(Miraš Martinović: Written in Time, Institute for Textbooks and Teaching Aids, Podgorica 2026.)
The academic's latest book Miraš Martinović It is very rare and, I am convinced, unique in the world.
Namely, originally from the north of Montenegro, life circumstances found him in the south, in Herceg Novi, where he retired as a journalist, commentator and reporter of great reports about people and landscapes.
During that time, he met numerous fellow writers. He also mentioned them in his radio work, but it was always much more than a business relationship: understanding and friendship. When all that was over, memories accumulated, but also a desire not to let it all sink into oblivion. With the support of the publisher, Academician Martinović, otherwise known as “our Miraš”, wrote a truly special book, extremely important for contemporary Montenegrin literature. Without this book, there would be a great void in the education of high school graduates and students of literature.
Here is what the author says in “Words at the Beginning”:
“For more than two decades, I have written about books and events, people and writers, about all those close to me, whose work left an impression on me that I still live with today. (...).
Since I diligently preserved all the texts, it was not difficult for me to select them and compile them into a book whose title immediately struck me - Written in Time. The corrections I made were minor, I preserved the original text and the time in which it was written.
Some pages are memories of the years and atmosphere in Herceg Novi in the 1980s, which beg to be written down, and were truly golden and unforgettable. Back then, on the streets of this city, you could meet, and even get close to, the most famous artistic names from the territory of Yugoslavia. In small towns, this is much easier and more intimate than in metropolises.
Some pages are personal in nature, without which they would not be natural and authentic.
The texts in the book are arranged chronologically, according to the time they were written, not when they were published. I made an exception for the text Our dear Lalic. Although written in 2024 on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the great writer's birth, I give him the leading place in the book. It seemed to me that he should open it and be at its beginning, as Cadre in the end.
Chronologically arranged, they touched each other and shed light on the time in which they were written, thus establishing a kind of invisible, yet present and tangible temporal and spiritual continuity.
With the thought that these notes of mine may be useful, I offer them to the reader, as a testimony to the artists and the time in which they were created, with the hope that I will not disappoint. My small contribution to the knowledge of great people and their works. Herceg Novi, February 2025.”
So, at the beginning there is Mihailo Lalić, a brilliant novelist and storyteller to whom Miraš is particularly close, and Lalić to Miraš because they are relatives in time and in their native place, often like-minded. In any case, both are important Montenegrin figures.
Montenegro shares the longest part of its state border with Albania, and the Montenegrin and Albanian people, in ancient times, and to some extent in modern times, have had a similar social and political destiny.
When he is young Ismail Kadare once wrote the novel "The General of the Dead Army", about the excavation of the bones of Italian occupying soldiers that her countrymen came to search for in the Albanian land where they were buried. The novel was exciting, unusual and resonated throughout Europe.
I remember well that there was talk of a young Albanian receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, but the Swedish Academy of Arts and Sciences, which awards the prize, has its own views, primarily political, and they influence who will be awarded. A writer from an economically backward communist country at the time, isolated in Europe, had no chance of receiving such an award.
Let's see who else is in Miraš's book, which was not limited to Montenegrin writers. Nor to personal contacts. Literary closeness and worldviews, especially literary worldviews, were closer to him.
In the book, we read about numerous writers, with plenty of quotes from their works. In addition to Lalić and Kadare, we are introduced to: Stevan Raičković, Danilo Kiš, Mirko Kovač, Dimitrije Popović, Ali Podrimja, Dušan Kostić, Radovan Zogović, Zavdija Hodžić, Reflik Ličina, Agim Vinca, Mustafa Canka, Bogdan Šakler, Velimir Milošević, Mladen Lampar, Jevrem Brković, Petar Gudelj, Ratko Vujošević, Vjenceslav Čižek, Marko Vešović, Žarko Milišić, Esad Kočan, Milika Pavlović, Milorad Popović... and there should be at least that many more. Since it is not just about writers but also “about books, people and events”, we also find the author's encounters with painters or their exhibitions, such as Mina Radovic, Đuro Beli Prijić, Bogdan Pecurica, Vojo Stanić and a few more.
Miraš has not forgotten the "greatness of the small" and the lesser-known, so there is, for example, Niko Simov Martinović, or Frano Uccellini Tice, Bishop of Kotor and translator of Dante's "Divine Comedy" entitled "A Wonderful Act"...
This book is truly special and unique. Miraš selflessly chooses and offers an abundance of selected verses. We can easily conclude that this book of his discreetly advocates the so-called biographical method of analyzing literary works; in order to better understand a work, it is advisable to know the writer's life.
Academician Miraš Martinović is the most Montenegrin Montenegrin poet and novelist. At the same time as he is the most Montenegrin, Miraš Martinoivić is also the most international contemporary Montenegrin writer.
This book of his is a certain carefully selected anthology of the literature of our time, not only in Montenegro.
Bonus video:
