Notebook

IN ISLAM GRČKI, WITH VLADAN DESNICA
Not Everything Will Die
Versatile personality and great writer, polyglot, bibliophile, expert in music and philosophy, ancient and modern times, he was deeply related to his Uskok, Kotar homeland. As a young man, he founded the Cyrillic ”Magazine of Northern Dalmatia”, attempting to create an intellectual circle of those who would write about Serbian heritage in the most western parts of its existence. His ancestor was Uskok voivode and epic hero Stojan Janković, his uncle was Boško Desnica (writer of two-volume ”History of Kotar Uskoks”), father Uroš (editor and publisher of ”Naš List”)… Although the Tower of Janković Stojan was almost entirely destroyed and Vladan’s tomb desecrated in 1993 in the Croatian attack on Srpska Krajina, ”Desnica’s Days” are again held there since 2005, in a renovated space

By: Nikola Kovačević
Photo: Vladan Bajčeta, NR Press

One of the most sublime feelings one can experience is while watching a desolate land, especially if it represents a cross of memories of dramatic historical events and inaccessible terrain, such as in north-western Dalmatia and Islam Grčki – heritage of the Serbian Desnica family, now in Croatia. As summer approaches, this area will gradually come to life, people will arrive to attend different cultural events in the place where the Tower of Stojan Janković and Church of St. George still stand – where the hero from epic times Stojan Janković was buried and where Vladan Desnica rests.
However, now, in springtime, a lonely yet careful observer anticipates what was described in the literary world of Vladan Desnica and seen by the eyes of his heroes – the life of eternal nature surviving for centuries in Heraclites-like alterations, as well as supreme good and achievement of man, remains of aristocratic and later civic culture. Springtime is Desnica’s time…
One of the experts in Islam Grčki is our guest Vladan Bajčeta, young scientist from the Institute of Literature and Art in Belgrade, author of the study about Desnica’s neglected poetry book Blindman on a Strand, entitled Non omnis moriar: about poetry and death in the opus of Vladan Desnica, published by the Institute of Literature and Art, as well as editor of his Collected Works, which will gradually be published by the National Library of Serbia in nine volumes.
According to his words, the first time he visited Islam Grčki was in 2014, as guest of the ”Desnica’s Gatherings” event, established in 1989 and continuously held after a short pause since 2005. He spent a few days there last summer, together with the descendants of Vladan Desnica, who come from Zagreb to organize cultural programs. The mentioned book Non omnis moriar was presented then.
There are Serbian inhabitants in Islam Grčki, although this village shares the fate of other similar Serbian places in Croatia.
– Islam Grčki was named after the Turkish word ”Saddislam”, which means rampart of Islam. It is the furthest point the Ottomans had reached in the west. It was also named after the majority Orthodox Christian population, while next to it is Islam Latinski, mostly populated by Catholics. Stojan Janković lived in Islam Grčki until the end of his life, and he was succeeded by the Desnica family from the female side. His last direct descendant was Ilija Dede Janković. This is how it was: Olga Janković married Vladimir Desnica (Vladan Desnica’s grandfather), and their son Uroš was father of Vladan Desnica. Islam Grčki came into possession of the Desnica family in late 19th century, and remained their heritage to the very day – son of Vladan Desnica Uroš, who has recently passed away, and three daughters – Olga, Jelena and Nataša. Part of the tradition of ”Desnica’s Gatherings” is also a visit to the Tower of Stojan Janković, originating from the 17th century, which the serdar (leader) of Dalmatian uskoks Stojan Janković received together with the title of Count of Venice for his merits in the battles against the Turks. The tower reached its climax between the two world wars and represents a fortification-residential object – tells Vladan Bajčeta.

