Serbian literature of the 20th century

At the transition from the 19th to the 20th century. Serbian literature gets all the basic features of modern national literature. It is commonly assumed that in the leading European literature a modern novel and storyline arise after the disintegration of realism, when transforming from naturalism to impressionism. Modern lyricism begins with (French) parnassists and a transition to symbolism. Literary criticism, as well as literary theory, are also changing. It abandons the external interpretation of literature and passes on to the inner: to analyze the artistic properties of the work, and not the circumstances in which it arises. In Serbian literature we noticed similar phenomena not only in the appearance of the parnassian lyricist Vojislav Ilić, who in the 90s of the last century had a large number of followers and a dominant influence, but also in a literary criticism.Ljubomir Nedić (1858-1902), who we can rightfully consider as an outbreak of internal interpretation of literature, subjected his criticism in 1893 to the utilitarian theory of art Svetozar Marković, who in realism emphasized the social role of literature. On the contrary, Nedic points out, on the case of Ilic's librarian, it is not usually, but it is a "feeling for a nice one"; Poetic emotion is by its nature "artistic emotion". Hence, the place of earlier interest predominantly on the subject, the form itself is gaining value. Thus, the attention of both critics and readers, as well as the poets themselves, is gradually shifting towards making the poem a specific artistic creation, which will have far-reaching consequences not only for the interpretation and evaluation of poetry, but, most importantly, for its development in the next two decades .It is understood that the changes that we see in Serbian literature have received incentives from similar changes that had happened in some European literature in the past. Literary contacts and influences are increasingly felt. But obviously there is a certain parallelism in development. Thus, the entire period that encompassed the 90s of the last century until the First World War marks the term common to most Central European and South Slavic literature - modern. Although the term is taken from German literature, it is precisely at this time that contacts with her and her influence are sorely weak. Only in the Serbian countries that were then under Austro-Hungarian rule (Vojvodina, Bosnia, and the Serbian regions of Croatia), German cultural and literary influence continued to be felt. In the very Kingdom of Serbia and in its capital, Belgrade is rapidly strengthening the French influence. It was a happy circumstance, because then new literary ideas came from Paris.In two decades - how modern it lasted most - the artistic rise of literature was higher than ever before. Especially in poetry, which is a contemporary poet M. Pavlovic said that this period was called "a small golden age of our poetry". But it is interesting, though not accidental, that there has been no minor progress in criticism and science of literature. One wider view would show that at the same time, science in general in Serbia, has experienced a boom in all its basic branches. Significantly strengthened as a cultural and scientific center, Belgrade took a leading role in literature. The literary life of the capital, as well as in some other nations, directed development and established common criteria. What Nedic tried but failed to accomplish, will be made by younger critic Bogdan Popovic (1864-1944). In 1901, he may launch perhaps the most significant and certainly the best edited magazine "Serbian Literary Messenger" in Belgrade. For the first fourteen years of publishing, "Glasnik" was among the writers, and with their readers, he intensified certain notions of literary patterns according to the most general but unique criteria.Obviously, the role of critics has grown considerably. Historians will later note that there was a "hegemony of criticism" in modern times. But it was precisely this hegemony that was one of the conditions for certain continuity in literary development to be determined by critical revaluation of the heritage. First of all, B. Popovic to make an excellent Anthology of recent Serbian librarians (1911). The preface, a strict selection of songs, as well as their arrangement, showed the historical trail of the new lyricists - from the mayor Radicevic to the symbolic Ducic - as a continuous series of perfecting poetic art. Then, another editor of "Glasnik" and the most prominent critic Jovan Skerlic (1877-1914) will write the History of New Serbian Literature (1914). According to modern criteria, he described the removal of epoch, stylistic formations and schools. The obtained picture showed that the new Serbian literature developed in a manner typical of European literature. Finally, Pavle Popović (1868-1939) undertook extensive historical-comparative research in all domains: folk, medieval, Dubrovnik and new literature.Literature has always been of particular importance to what is happening in the language. At the beginning of the 20th century. Literary language is stabilized. But certain relationships visibly shifted. Based on folk tales that were taken in good part from oral poetry and prose, literary language was initially more suited to the needs of rural and traditional culture than urban and modern.It was necessary to adapt it to new, more intellectual needs, with more complex styling differentiation. In that, the Belgrade environment began to play a decisive role. If in the beginning a widely understood periphery linguistic influences on a cultural center, now the center influences it: it brings local differences, coming from the provinces, under general standardization and forms functional styles. Thus, a special form is formed in which the literary language appears, adapted to the needs of the developed urban-intellectual environment: for it the name Belgrade style was adopted. They write not only to writers. Equally, we find it in scientific prose. One of the more prominent representatives is the historian Slobodan Jovanović (1869-1958), who only occasionally considered literary themes, but that is why all his texts can be read as literary, but also because of the stylistic skills themselves.Stylistic skill, which is not only linguistic, has never come to as much expression as in poetry. And no poet has been so long and so patiently perfected as Jovan Ducic (1874-1943). He was firstly a follower of Ilyich, and then (Songs, 1908) made a sharp transition to a symbolic poetics with French patterns. He narrowly narrowed the choice mainly in two verses: symmetric twelve (alexandrin) and eighth, both originally French. Damping is felt in everything - in the choice of motif, painting, color - and it can happen in connection with the tendency to reinforce the symbolic meaning by compressing the external description. In the poem, the description is sometimes given in perfect proportions, which make it a small masterpiece. But it is not satirical, as in parnasovaca, but it develops in thinly graded overflows. Born in Herzegovina, near the Adriatic Sea, Ducic had a typical Mediterranean love for light, sun, balance and harmony. Such is his verse, measured and sounded. However, he did not stop therein: later development led to a change in verse and thickening of images filled with deep tragedy and covered with Christian symbolism. The late book Lirika (1943) is the very top of the Serbian misaune lyric poetry. 

