the author says, could have been one of the reasons for Zanović's identification with Šćepan Mali.

But with Njegoš, Šćepan Mali, as the annuller of the continuous Petrović rule over Montenegro, was for Njegoš: "A liar and a vagabond, but he created a remarkable epoch in Montenegro and the surrounding area by naming himself the Russian Tsar" (Petrom III Romanovim - of).

Njegoš made an effort to learn more about the personality of Šćepan the Younger from the rich Venetian archives and wrote a literary historical, or as experts say, "folk" drama, presenting to readers the continuity of the Montenegrins in the fight for freedom even with a self-proclaimed ruler, but also the mentality of the Montenegrins and their peculiarities when it comes to someone who came to them and whom they accepted, and he pointed out that they were able to go to war with Russia, when it attacked someone they had chosen, because the hospitality and acceptance of Šćepan the Younger by the Montenegrins was primary, even if the Russian empress herself did not agree with it.

The author also provides information about another work about Šćepan Mali by Stjepan Mitrov Ljubiša, a short story, where Ljubiša actually builds on Njegoš's drama, wishing, like Njegoš, to "credibly convey what he found in the archive", and Ljubiša continues with his stories as "the continuer of the series that visits in support of the collective strength of the Montenegrin being...", while Brković sees Šćepan Mali as a reformer of the Montenegrin being, because in that short period he ends blood feuds and reconciles feuding brotherhoods, and makes numerous other moves that could, as Brković saw it, make him a reformer of the Montenegrin being, but unfortunately the period of the Reformation was too short to make visible changes in terms of the progress of Montenegrin society, because that did not suit anyone, neither Russia nor the Ottoman Empire, who ultimately hired the Greeks to end the period of progress of Montenegrin society. And Brković, with such an attitude, actually penetrates deep inside and puts a finger in the eye of the mythomaniacal consciousness of Montenegrins, who because of all this and the attitudes that openly speak about the shortcomings of such a mythic and collective being in today's time, which really seems tragicomic, but from comedy today, Montenegrin society has evidently taken a step into tragedy, but we hope that today's society will sober up and understand what they have to do in the interest of Montenegro. Brković made efforts in vain, which only partially bore fruit, as far as those who were supposed to support him, but did not do so, and actually tried to push him under the ice, where they will all end up, because they do not know what they are doing.

Brković often argued with Njegoš's views throughout the novel, and in fact exposed Njegoš as a Ivan Crnojević elevated, because he wanted to make the Montenegrin spirit of that time stronger, while he consciously bypassed the Kingdom of the First, i.e. Duklja, because it was primarily a Catholic country, while the Petrovićs were Orthodox Christians, and this move may have been wrong for him, because he left Duklja to others to interpret as they wanted, and Brković regrets this fact.

Therefore, Njegoš left a work for all time in his time, a work that shows Montenegrins as they were and the values ​​they valued and respected and adhered to in order to survive in the fight for freedom, while Brković, on the other hand, strives to change that pattern that nailed Montenegro to the period of romanticism and many scoundrels would like such a pattern to still be applied to Montenegrins today, but Montenegro is today much closer to Brković's worldview than Njegoš's, which is still a great progress and a move that provides hope and faith in the future of Montenegro, although no one in Montenegro will admit it to you today.