SPRINGS OF VLADAN DESNICA

– The Desnica family spent summers there – adds Bajčeta. – Near the end of her life, Vladan Desnica’s mother lived there with her daughter. The tower was an urban home, with beautiful furniture, and the walls were covered with wallpaper. Vladan Desnica collected old weapons and various archeological artefacts. The villagers knew it and often brought him different objects. In general, the heritage of Islam Grčki originates since the prehistoric times, Rome, Venice and Ottoman Empire, to the civic epoque between the two wars. In the postwar period, when he became a professional writer, Desnica spent several months a year there. Most of his novel Springs of Ivan Galeb was written there, as well as several stories. During the war in 1993, the Church of St. George as well as the Tower of Stojan Janković were almost entirely destroyed. Desnica’s tomb was desecrated. His descendants didn’t come for years, since even passing by those ruins was painful for them. They started returning in the late 1990s. They received donations from European funds and established the Fund for the Renewal of the Tower of Stojan Janković ”Mostovi” (”Bridges”).
It is important that young researchers such as Vladan Bajčeta are returning to works of great writers, not only for new insights their works are repeatedly offering, but also for what remained neglected in them. We value Desnica primarily as a supreme prose author of novels Winter Summer Vacation and Springs of Ivan Galeb, several collections of stories, including Ruins in the Sun and Spring in Badrovac, but Bajčeta dedicated his study to Desnica’s book of poetry Blindman on a Strand, which also served as inspiration for the novel Springs of Ivan Galeb. He emphasizes that Desnica is one of our most educated writers, that he graduated law in Zagreb and attended philosophy classes in Paris; that he read a lot, was engaged in music, and sang as tenor. As Bajčeta explains, Springs of Ivan Galeb remind of Desnica’s sorrow for not being professionally engaged in music. His hero in the novel injured his hand and couldn’t play anymore… The script for the movie Concert was written from Desnica’s love for music…
– He was a versatile personality with an interesting biography, he spoke and read several languages, he was a bibliophile. I found the first edition of Mountain Wreath in his library in Zagreb. He was translated into Polish and Italian, as well as Scandinavian languages, while the English translation of Springs of Ivan Galeb, written by reputable Slavist Denis Edward, was unfortunately lost. Desnica is somehow implied, he doesn’t have the status of Meša Selimović, although they both belong to the group of supreme writers of world literature.

MAGAZINE OF EDUCATED USKOKS

– Desnica, novelist and narrator, started writing poetry as a very young man and continued writing it for thirty years. His collection Blindman on a Strand, including thematically, motif-wise and poetically different poems, appeared in 1956, and the oldest poem in it was written in 1927. His chronotopic circle represents northern Dalmatia, Zadar, Šibenik, Split; the Mediterranean and hinterland. Mediterranean sophistication and harshness of the rural hinterland – a real collision of cultures and nature. Islam Grčki is about twenty kilometers from Zadar, and immediately above it is the inhospitable Velebit… The difficult and cruel highlander life of refugees from Turks was described in his first story ”Life Path of Jandrija Kutlača”, speaking about the descent of the mountain population to the coastal area. When he established the Northern Dalmatia Magazine, Desnica published this story in it, trying to assembly an intellectual circle who would write about the circumstances and Serbian heritage in the most western areas of its existence. His uncle Boško Desnica wrote a two-volume History of Kotar Uskoks published by SANU, and his father edited and published Naš list, which he financed himself. They both cooperated in the Northern Dalmatia Magazine. Desnica was strongly related to the environment and wanted to culturally present it with his editorial work in his youth, as well as later, as a writer – explains Vladan Bajčeta.
He also indicates that Desnica was a traditionalist, but not anachronous, that his literature deals with problems initiated by contemporary existentialism philosophy, and that his ironic relation to the issues of man’s position in the world makes him an ultramodern writer.
– His characters are very picturesque, genuine, authentic literary creations. In his novel Winter Summer Vacation, each of his heroes is sketched with his own individuality: peasants on one side and people from cities who escaped to the village from bombing on the other. Interconnecting and confronting them, Desnica doesn’t want to accentuate only one of them, he presents a picture of the entire collective, he wants to show an encounter of diversity. Winter Summer Vacation has humoristic elements and a tragic ending, depicting his own view of the world. The motif of a pig devouring a baby is the final strike to all the suffering that began with the bombing and attempt of citizens to move to a ”quiet” village. However, cruel nature awaits them there. The Springs of Ivan Galeb are different. Ivan Galeb is a tragic hero, his wife and daughter die, and he is left alone in the world. Although he describes human tragicness and observes decaying of the body in the hospital, not knowing what will happen with him after a new operation, he still expresses certain metaphysical optimism through his enchantment with light, the sun and spring – tells Bajčeta.

PEARLY REFLECTION UNDER THE EYEBROWS

– In the next to last chapter, before falling into narcosis, Ivan Galeb anticipates eternity as ”a pearly reflection under the eyebrows”. Something unclear, uncatchable. With it he touches the important question of all man’s thanatological attempts to explain and understand death. The problem is in the fact that man wants to present death sensually, depict it, paint it, express it with words. It is inexpressible, unrecognizable, it cannot be explained with rational apparatuses. Poetry is used for it and this poetic novel of his is, in this sense, a great work of world literature. While reading, for example, Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian and Hermann Broch’s Death of Vergil, works with a similar character, I concluded that the peaks Desnica achieved exceed them in many ways.
The worlds of Vladan Desnica, as well as his hero Ivan Galeb, are places of deep and intensive contemplation, truth and freedom, in a way that a metaphysical horizon of essential spiritual cognitions opens up to a blindman on a strand, similar to the ancient blind epic poet. Furthermore, as Bajčeta notices, blindness is a metaphor of one who doesn’t see with his physical, but with his spiritual eyes, a metaphor of a tragic experience leading to revelation, which is one of the essential determinants of Desnica’s work. Bajčeta’s study speaks about certain poems from the Blindman on a Strand collection which entered the poetic novel Springs of Ivan Galeb, including these verses: ”I have taken everything from life / and returned it equally. / I will leave naked and with empty hands, / with good efforts in the bottom of my limbs / longing for sleep / and brother of transience.”
– Desnica read many ancient works and knew well Heraclitus and Plato. The poem according to Horatius ”Not Everything Will Die” (”Non omnis moriar”) is a direct, yet truncated quotation, which speaks about his artistic playing with ancient heritage. His prose includes elements of Greek tragedy, synthesis of the entire Western European culture, literature and philosophy, as well as our autochthonous cultural heritage. He was a European intellectual par excellence, someone who grew up on ancient heritage, Western European 19th and 20th century, as well as earlier centuries’ literature, but in the spirit of southern Slavism and Serbiandom. As descendant of Stojan Janković and expert in folk epics, together with his father Uroš he translated the Dedication from Light of the Microcosm into Italian. He wrote two essays about Njegoš, preserved in manuscript. The first essay he wrote was dedicated to Dositej – tells Bajčeta.
He published in Croatia, but he was also printed in Novi Sad (Matica Srpska) and in Belgrade (in ”Prosveta”).
– Socialism severely criticized his Winter Summer Vacation, at the time ”partisan westerns” were written. Desnica thematized the conflict between city and village, he was interested in existential issues, thereby suffering from attacks from minor writers, always prone to pamphlets. However, the novel Springs of Ivan Galeb was accepted, read and awarded. After it was published, Desnica was finally recognized as a great writer. He continued living beyond institutions, he left the Ministry of Finance where he was employed and became a free artist. Although he wasn’t completely accepted in certain circles, he wasn’t marginalized either – notices Bajčeta.  
Desnica fulfilled the longing of every great author – to live forever with his work and the fulness of his thoughts, in a way defined by Jose Saramago: ”Just like final death is the last fruit of a wish for oblivion, the wish for remembering can keep us alive.” Not everything will die.

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Life Path of Vladan Desnica
Vladan Desnica (1905–1967) was born in Zadar, in a Serbian Orthodox family. He studied law and philosophy in Zagreb and Paris, graduated at the Faculty of Law in 1930. He worked as a lawyer and then moved to public services. In the year 1934, he established the literary-historical annal ”Northern Dalmatia Magazine” and worked as its editor for two years. He printed it in Split, in Cyrillic alphabet. His most important works include novels ”Winter Summer Vacation” (1950), ”Springs of Ivan Galeb” (1957), collections of stories ”Ruins in the Sun” (1952), ”Spring in Badrovac” (1955), ”There, Next to Us” (1956), poetry book ”Blindman on a Strand” (1955)... He wrote dramas (”Ladders of Jacob”…) and movie scripts (”Concert”, 1954, ”Justice”, 1962…). He is considered successor of the ”Dalmatian line” in Serbian literature, following the traces of Simo Matavulj.
He passed away in Zagreb, at the age of sixty-two. He was buried in the Orthodox Church of St. George in Islam Grčki. A street in Belgrade was named after him, as well as the annual literary award given by the National Library of Serbia.

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Ultimate Crossing Points
– For Andrić, Višegrad is a place where Orthodox, Islamic, Catholic and Jewish cultures cross, and for Desnica, the Tower of Stojan Janković is a place where the Orthodox population of Northern Dalmatia, borders of Islam and Catholicity meet – indicates Vladan Bajčeta. – The most western crossing point of those three religions and civilizations is the Tower of Stojan Janković for Vladan Desnica, and the most eastern point for Andrić is in his work ”The Bridge over the Drina”. They are ultimate crossing points of various nations and cultures in our lands.

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Duality and Wholeness
– The philosophy of Desnica’s literature is ambivalent, it doesn’t give a final answer: it says that life is tragic, but also offers anticipation of something beautiful on the other side. That is his greatness. Writers with a radically pessimistic or radically optimistic image of reality never present it in its wholeness – emphasizes Vladan Bajčeta.

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Belonging
– Although there were many polemics regarding the belonging of Desnica’s opus, there is no doubt it belongs to Serbian literature, but it is also without doubt that he created inside the Croatian literary circle. In the period of socialist Yugoslavia, his role of a great writer was disputed almost until the novel ”Springs of Ivan Galeb” appeared in 1957 – mentions Bajčeta.