 Unlike Ducic, another equally important poet Milan Rakic ​​(1876-1939), from the very beginning accepted the twelfth and eighth grade, and mostly did not abandon them. but these two verses have led to rhythmic perfection. Less versatile, he is less fruitful: he has published only two pieces of poems in a short space (Songs, 1903, 1912). More disciplined than others, he will bring virtuosity to the art of rhymes and strophs, as well as the crossing of verses and syntax units in diverse forms of eccentricity (ewambement). This corresponded to some emotional restraint, even to the bitter irony and skeptics found in Rakic's poems. Slightly raised, the festive tone of his lyrics and strokes is remarkably consistent with historical themes - related to Kosovo - in an inferior group of patriotic songs.The true abundance of patriotic songs is found in the third poet, Alekse Šantić (1868-1924). but he extended this traditional genre more than he had, as Rakic, changed him in a new spirit. In Mostar (Herzegovina), in which Šantić was born and from which he did not leave, a group of Serbian writers were formed around the journal Zora. Initially, she belonged to Ducic, as well as the most important narrator from Herzegovina by Svetozar Corovic (1875-1919). The continuity of development with literature of the 19th century was not broken. Similar to Šantić, the poet from Vojvodina Veljko Petrović (1884-1967) also contributed to the renewal of patriotic poetry (Rodoljubive pesme, 1912, then Na pragu, 1914). He is even more important than a narrator: from Buny's remarkable story (1905) to the last book of the Dah života (1964).The younger ones, from Ducic and Rakic, radical poets have already come across misunderstandings with criticism, which is a sign of further changes. The initial gloomy moods turned into dark, moderate pessimism into despair. in the city of Belgrade, they first began to discover the metropolitan splendor, which Bodler introduced into poetry. First of all, Sima Pandurović (1883-1960) in the collection of the Posthumous Honor (1908) almost described the images of the body and soul. Then, Vladislav Petković Dis (1880-1917) opened the Serbian lyric poetry for irrational content and images from the subconscious life (Utopena duša, 1911). All in his dreams and dreams, he took a little care of the outward appearance of his song. It is not flawless, especially not in language. Nevertheless, Dis's songs go among the most musical in the Serbian language. Unusual image inversion, shifted syntax, and dark meanings have announced new changes in poetry.Unlike poetry, prose was more difficult and slower. Moreover, it is precisely the hypocrisy of the lyrical that the common characteristic that is still J appears in prose writers. Skerlic called to call them "lyrical realists". However, the stylistic features of impressionism have come to the fore. It is close to Petar Kočić (1877-1916), whom it is sometimes difficult to draw the boundary between a poem in prose and narratives (from the mountain and below the mountain I-III, 1902-1905). Crude Bosnian mountains are equally the heroes of his stories as well as the little people who struggle with them to survive. At the same time, the beautiful and terrible, Bosnian nature of Kocic as an elemental force merges with man in opposition to the foreign, imperial Austro-Hungarian authorities. Kocic is the vice-president of the Bosnian storyline. The same fascinating impressions on the Adriatic Sea and the violent coastal areas are found in Ivo Cipik (1869-1923). But in his novels, he also gave a wider picture of life in Dalmatia and its hinterland: in the first For bread (1904) the departure of the main hero, education in another's town and return to homeland, already seen by other eyes, and in the second Paucci (1909 ) an image of social stratification has been developed. The first topic related to the similar milieu of neighboring characters, Veljko Milicevic (1886-1929), literally transposed the novel Bespuce (1912) into a more modern form of man's alienation. The main hero is an indifferent alien everywhere, which turns into a new man's insanity. It is an excellent job both by invoice and by looking at the world of the eyes of an alien.The Serbian modern novel and narrative are actually starting from Boris Stanković (1876-1927). His characters are complexly built, with a strong internal conflict between contradictory initiatives. It is narrated from the proximity of the protagonist, often from his consciousness, which through introspection leads to the earliest, deeply suppressed experiences. Nobody, like the one in the novel Nečista krv (1910), barely sank into the mental and sensual life, nor did he demonstrate with so much drama the relationship between collective bans imposed by culture, both individual, emotional, and bodily. In doing so, the body of the main protagonist Sofka is shown in motion, with constant changes and with a plethora of sensations that the earlier prose did not know. In addition, a whole little known city of the city and the old Balkan culture was discovered. Unclean blood is the first Serbian novel that has received flattering reviews in translation in several European languages. The second novel, Gazda Mladen, almost all of the stories, as well as the frequently played drama of Koštana, are also linked to the small town of Vranje in the extreme south of Serbia.

 A very analytical prose, all filled with carefully styled impressions, began at that time (1913) to publish Isidora Sekulić (1877-1958). In her almost regular service with introspection - with a tendency towards the essay writing of the narrative - tends to turn into the flow of consciousness. Between two wars, and later, I. Sekulić is one of the best essayists and interpreters of literature. Less inclined to innovations Milutin Uskokovic (1884-1915) wrote that a novel from Belgrade: Dosljaci (1910) and Cedomir Ilic (1914). However, Uskoković's development was interrupted by the First World War, and the development of even younger Milutin Bojic (1892-1917). By some qualities, he returns to the sound paranoid-symbolic verse, with rhetorically raised tone. With this verse, the Blue Tomb is written a shocking song about the Ionian Sea as a tomb refugee and the sickness of the decadent Serbian army. In addition, Bojic is a rare writer who devoted himself to the drama: he wrote five dramatic texts on historical themes (Royal autumn, Uros's wife and trilogy of Despot's crown) and two on contemporary (Chains and Ms. Olga).

Avangard and interlaced literature

 

 The undoubted artistic rise of Serbian literature that broke out the war years was not, as expected, renewed and extended. Very quickly, literary life has been restored, especially in Belgrade, which was largely destroyed by the city. This, however, was no longer the capital of Serbia, but a new state formation of the liberated Yugoslav peoples - Yugoslavia. Writers, mostly young people, came not only from different local literary environments: many of them brought experience gained in various European metropolises where they stayed shorter or longer. Differences dynamized literary life. Old role models began to lose value. Instead of a leading magazine, such as the "Serbian Literary Messenger", several new, mostly short-lived ones appeared, but with their separate, difficult-to-handle programs. The disputation gradually succumbed to everything, or everything that belonged to earlier literature.The disputes to which young writers were inclined, however, did not come only from the general skepticism caused by the cruel and, for many, traumatic war events. It was also part of the program of new literary movements, whose manifests flooded European literature first before the war, and then after the war. All of these numerous movements, poisoned in various countries, have formed into a general literary-historical phenomenon (stylistic formation), which the name of the avant-garde has established itself. Avant-garde literature - like avant-garde painting and music from the same time - actually challenged traditional artistic norms and forms. In Serbian literature, expressionism will first appear in 1920 as an avant-garde movement. The manifesto of the expressionist school was written by Stanislav Vinaver (1891-1955). He assumed the role of critics who, at the same time, explains the posternal and polemic destructs up-to-date literature. Parody is a powerful means of destruction. And Vinaver will, by no chance, first parody Popovic's Anthology of the newer Serbian lirika, that is the kind of development that canonized an authoritative critic of modernism.Very quickly they gathered around some media, a group of writers who were closer to futurism or dadaism, and later to surrealism. In addition to these international ones, domestic movements such as zenithism and hypnosis have also appeared. The founder of the first Ljubomir Micić (1895-1971), less important as a poet, started the magazine "Zenit" (1921-1926), which brought together associates from various countries and became the first international journal of literature and art. The founder of the second Rade Drainac (1899-1943) is more important than a poet, and he started in 1922. "Hipnos", one of the characteristic ephemeral magazines. A decade of turbulent literary life is filled with many polemics, manifests, and experimental texts, which are largely a part of the short term. But at the same time, works of lasting value were created. And most importantly, at the time when almost all literary conventions were subjected to doubt, some of the greatest writers of the 20th century were formed.

 In the beginning, Miloš Crnjanski (1893-1977) was the most prominent among the new, rebellious writers. The collection of poems Lirika Itake (1919) caused sharp controversy. The return of soldiers (which is also Crnjanski himself) from the alien to homeland, compared to Odisei's return to Ithaca, served as a general framework not only for the antiwar lyrical but also for the unusually bold, typical avant-garde denial of canonized values ​​(and myths) of national culture. Polemics also caused violation of poetic norms. Crnjanski then rhythmically changed the Serbian verse: he pushed the meter, and the greater role was gained by intonation and syntax. A rhythmically modified sentence was transmitted from the verse in prose. There was a rapprochement of lyrics and prose, lyrics and novels. Therefore, his novels have a strong lyrical charge, starting with Dnevnik on Čarnojević (1921), which is thematically parallel to Lirici Itaka. Two other novels, Seobe (1929) and Second Book of Seoba (1972), have a historical background: the Serbs fled to Hungary, and then to Russia in the 18th century, and their participation in battles across Europe. A powerful novel fresco on the biblical theme of an exiled nation. Finally, Roman of London (1972) gives a picture of emigrants, scattered faces in contemporary megalopolis. All the characters, and all the people, are in search of their homeland. The return to the lost homeland near Crnjanski is literally styled as one of the utopian dreams of man.Rastko Petrović (1898-1949) went on in literary innovations. In Otkrovenje (1922) he left all the features of the old verse, and in a novel about the life of the old Slavic deities, Burlesque Perun God of Thunder (1921) broke the unity of the shop, time and space. With new aspirations in art he met in Paris, where he studied after retiring with the Serbian army through Albania. Under the strong influence of psychoanalysis, he turns from consciousness to subconscious human life. He developed a poetic theory of the disintegration of linguistic structures in order to reach out-of-the-box, purely sensual content. The first among the Serbian writers began to be interested in primitive and exotic cultures. His most significant work, the Sixth Day (1960), is the only modern novel about the withdrawal through Albania. Prior to that, only Dragiša Vasić (1885-1945) in the extraordinary book of stories Utuljena kandila (1922) spread wars over wartime issues in Serbia.Among the poets, only Momčilo Nastasijević (1894-1938) completed his work as a unique whole. First Five Lyrical Circles (1932), then two more: Magnets and Echoes (1938). He returned to the folklore verse and melody without bringing them into his poem, but to discover in them what he called his mother tune. More than other poets activated it from the lingual memory of the old image and meaning. His lyrics are periodically hermetic, but that's why he is one of the deepest in Serbian poetry. There is also a mystical enthusiasm and original religious inspiration in it. There are narratives that are related to the lyric, and the Record of the Gifts of my cousin Mary is a masterpiece, he wrote in two plays in verse (Međuluško blago, Đurađ Branković) and one in prose (Kod "Veče slavine"), which can be to include in top-level drama. He is the most important among the drama writers of this period, of which Todor Manojlovic (1883-1968), a poet and author of the extensive book The Basics and Development of Modern Poetry (1987), as well as Ranko Mladenović (1893-1943) and Živojin Vukadinović 1902-1949), who were also theater critics.

 No one has developed or developed such art of narration as Ivo Andric (1892-1975). It is not only thematically related to Bosnia. Of all our regions - as I noticed. Sekulic - nowhere is he so devoted and does not narrate in a measured manner as in Bosnia. They showed more oral stories and epic poems in Karadzic's collections. Then Petar Kocic. And finally, the contemporaries of Andric, of whom you should mention Isak Samokovlija (1889-1955), Borivoje Jevtic (1894-1959) and Marko Markovic (1896-1961). Andrić was in the end before the beginning of a narrative tradition, which he transposed into contemporary forms of novel and novel. Hence, in the first story of Alija Đerzelez's Road (1920) and the first collection of Pripovetke (1924), he is already confident in the language and balance in composition, which equally owe the past as much as it is introduced into modern times. His rich narrative opus is diverse both thematically and morphologically. But there are no extreme solutions, nor experiments, Andric goes to rare writers who innovate and canonize at the same time. Such are also three novels published in 1945: On Drina Cuprija, Travnik Chronicle and Miss. A slightly later published Prokleta avlija (1954) showed all Andrić's narrative skills: the transformation of the story into the story transformed it into a coherent and complexly constructed multidimensional structure of the short novel. The content-thematic plan corresponds with the experience and eternal wisdom built from the eastern and western cultures encountered and crossed in Bosnia. When he received the Nobel Prize in 1961, the work was mostly translated and in other languages ​​the Serbian author interpreted. He entered the ghetto-understood world literature, like the old folk song and Njegoš.At the end of the 1920s, when avant-garde movements were changing or losing in Europe, Serbian surrealists issued the manifest of the Surrealism Position (1930). In fact, since 1922 Surrealism has been developing parallel with the Breton movement in Paris. Marko Ristić (1902-1984) takes over the role of the manager and theoretician. It starts from Freud's discovery that at the transition from the unconscious to the conscious man's life there is a censor that unwanted (forbidden) contents deforms into symbolic images. Surrealists of this picture that come from dreams and dreamlike desires give in their texts as loosely connected, blurry, often and grotesque. They then dismiss canonized literature by opposing the spontaneous poetry that arises in unconnected associations, the technique of automatic writing. The changes in literature connect with social changes, with the revolution, which approached them in the thirties to Marxist ideology. Their power is pre-subversion than in the construction of literary forms.Among them is the finest lyricist Milan Dedinac (1902-1966). His poem Public Bird (1926) was considered a pattern of pure poetry. Dedinč's Collected Work From Until to Unfold (1957) is made up of mixed verses with prose, lyric poetry. The second poet Dušan Matić (1898-1980), began, from 1923, into more bold experiments in language and verse. Only from the collections of Baghdad (1954) and The Waking of Matter (1959) became an influential poet. With him we rarely find a combination of thought and light, almost casual speaking. The third poet, and prolific novelist, Aleksandar Vučo (1897-1985), wrote the humorous poetry (Humor Zaspalo, 1930) and the poetry for children (Podvizi družine "Pet petlića", 1933) according to the surrealistic principles. Finally, the youngest Oscar Davico (1909-1989) in the extremely fruitful poetic and romance work went farthest in linking the surrealistic writing technique and ideological engagement on the left. The Collection of Songs (1938) and Hannah (1939) are the best part of his poetry. They are among the better books of inter-ethnic poetry in general. They are closer to the later Višnja za zidom (1950). Then, Davičo dedicated ten volume novels to the life of the revolutionaries and builders of the new social order. However, only the first novel of Pesma (1954) influenced the modern Serbian prose by innovating narrative procedures.

Since the mid-30s, there have been stronger ideological polarization among the Serbian writers on the left and right. On the left, literature is again required to serve certain social goals. A movement of "social literature" is being formed. He did not give important writers. But these writers influenced the literary life on the eve of the war. In a purely literary way, they were conservative. They updated some of the overriding patterns. Nevertheless, the restoration of traditional literature is not their merit, since it was not so much renewed in the 1930s as the presence of its avant-garde movements became noticeable. And at the time of the most rapid changes, there was, suppressed but uninterrupted, the development of old literary forms in the lyrical and novel. Thus, without major innovations, Branimir Ćosić (1903-1934) in his most important part of Pokošeno polje (1934) actually perfected the type of Belgrade novel, whose first forms were given by M. Uskoković. It is worth mentioning Velimir Živojinović Massuku (1886-1974) in the text.It is rare for a poet, however, to include such a long developmental continuity as Desanka Maksimović (1898-1993). From the first Collection of Songs (1924) until today, for seven decades, she has enriched and perfected a lyric which has all the traditional features: confessional, sensual, descriptive and, often, patriotic. Mostly she wrote a moderate variant of free verse, but very musical. The language is rich and cultivated. In the late collection of Seeking Pardon (1964), the main characteristic of her came to the fore: she is the poet of the world as it is, and good and evil (for which she asks for pardon), and not what she could or should have been (according to one imperial code). D. Maksimovic is undoubtedly the most popular Serbian poet of the 20th century. Nothing less popular is, but mostly in the prose Branko Ćopić (1915-1984). Together with D. Maksimovic, he is the most prominent children writer. Before the war, three books of stories about the native Bosnian Krajina came out to him. The war was waged with the Partisans in Bosnia, and this significantly influenced several books that he began to publish since 1944. The most extensive war picture of Bosnia will be given in the novel Prolom (1952), followed by a few more. The most important, however, are his stories. When he returned to his childhood and the world, which initially occupied him, he gave a slice of color to Bašta (1970) small, in two cycles, related narrative works of lasting value. The humorous humor, imagination, and images derived from folk surrender relate to the victory over the cruel reality.

Contemporary literature

 

At the beginning of the third and longest period, which included contemporary literature, it marked the end of a war as much as the change of the social system. The Second World War was equally devastating to the Serbian people as the First. However, he left deeper traces in literature. He was more complex. Because, apart from the resistance of the foreign occupying authorities, there was an internal breakdown in the people on an ideological basis. Two parallel resistance movements - Chetnik (led by the Monarchists) and Partisan (led by the Communists) - were mutually irreconcilable. The victory of the other led to the establishment of a socialist social order, which will be held in Yugoslavia for half a century and will have an impact on literary development much more than earlier social systems. Understood as part of a social upgrade, literature is under ideological control from the point of view of a customized Marxist philosophy. The literary rush from 1945 can not be properly understood if this new phenomenon is not taken into account. For he will noticeably depend on general political and ideological changes, which they knew to be sharp and abrupt, but they decayed from decade in decade and left literary art to develop independently.Writers from the left have dominion in the literary life of the first post-war years. But even now there are no writers of greater importance among them, even among the younger ones. After all, what they were really aiming for was not literary art. The patterns that followed led them towards the application of literature to social, revolutionary, patriotic themes, and then on the issues of reconstruction and construction. Even the most prominent among the poets Cedomir Minderović (1912-1966), Tanasije Mladenović (1913) and the restrained lyricist Dušan Kostić (1917) are not from a purely literary point of view significant for what they are at this time, but rather of what they later wrote next to the general the development of Serbian poetry. A more prominent example of Skender Kulenovic (1910-1978), who wrote in the war rarely succeeding the poem Stojanka's mother Knežopoljka, and after prolonged fluctuations between genres and apparent breaking, only in two late notebooks Sonet (1968, 1974) gave artistic disciplined and profound lyric.After the conflict with the center in Moscow and the extradition of Yugoslav communists from the Informbiro (Information Bureau of the Communist Parties) in 1948, when among them won a more liberal stream, literature abandoned the imposition of a stylistic uniformity which implies socialist realism. In Belgrade magazines, polemics will soon begin, which will be taken in the early 50's and will last until the end of the decade. More conservative realists are gathering around "Literary Newspapers" and "Contemporary", and the innovations tend to modernize the "Youth" and "Delo". Although the modernists were calling and returning to the experiences of inter-writer writers, this was not merely the renewal of the avant-garde. Something completely new, which until then did not exist in Serbian literature, we will find first with the poet. The sharp critic of the old concepts and the interpreter of the new poetry is Zoran Mišić (1921-1976). His criticisms, controversies, essays The word and time (1953), then the Word and the time of I-II (1963) show that they were not only differences in opinion, but also differences in the understanding of poetry in general.Understanding was especially difficult with Vasko Popa(1922-1991). The controversy surrounding his "Kora" (1953), then the Nepokin-Fields (1956), took on great proportions. Because the basic features of old lyricism, such as subjectivity, personal feelings and emotional connotations in the poetic language, are not found in most of Popa's poems. Objects from the environment are described coldly and precisely. But there is some movement that this description makes metaphorical: it expresses discomfort, anxiety, fear, and vulnerability. Popa shapes the experience of a modern urban man. But at the same time, with the help of linguistic and cultural memory, reveals a different, older man's experience. From national (The Upper Land, 1972) he reached the Prasloven (Vučja so, 1976) and universal symbolic images (Secondary Sky, 1968). Wonderful images from the deep sinking of human memory began to burst not only domestic but also foreign readers very quickly. And Popa already became for life not only the most translated Serbian poet, but also one of the most famous European poets.

Miodrag Pavlovic's poetry (1928) did not have any minor part in the changes that had occurred. His first book of 87 songs (1952) was filled with a more dramatic, even for shocking scenes for lyric readers. At that time a completely new phenomenon of absurd appeared first with Pavlovic. Although his poetry is very different from Popine, he also returns to the diagonal depths of memory: Milk Exotic (1963), Velika Skitija (1969), Nova Skitija (1970), etc. Extremely fruitful as a poet, he is no less fruitful and significant even as an essayist. The third equally important poet Stevan Raičković (1928) did not put in front of the readers and critics the dilemma in the first books of the Song of Silence (1952) and Balade on the Eve (1955). And when he writes in tied and when he writes in a free verse, he recognizes the traditional lyrical poem. Raičković's transposition of the poetic experience in nature and landscape seems to us as old as the lyrics itself. But he is still a modern poet, who brings in something quite a lovely picture of nature from something of existential thirst and endangerment. It forms pure lyric conditions with pronounced artistry, especially in the Stone Sleepers sonata (1963). The picture would be incomplete when at least the existence of such different poets as the elegant Svetislav Mandic (1921), the estranged Slobodan Markovic (1928-1987), and the same as the poet and prose prominent Branko V. Radičević (1925), who constantly renews a special aspect of folklore culture in western Serbia.Although at first it was slower, the prose changed in parallel with poetry. The point of view in it is much more important, and the abandoning of socialist realism did not have to mean leaving the realistic stylistic features. The passage is felt especially in the novels published in 1950/51, which are usually mentioned as a turning point. First of all, it is the Wedding of Mihailo Lalic (1914-1992), written in a realistic way, with a theme from the last war, but it is not only given to ideological but also to something more prominent psychological level. In the following novels Lalic will not change the thematic, nor the time and place of the event (northern Montenegro), even the same characters will appear several times. But it will therefore deepen the psychology of the characters, reaching out to collective pretenders who do not stop managing their behavior. After Njegoš, nobody touched the ethnopsychological heritage on the territory of Montenegro. An increasingly complex motivation of individual behavior on a strong basis of traditional morality demanded new forms of narration, and Lalic gradually came to them. Leleyska Gora (1957) and Hajka (1960) are the best among a dozen of his novels.Second, a novel published in 1951 - Far is the sun of Dobrica Cosic (1921) - it is written bold. For the first time part of the partisans showed certain internal fluctuations and doubts, which seemed to be the first surprise and gave the writer remarkable success. Ćosić will then return to the end of the last century, in Koreni (1954), and in several volume novels (series of novels) will dramatically develop and turn into social, ideological and political life of Serbia during the first half of the 20th century. The time of death I-IV (1972-1979) is a great historical novel that literally transposed the war drama and the suffering of the Serbian people in the First World War. Finally, in 1950, the Winter Holiday of Vladan Desnica (1905-1967) came out. It is the first modern prose written novel with a theme from the last war (in the coastal hinterland of Zadar). Before the war, the rightist wrote stories, relying on the tradition of Serbian writers in Dalmatia. Then his prose became more and more meditative. In the excellent novel of Spring by Ivan Galeb (1957), narration is already flowing exclusively from the sensitive consciousness of a sick musician faced with death and conceived of the eternal struggle of light and darkness, being and nothingness.Fighting the opposite principles - but dogmas and rebellions, the authorities and the individual - we also find in Meša Selimović (1910-1982). He was relatively late publishing novels that brought him great success not only in domestic but also with foreign readers. His oriental mile is darker and more raw than Andrić's. Derviš i smrt (1966) tells one spiritual face, a dervish from the 18th century, and the Fortress (1970), a learned man from the 17th century. Tension and drama are shaped in their disturbed consciousness and mournful conscience. The biblical intonation of the style is the eternal man's fear and suffering under ideological coercion and in a hidden network that the power does not cease to crucify. Similarly to Selimović, Boško Petrović (1915), after his poems and tales, his first novel The Coming to the End of the Year was published only in 1970. His most important work, however, was the impressive Singer I-II (1980). The narrative in the novel runs parallel to the present and the Serbian cultural past, from the end of the 18th century. so on. But the essence is not parallelism and comparing the two realities, but in the search for a deeper historical course, for a living cultural continuity; the present is spiced up in the past, the passage is prolonged in the present, and both hold the open future in front of us. Sometime younger Alexander Tišma (1924) is not as prone to contemplation as a restrained, even cold description in narratives and novels. The rendering of cruel and criminal scenes without complicated tones turns into a style that has built an inhuman world, with human figures as objects of manipulation, in its best novel The Use of Man (1976).None of the poster writers is a narrator in the more meaningful sense of Antonije Isaković (1923). It was only in the story of war that he had given something really new. First, in a language that is extremely elliptical, even a backbone. Then in the description, which is precise and almost scarce, but with strong symbolic connotations. Finally, in the books Great Children (1953) and Paprat and Fire (1962), the shop is carefully guided and the composition is balanced. These harmoniously coupled stories, however, are filled with strong dramaticness. The narrative genre is further developed by Miodrag Bulatović (1930-1991). His collection The Devil's Coming (1955) provokes sharp controversy. Then followed the Vuk and the bell (1958). Bulatovic is not a writer of mere discipline. Abruptly changing the tone, shifting from serious to parody. It combines dissimilar phenomena, distorting them to grotesque. And all this is communicated with a rather shifty picture of the world: in his stories, the privileged places of the main characters get overlooked, even the frivolous faces, either from the village or from the city half. The eyes of such characters are seen as unusual as the magical world in the novel Red Cock flying toward the sky (1959), which, like some other Bulatovic novels, has been translated into most of the world's languages. Bulatovic, in fact, starts a new development stage in Serbian prose.In poetry, Ivan Ivan V. belongs to the new generation. Lalic (1931). From the first collection (Ex-boyfriend, 1955) to the extraordinary last (Letter, 1992) gradually restores the neglected line of symbolic poetry: we find him with some of her artistic shine, balanced images and spiritual compassion. Lalic is not only returning to Byzantium (Byzantium, 1987), but also spreading to the ancient world, since, like some European neo-symphologists from the beginning of the century, the trail in general for the classical measure of the poem and the poetic inspiration is related to culture. Although he was ephemeral, it is indicative that in 1957 in Belgrade a poet's movement called themselves who called themselves neo-symbolists. Branko Miljkovic (1934-1961) is one of the most prominent among them. In the fast-and-death-interrupted-development of several years, he strives to rebuild thought poetry, which is explained as a combination of the symbolic poetic form and thoughts that dialectically connect extremes: fire and ashes, will be nothingness, life and death. He called it "the pathetic of the mind," which was violently felt in his best and for some time a very influential book by Fire and nothing (1960).Borislav Radović (1935) is the closest to the original symbolic poetry. He is like a thin artist in front of other contemporary poets. From Poetics (1956) to the Song 1971-1991 (1991) does not cease to check the possibilities of verse and language. His fragile lyrics occasionally resemble M. Dedinca. To another older poet, D. Matic, recalls the poetry of Jovan Hristić (1933). As far as he is in a spontaneous, colloquial tone, he mediates experience through erudition (Stare i nove pesme, 1988). Hristic is equally significant as a theater critic and author of drama on ancient themes (the book of the Four Apocrypha, 1970). In a slightly different direction, Ljubomir Simović (1935) developed. On the one hand, a lyricist who aspires to generalization and thoughts, on the other hand, returns to the native western Serbia, its parts, past, and everyday life, which has never been poetically shaped by him until now (selected songs by Hleb i so, 1985). His successes in the drama (Drama, 1991) are related to the lyrics. Further, in pure regional, Matija Beckovic (1939) went on. At first, it is overly rarer and too rhetorical. Then in the poems One of the words (1970) Međa Vuka Manitoga (1976), Lele i kuku (1978), gives new forms of dialectic poetry, full of phraseology, which preserve the remains of one aspect of traditional culture in Montenegro. Among several poets in the wide formal and thematic range, at least two or three of the most prominent are mentioned: Vito Marković (1935), Milovan Danojlić (1937), which is more and more important as a stylish brilliant prose writer, Branislav Petrović (1937) and Alek Vukadinović (1938).

