TIME IN THE NOVELS OF MILOS CRNJANSKI - Nottingham eTheses

CHAPTER FOUR
di~~erent arransement o~ sequence and duration to the
action o~ the novel. The temporal sap and arransement
o~ sequence and duration determine the link between
characters and events in terms o~ emplotment. In turn.
the di~~erences
in temporal orsanisation are qualitative
variations which ascribe di~~erent
ways of linkins the
characters to the historical conditions which surround
them.
The stor~ covers the ~ears 1752 to 1753. ~ocusins
on the four Isakovia cousins. and particularl~
Pavle
Isakovi~. The cousins are members o~ the Serbian
communit~ which settled in the Hunsarian area o~ the
Habsburs Empire. The~ are o~~icers in the Serbian
resiments emplo~ed b~ the Habsburss to de~end the
frontier asainst the Ottoman Bmpire over the Danube.
However. b~ the middle o~ the eishteenth centur~ the
Ottoman Empire is in decline and no lonser poses a
threat. The services o~
the~rontier suards are no
lonser required. and the empire has decided to disband
its Serbian resiments.
At the same time. pressure is
applied to ~orce the Serbs to convert ~rom the Orthodox
to the Catholic ~aith. The Isakovi~ ~amilv. whose fate
s~mbolises the ~ate o~ the whole nation. resard imperial
polic~
as a threat to their own sense of national
identit~.
At the same time. the wars asainst the Turks
which thev had ~ouSht have kept alive their dream o~
liberatins Serbia ~rom Ottoman domination. and thev
163