 The most incisive poet among non-immigrants Velimir Lukic (1936) bowed to drama art. His dramas on ancient themes (The Flaming Sea, 1962), in the genre close to Farsi (Second Life of King Oswald, 1963), then with the elements of fantasy and mystery (Bert's carriage or Sibyl, 1964), had a visible success. Beginning of the post-war drama, however, was marked by the Heavenly Detachment (1957) by Đorđe Lebović (1928) and Aleksandar Obrenović (1928). Dark scenes from the Nazi camp and characters who lost their human qualities are approaching the Heavenly Detachment of an existentialist drama. And the most prolific and most popular drama writer is definitely Aleksandar Popović (1929). Easy and interestingly written, his pieces do not have a harder action or a stronger dramatic plot. But this is why a special role was given to the language, especially the language of Belgrade, in which S. Vinaver wrote as a mixture of gratitude for drama processing. The most famous are his pieces Ljubinko and Desanka (1963), The Snapshot of a hundred loops (1965), The Foothills (1966), The Second Door Left (1969). Finally, Dušan Kovačević (1948) continues the tradition of Nušić's Belgrade comedy: Marathon Runs an Honorary Circle (1973), Balkan Spy (1983); St. George kills the ajdah (1986).Since the 1960s, the development of prose has not only been more dynamic but ever before than it is more complex. It is difficult to give a more complete picture without being very relaxed. What is first noticed, as a phenomenon that takes on a bigger magic, is the preoccupation of the writers as much as their craft, if not more, as the subject of the description: the same subject is subjected to different narrative procedures, in order to apply the same procedures to a different problems. First, Radomir Konstantinović (1928) published novels as monotonous tractatures on the most general topics, so that he would later completely go into essay writing. Pavle Ugrinov (1926) remains consistent with a minuscule description, which slows down the operation and suppresses the dice. The most eloquent in experimentation is Bora Ćosić (1932). In the end, his extensive novel Tutori (1978) made reference to the game of construction and ironic self-destruction, which makes the reader difficult to handle. This line is extended by a slightly younger Marko Kovač (1938). It is constantly changing, from Los Angeles (1962) to the Door of the Womb (1978), and constantly exceeds the boundary between narrative and narrative reflection.Borislav Pekić (1930-1992) serves a variety of pastimes, a writer who in the 70's and 80's drew attention to the unusual fertility and readiness to change. Already in The Time of Wonders (1965), the temptation of the modern man - with ideological and political connotations - brings into the background of the New Testament stories, and thus universalizes the meaning. although this procedure does not repeat in the subsequent works, however, the related topics and the general principle of connection and generalization are recognized. His greatest work is the romanesque series of Golden Fleece I-VII. (1978-1986), where the fate of the entire nation, Cincara, who in the age-old diaspora drowned in other Balkan cultures is reflected in the history of one family.Less fertile, Danilo Kiš (1935-1989) is much more preoccupied with the form. In the first line of Serbian prose writers he emerged with the novel "Bašta, pepeo" (1965). The narrator is searching for how much for a childhood child and for a dead father. The finest sensations, no matter how lyrical they are, are remembered with bitterness in memory: the imago of the father-victims floats in this as well as in the next Kiš books. In Peščanik (1972), where the topic was not changed, the technique of narration was brought to virutubility. And the tomb of Boris Davidović (1976), which has brought Kishu a great reputation abroad, is fully endorsed by the skillful interlacing of documents and fiction about the victims of Stalinist cleansing.

In fact, it was only Milorad Pavić (1929) that managed to dissolve in a seductive way the fact in the imaginary, and imaginary, solid factual contours. This famous historian of Serbian literature equally won domestic and foreign critics and readers with a novel strangely written in several dictionaries (Hazarski rečnik, 1984). First, it has formally broken the temporal succession in narration: the dictionary allows sentimental reading in an arbitrary order. Then, about the Hazars, a nation about whom almost nothing is known, gave different testimony to three civilizations, three religions: Christian, Hebrew and Islamic. The assumptions are multiplied, and the reader reaches them. The game between real and possible, knowledge and fantasy does not stop not only in this, but also in the following two, equally unusual novels: The area painted with tea (1988) and the Predeo slikan čajem (Inner Wind) (1991). In the past decade, Pavić was one of the most translated writers in the world.

 At the transition from the seventh to the eighth decade, there is another, parallel flow: the return to the temporally and spatially limited domestic theme and the restoration of simpler, if not already, traditional forms of narration. After M. Bulatović, Dragoslav Mihailović (1930) gives the most important book Frede, laku noć (1967), but also in that it marked the further development of the Serbian storyline. With the theme of everyday life, the language goes on, so in the first person it can be narrated on a jargon or dialect. Excellent novel Kad su cvetale tikve (1968) are amazed by the discovery of something that is quite close but neglected: ordinary life in postwar Belgrade, with human fates that are nothing less tragic because they are ordinary. Petrijin venac (1975) leads to the interior of Serbia, in rural and suburban life. Two younger authors, Vidosav Stevanović (1942) and Milisav Savic (1946), at the same time, published stories (Refuz mrtvak, 1969, i Bugarska barka, 1969) with related thematic and somewhat stylistic orientation, so in criticism it speaks of a separate stream of "real-life prose".In the last two decades, however, stylistic and thematic diversity is extremely high. Thus, for example, Živojin Pavlović (1933), Slobodan Selenić (1933), and Svetlana Velmar-Janković (1932), tend to be more modern methods in shaping contemporary themes, while, in contrast to them, Mladen Markov (1934) is clearly traditional when it goes deeper into history and when it is written about the post-war village. In the history, further and closer, Vojislav Lubarda returns (1930). It completes the image of Bosnia, which in the past does not look much cheerful than it is today. On the other hand, an unknown writer, Miroslav Popović (1926-1985), surprises the excellent novel of Sudbina (1984), balanced in writing, with the nuanced psychology of characters. Finally, a fairly large number of younger authors, who have greatly begun a new stage in the development of Serbian prose, and among which there are very prominent, such as Miroslav Josić Višnjić (1946).
Serbian literature, generally speaking, in the last decade of the 20th century. entered with developmental dynamics and complexity that testify to a further rise, which is only in the main lines hinted here. Historians usually share European literature on the leading and those belonging to small nations, for which it is characteristic of the so-called. accelerated development not only in the 19th but also in the 20th century. Sustaining leading literature, i.e. accelerated development, exists in Serbian until the end of the First World War, when it is directly involved in a strong international movement of literary avant-garde. And since the 1950s, during the second half of the century, the growing interest in Serbian writers, their increasingly noticeable presence in other languages, the echo of their work by foreign readers and literary scholars undoubtedly change the old image. It is obvious that Serbian literature, together with the leading Slovene: Russian, Polish and Czech, simultaneously participates in the European common literary life and the general development of literary art.